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Moral and volitional characteristics of secondary school students in Singapore
Author
Chia, Chek Ngee
Supervisor
Teo, Chua Tee
Abstract
If a child misbehaves, is it because of misguided thinking, feeling or choice? The author proposes checking on the moral knowledge, moral emotion and volition of the students, as these characteristics interact to produce moral behaviours or misbehaviours. This study attempts to find the link between moral action, and the related moral thinking, moral feeling and moral choice, so that educators can have research-based evidence as a basis for designing lessons on character education.
In this study, the students’ moral knowledge was examined from the perspective of moral beliefs and therefore, measured using the Moral Relevance subscale (Graham, et al., 2011, see Appendix B), which provided information relating to the five areas of care, fairness, ingroup, authority, and purity.
Moral emotion was examined from the perspective of guilt and shame, and therefore, measured using the Guilt and Shame Proneness scale (Cohen, Wolf, Panter, & Insko, 2011, see Appendix B) , which indicated the respondent’s tendency for negative behaviour-evaluation, repair, negative self-evaluation, and withdrawal.
Volition was examined from the perspective of action control and therefore, measured using the revised Action Control Scale (Diefendorff, Hall, Lord, & Strean, 2000, see Appendix B), which provided information on the action-state orientation of a person for preoccupation, hesitation, and volatility. Finally, the newly-devised Student Behavioural Checklist, which described misbehaviours such as Egocentric Behaviour and Distending Behaviour, and moral behaviours such as Obedient Behaviour, was used to study the link between self-reported moral behaviours and misbehaviours, and the related moral knowledge, moral emotion and volition.
From the complete sample of 605 Secondary Three students from one government-aided and five government schools, a final sample of 584 students were used after data clean-up.
Significant differences were found between male and female students, as well as among students of the Express, Normal (Academic) [N(A)] and Normal (Technical) [N(T)] streams, in moral behaviours and misbehaviours, moral knowledge, moral emotion and volition. Male students had significantly lower Obedient Behaviour, and Moral Emotion, but significantly higher Egocentric Behaviour, and Volition than female students.
Express students had significantly higher Obedient Behaviour, and lower Egocentric Behaviour than both N(A) and N(T) students. Express students had significantly higher Moral Knowledge than N(T) students, and also had significantly higher Moral Emotion than N(A) students, who in turn had significantly higher Moral Emotion than N(T) students.
In addition, the higher the Moral Knowledge, and Volition, the less likely it was that a student had high Egocentric Behaviour; and the higher the Moral Emotion, the less likely it was that a student had high Distending Behaviour. However, the logistic models for Egocentric and Distending Behaviours did not predict better than chance. On the other hand, the higher the Moral Knowledge and Moral Emotion, the more likely it was that a student had high Obedient Behaviour. The logistic model for Obedient Behaviour predicted better than chance.
Educators from government and government-aided schools, who have students with similar profiles to those in the samples in this study, would benefit when designing and testing scalable character and citizenship education lesson plans, by first using the scales used in this study as diagnostic guides.
In this study, the students’ moral knowledge was examined from the perspective of moral beliefs and therefore, measured using the Moral Relevance subscale (Graham, et al., 2011, see Appendix B), which provided information relating to the five areas of care, fairness, ingroup, authority, and purity.
Moral emotion was examined from the perspective of guilt and shame, and therefore, measured using the Guilt and Shame Proneness scale (Cohen, Wolf, Panter, & Insko, 2011, see Appendix B) , which indicated the respondent’s tendency for negative behaviour-evaluation, repair, negative self-evaluation, and withdrawal.
Volition was examined from the perspective of action control and therefore, measured using the revised Action Control Scale (Diefendorff, Hall, Lord, & Strean, 2000, see Appendix B), which provided information on the action-state orientation of a person for preoccupation, hesitation, and volatility. Finally, the newly-devised Student Behavioural Checklist, which described misbehaviours such as Egocentric Behaviour and Distending Behaviour, and moral behaviours such as Obedient Behaviour, was used to study the link between self-reported moral behaviours and misbehaviours, and the related moral knowledge, moral emotion and volition.
From the complete sample of 605 Secondary Three students from one government-aided and five government schools, a final sample of 584 students were used after data clean-up.
Significant differences were found between male and female students, as well as among students of the Express, Normal (Academic) [N(A)] and Normal (Technical) [N(T)] streams, in moral behaviours and misbehaviours, moral knowledge, moral emotion and volition. Male students had significantly lower Obedient Behaviour, and Moral Emotion, but significantly higher Egocentric Behaviour, and Volition than female students.
Express students had significantly higher Obedient Behaviour, and lower Egocentric Behaviour than both N(A) and N(T) students. Express students had significantly higher Moral Knowledge than N(T) students, and also had significantly higher Moral Emotion than N(A) students, who in turn had significantly higher Moral Emotion than N(T) students.
In addition, the higher the Moral Knowledge, and Volition, the less likely it was that a student had high Egocentric Behaviour; and the higher the Moral Emotion, the less likely it was that a student had high Distending Behaviour. However, the logistic models for Egocentric and Distending Behaviours did not predict better than chance. On the other hand, the higher the Moral Knowledge and Moral Emotion, the more likely it was that a student had high Obedient Behaviour. The logistic model for Obedient Behaviour predicted better than chance.
Educators from government and government-aided schools, who have students with similar profiles to those in the samples in this study, would benefit when designing and testing scalable character and citizenship education lesson plans, by first using the scales used in this study as diagnostic guides.
Date Issued
2013
Call Number
LC315.S55 Chi
Date Submitted
2013