Objective:

To determine the level of moral development of the students of the Nursing program of the Universidad Industrial de Santander.

Materials and methods:

Cross-sectional study using the Opinion Questionnaire on Social Problems (COPS) based on the classification proposed by Kohlberg and restructured by Rest. The target population corresponded of 187 nursing students from the Universidad Industrial de Santander, enrolled in the thematic nuclei of carefulness.

Results:

It was possible to establish the development of moral competence in each of its levels: pre-conventional, conventional and post conventional, evidencing a correspondence of 42.9% for conventional moral development, followed by 39.4% for the conventional post, and 9.5 % for the pre-conventional.

Conclusions:

The majority of nursing students were at the conventional level of moral development, aspect that allows to infer that there are no differences between academic levels. Except in the third level students, whom obtained a greater post-conventional moral development, which can obey of the coincidence between the completion of the subject of ethics in nursing, contained in the curricular plan, and the time when the research was carried out.