To animal ethics issues. To address this gap in knowledge, a test to identify moral judgment development in relation to animal ethics issues experienced by veterinarians, the VetDIT, based on Rest’s Defining Issues Test (DIT)[4], was developed and piloted in 2012 [17]. The VetDIT includes three animal ethics issues and, for comparison, three human ethics issues from the DIT. This study showed that while veterinary students in the first year of their university program had similar reasoning levels to US Freshmen on human ethics issues, they had lower Personal Interest (PI) and higher Universal Principles (UP) reasoning scores on animal than on human ethics issues. It was considered that this could be due to the three animal issues presenting greater potential suffering than the three human scenarios, or because of students’ desire to help animals, demonstrated through their choice of an animal-related career. In an Australian study, 70 of students indicated “helping sick or injured animals” and 40 indicated “improving the way animals are treated” in their top three motivators for studying veterinary medicine [18]. In the first VetDIT version, there was an extra UP option in two of the three scenarios which may have increased the chance of UP items being ranked as important. This was addressed with the refinement and validation of a revised VetDIT- buy Disitertide version 2 (V2) in which the scenarios and questions were simplified and clarified, and the number of PI, MN and UP items balanced across the three scenarios. The aim of this study was to use the revised VetDIT-V2 to compare moral judgment development in relation to animal ethics issues of students of animal related disciplines i.e. veterinary medicine, veterinary technology, animal science with non-animal related disciplines i.e. human medicine and arts students. Because previous research has shown the majority of veterinarians choose their course to help animals [18], it was hypothesised that veterinary students may use more principled reasoning on animal ethics issues, than students of animal science whose focus was largely animal farming, human-focussed medicine and a general ethics course grounded in moral philosophy with only one lecture on the ethics of animal experimentation. It was also hypothesized that arts students studying an ethics course may show more principled reasoning, particularly on human ethics issues, as they would be more aware of ethics theory.Materials and Methods ParticipantsA total of 531 first year students from five courses at the University of Queensland, Australia completed the VetDIT Version 2 and were retained after standardised reliability checks (based on Bay 41-4109 site inconsistencies between items rated and ranked, missing data, selection of meaningless items, and indiscriminate answers) [19]. Three groups were from animal-related programs, and two from non-animal programs, as follows: Animal-related programs ?130 first-year Bachelor of Veterinary Science (Vet Sci) students (88 of the cohort) in their second semester, prior to animal ethics teaching, although 35 students (27 of the respondents) had a previous degree in which they may have had some ethics teaching;PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0149308 March 2,3 /Moral Judgment on Animal and Human Ethics Issues?65 1st Yr Bachelor of Applied SART.S23503 Science–Veterinary Technology (Vet Tech) students (55 of the cohort) in their second semester with no previous ethics teaching in their course, although 5 students (6 ) had pr.To animal ethics issues. To address this gap in knowledge, a test to identify moral judgment development in relation to animal ethics issues experienced by veterinarians, the VetDIT, based on Rest’s Defining Issues Test (DIT)[4], was developed and piloted in 2012 [17]. The VetDIT includes three animal ethics issues and, for comparison, three human ethics issues from the DIT. This study showed that while veterinary students in the first year of their university program had similar reasoning levels to US Freshmen on human ethics issues, they had lower Personal Interest (PI) and higher Universal Principles (UP) reasoning scores on animal than on human ethics issues. It was considered that this could be due to the three animal issues presenting greater potential suffering than the three human scenarios, or because of students’ desire to help animals, demonstrated through their choice of an animal-related career. In an Australian study, 70 of students indicated “helping sick or injured animals” and 40 indicated “improving the way animals are treated” in their top three motivators for studying veterinary medicine [18]. In the first VetDIT version, there was an extra UP option in two of the three scenarios which may have increased the chance of UP items being ranked as important. This was addressed with the refinement and validation of a revised VetDIT- Version 2 (V2) in which the scenarios and questions were simplified and clarified, and the number of PI, MN and UP items balanced across the three scenarios. The aim of this study was to use the revised VetDIT-V2 to compare moral judgment development in relation to animal ethics issues of students of animal related disciplines i.e. veterinary medicine, veterinary technology, animal science with non-animal related disciplines i.e. human medicine and arts students. Because previous research has shown the majority of veterinarians choose their course to help animals [18], it was hypothesised that veterinary students may use more principled reasoning on animal ethics issues, than students of animal science whose focus was largely animal farming, human-focussed medicine and a general ethics course grounded in moral philosophy with only one lecture on the ethics of animal experimentation. It was also hypothesized that arts students studying an ethics course may show more principled reasoning, particularly on human ethics issues, as they would be more aware of ethics theory.Materials and Methods ParticipantsA total of 531 first year students from five courses at the University of Queensland, Australia completed the VetDIT Version 2 and were retained after standardised reliability checks (based on inconsistencies between items rated and ranked, missing data, selection of meaningless items, and indiscriminate answers) [19]. Three groups were from animal-related programs, and two from non-animal programs, as follows: Animal-related programs ?130 first-year Bachelor of Veterinary Science (Vet Sci) students (88 of the cohort) in their second semester, prior to animal ethics teaching, although 35 students (27 of the respondents) had a previous degree in which they may have had some ethics teaching;PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0149308 March 2,3 /Moral Judgment on Animal and Human Ethics Issues?65 1st Yr Bachelor of Applied SART.S23503 Science–Veterinary Technology (Vet Tech) students (55 of the cohort) in their second semester with no previous ethics teaching in their course, although 5 students (6 ) had pr.