Ethics education for allied health students: an evaluation of student performance

We analyzed student performance in an interdisciplinary, Web-based course in health care ethics at a university-based school of allied health. Student performance was measured according to students' 1) degree status, 2) clinical hour requirement during the semester in which they took the ethics course, 3) total credit hours during the semester in which they took the ethics course, and 4) clinical and credit hours combined. Statistical analyses were performed to examine curricular and extracurricular predictors of student performance. Only the number of credit hours in which students were enrolled while taking the ethics course demonstrated a statistically significant difference in mean student performance, and this difference was only detected on the final examination and written assignments. When developing an ethics course for allied health students, course components such as conceptual difficulty, reading and writing assignments, and student workload may need to be adjusted according to students' curricular responsibilities.