Methods: The study was a non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest design. This study was carried out from May 22 to July 28, 2017. Participants were sixty-four senior nursing students who assigned to either an debate-based learning group or traditional lecture group. Debate-based learning lasted eight weeks with two hours per week. The students in the debate-based learning group were divided into three groups. The debate-based learning required each team member to write an analysis of the issue and a summary of the debate on the affirmative and negative sides of the dilemma cases for each session. The debate-based learning consisted of 16 rounds of affirmative and negative sides, with a total of 40 minutes, consisting of the introduction, cross-examination, rebuttal, conclusion, operation time and finishing. Outcomes were measured moral sensitivity, moral judgment, and ethical decision making questionnaires.
Results: There was a significant improvement in idealistic judgment of ethical decision making (p=.018) and realistic judgement of ethical decision making (p=.017) in the debate-based learning group than the traditional lecture group. However, moral sensitivity (p=.884), 4 stage scores of moral judgment (p=.833) and P score of moral judgment (p=.091) were not statistically signigicant between two groups.
Conclusion: Nursing as a practice discipline will best be served using a variety of teaching and learning strategies in the undergraduate education of nursing students. Based on the findings of this study, an debate-based learning for ethics education of undergraduate nursing students is very effective to promote ethical decision making.