Taxing times: an educational intervention to enhance moral reasoning in tax

Abstract

This paper outlines the development and implementation of an online educational intervention designed to enhance moral reasoning in higher level tax students. Before decisions are made about how to behave ethically, cognitive moral reasoning takes place. The importance of education in developing morally sensitive individuals who use principled moral reasoning has been widely acknowledged. The literature contends that moral reasoning might be enhanced through certain forms of intervention studies. An online educational intervention designed to enhance moral reasoning in tax was developed and empirically tested for effectiveness through the use of a pre- and post-test and focus group feedback gathered from students. Students' contributions to ethical discussions were analysed to determine their perceptions of salient issues concerning ethics in tax. This paper will inform future educators and researchers designing effective ethics interventions.

Keywords:

• moral reasoning
• educational interventions
• tax ethics
• defining issues test

Acknowledgements

This research was carried out with the financial assistance of a grant from the Irish Research Council for which I am most grateful. It also won the Best Paper Award at the 20th EDiNEB International Conference, Open University, Milton Keynes, June 5–7 2013. My thanks to the conference reviewers who give very generous feedback on an early draft of the paper.

Notes on contributor

Dr Elaine Doyle lectures in taxation in the Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick in Ireland. She designed and was the course director for the Master of Taxation program until 2014 and was awarded the University of Limerick's Teaching Excellence award in 2010. In 2012, she spent 3 months as an International Research Scholar with the Open University Business School in Milton Keynes, UK. Her research interests include inter alia, professional ethics and risk management in tax practice, the tax aggression of tax practitioners, research ethics, procedural justice, ethical reasoning and ethics education. She has published both nationally and internationally in these areas in journals such as Journal of Business Ethics and Innovations in Education and Teaching International, co-edited Innovative Business School Teaching: Engaging the Millennial Generation published by Routledge, and has secured national and international funding to support her research activities.

Notes

1. Although it is possible to draw a distinction between ‘ethics’ and ‘morality’ (see, for example, Singer 1994, 7), one should note that the terms ‘ethical’ and ‘ethics’ are frequently used interchangeably with ‘moral’ and ‘morality’ without distinction of meaning throughout the literature in this area.

2. SULIS is one of the interactive computer packages used at the University where the research took place.

3. The aim of the lecturer contributions was to keep students involved in the discussion rather than to move the discussion in a particular direction. Examples include: ‘That is an interesting idea, could you expand on that a little?’; ‘There are some really interesting issues being raised by all those who have contributed so far. Does anyone have an alternative perspective to add to these?’; and:

I'd like to congratulate you on being honest about your position on this issue, even though it might not be what is considered socially desirable. It is often easy to identify what the correct course of action should be but not always so easy to follow it through when you are faced with the reality of the situation.

4. The short form DIT was utilised in order to facilitate comparison with scores from past studies and to minimise the time taken to complete the test. P scores rather than N2 scores were also used to facilitate comparison with prior studies.