Construction and testing of the Moral Development Scale for Professionals (MDSP).

Moral development among students is central for nursing education, because nursing is informed by moral ends, and it is essential that professional nurses have a well developed ability for moral behaviour, ethical reasoning and decision making. The aim of this study was to construct a new instrument for measuring moral development according to Kohlberg's theory of moral development among students and professionals, and initially test it for reliability and validity among students in professional education. Thirty-two items following the conventional and postconventional stages in the theory were developed. Different actions for reducing the items were implemented. The final version of the instrument with 12 items was tested for reliability and validity among 326 conveniently chosen students. A Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.67 and support for construct validity was obtained.