Moral Reasoning of Education Students: The Effects of Direct Instruction in Moral Development Theory and Participation in Moral Dilemma Discussion (original) (raw)

Moral reasoning development and graduate education

Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 1983

The Defining issues Test (DIT) of moral reasoning development was administered to 20 advanced and 20 first-year groduate students, plus 40 college graduates matched to the graduate groups on sex, age, and verbal ability. A two-way ANOVA design was used to infer whether groduate education, selection, maturation, or a combination of these effects is (are) associated with group differences on the DIT. Results suggest thot differences found between the graduate students and college graduotes can be accounted for by a combination of moturational and selection effects, contrary to the hypothesized effects of formal education.

Developing and Assessing Undergraduate Students’ Moral Reasoning Skills

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 2007

What does deep ethical understanding look like and how can we measure the progression of this aptitude?" Qualitative and quantitative data collected from students in Contemporary Moral Problems courses over two successive semesters revealed that the development of moral reasoning skills is a slow process. The progression of moral reasoning does not occur in a linear fashion nor is there a point at which a person will have satisfied all of the necessary and sufficient conditions for good moral reasoning. Student artifacts collected present moral reasoning skills as more of an ebb and flow, a type of coherence model with ongoing adjustment of one's beliefs, moral principles, values, and factual information.

Moral Education Through the Fostering of Reasoning Skills

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice

The development of reasoning skills is often regarded as a central goal of ethics and philosophy classes in school education. In light of recent studies from the field of moral psychology, however, it could be objected that the promotion of such skills might fail to meet another important objective, namely the moral education of students. In this paper, I will argue against such pessimism by suggesting that the fostering of reasoning skills can still contribute to the aims of moral education. To do so, I will engage with the concept of moral education, point out different ways in which reasoning skills play an essential role in it, and support these considerations by appealing to further empirical studies. My conclusion will be that the promotion of ethical reasoning skills fulfils two important aims of moral education: First, it enables students to critically reflect on their ethical beliefs. Second, it allows them to explore ethical questions in a joint conversation with others. L...

Changing students’ moral reasoning ability – is it at all possible?

African Journal of Health Professions Education, 2015

Background. Ethics training at tertiary level is important to facilitate an understanding of patient dignity and respect. Traditionally, ethics has been taught in the form of didactic lectures; however, the authors are of the opinion that practical applications are more useful. Objective. To measure students' moral reasoning frameworks before and after an intensive course in medical ethics. Methods. The study cohort was given a pre-and post-test of the moral behaviour scale (MBS). The t-test for matched scores was performed to determine the presence of significant differences between the mean pre-and post-test scores for the 5 scales of the MBS. Results. The study showed that there was a change in the students' moral behaviour when a specific course structure was evaluated. Conclusion. A combination of didactic and Socratic methodology of training had some effect on the moral reasoning ability of healthcare students.

Advancing cognitive moral development: a field observation of college students

For the first time, field observation research is conducted in a natural, controlled environment (i.e., classroom) to investigate ethical decision-making of college students. One hundred twelve (112) college students enrolled in four Principles of Marketing classes in a southeastern United States university participated in the study. In two of the four classes, the importance of ethical behavior was discussed in each class meeting (sensitized groups); in the other two classes, the importance of ethical behavior was discussed on the first day of class and not mentioned thereafter (non-sensitized groups). The findings reveal that given the opportunity to cheat, 100% of students that were not sensitized to the importance of ethical behavior cheated. Furthermore, a number of these students made a conscience effort to cover up their actions. For sensitized students, some engaged in cheating while others did not. Findings of focus group interviews revealed that students engaged in cheating were in the pre-conventional stage of cognitive moral reasoning, while those that did not cheat were in the conventional stage of cognitive moral reasoning. This finding suggests that sensitizing students to the importance of ethical behavior may advance them up the ladder of cognitive moral reasoning.

Recovering the role of reasoning in moral education to address inequity and social justice

Journal of Moral Education, 2016

This article reasserts the centrality of reasoning as the focus for moral education. Attention to moral cognition must be extended to incorporate sociogenetic processes in moral growth. Moral education is not simply growth within the moral domain, but addresses capacities of students to engage in cross-domain coordination. Development beyond adolescence in moral thinking is in two forms: (1) the gradual application of morality in broader adult contexts, and (2) the result of social discourse and progressive readjustments at the individual and societal level of views of the morality of societal practices. Postconventional moral reasoning is not a rarified stage of moral cognition, but an orientation and set of discourse skills potentially available to all normally developing adult moral reasoners.

Assessment of Principled Moral reasoning of a Female Sample of Graduate students in Education

2020

The purpose of this study was to measure the principled moral reasoning of 68 female graduate students in education at the University of Kuwait. Participants were recruited from three master programs: foundations of education (n=21), curriculum and method of teaching (29), and Administration and educational planning (18). Their moral reasoning was measured by the Defining Issues Test (DIT). The results indicate that the sample scored lower in principled moral reasoning than graduate students in general. However, they scored predominantly at stage 4 in Kohlberg’s moral judgment theory. Results also indicate that there are no significant differences in principled moral reasoning of the participants according to their academic disciplines.