Learning ethical sensitivity through authentic legal experience: an educational psychology perspective on court hearing engagement

This study examines how engagement with an authentic legal setting may activate ethical sensitivity and prompt reflective moral sense-making in professional education. Drawing on experiential learning and stimulus-based reflection frameworks, it analyses reflective narratives written by undergraduate accounting students following attendance at a court hearing involving professional misconduct. The findings indicate that the court hearing functioned as a temporally distinctive learning context in which moral responsibility was examined but not yet resolved. Ethical sensitivity was initially activated through affective engagement with the courtroom environment and the defendant’s circumstances, prompting reflective sense-making. Empathic perspective-taking emerged as a key psychological mechanism through which empathic engagement supported contextualized ethical judgment, enabling students to balance compassion with professional and legal accountability. In addition, students articulated ethical intent by projecting anticipated responses to future dilemmas, drawing on the court case as a salient moral reference point. Together, the findings highlight how authentic institutional experiences can support learning-related moral development through interconnected affective, cognitive, and future-oriented processes.