Ethical decision-making and the perception of the ward as a learning environment: a comparison between hospital-based and degree nursing students in Hong Kong.

It is generally assumed that the higher the level of formal education the better the nursing student's ability in ethical decision-making. This survey study aimed at examining the relationship between ethical decision-making and perception of learning climate of the student nurses from the hospital-based certificate and degree educational programmes in Hong Kong. Non-probability convenience sampling was used to obtain a total sample of 140 certificate and 81 degrees nursing students. The results indicated that the degree students scored significantly lower in the ethical decision-making than the certificate students. No significant difference was detected in the perception of learning climate between the two groups but the learning climate variable was found to correlate with ethical decision-making in degree students.