Methods: Two year longitudinal data was collected from 86 students who entered a dental school in Korea in 2003. Students completed Defining Issue Test (DIT) in their first and third year. They also responded to the retrospective questionnaire offering information about their college experiences; place of residence, economic independence, relations with faculty, serving in leadership positions, and community service. After checking missing variables, valid data included 61(70.9%) students (male=35, female=26, mean age at 3rd yr=25.3). To test the longitudinal change of moral reasoning, repeated measure analysis was performed. A one-way ANOVA was also conducted to compare change scores among three subgroups divided according to their initial moral reasoning score range. A regression analysis was performed to explore factors that contributed to change of students' moral reasoning.
Results: The results from the repeated measure analysis indicated that there was no significant change in moral reasoning ability between first and third year, F(1, 58)=.480, p=.491. However, the ANOVA result was statistically significant, indicating the differential change of P(%) score among three subgroups, F(2,58)=8.805, p<.001. The ‘High' group showed decrease of moral reasoning ability, the ‘Medium' group remained in the same range, and the ‘Low' group showed increase. The results from the regression analysis revealed that students' leadership experiences contributed to their development of moral reasoning regardless of their initial level of moral reasoning, ß=.385, t=2.742, p<.01.
Conclusions: This study shows that dental education is not contributing to the moral development of dental students. In addition, students who already attained college level moral in the beginning of dental program even show regression with their moral reasoning declined. Leadership experiences significantly contributed to students' development in moral reasoning.