RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MORAL KNOWLEDGE AND MORAL REASONING OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

Abstract

A well informed, skilled and morally developed society is the ultimate
goal of an educational system. However, a perception exists in Pakistan
that the given first two components, i.e., information and skills, are more
focused in school curriculum and instruction but morals among students
are informally addressed during class teaching. Such schooling of the
learners does not meet the socio-moral needs of a developing society.
Resultantly there occurs a societal moral decline that Pakistani society is
facing now a day. The current study has, therefore, been conducted to
determine role of the given moral instructional contents in fostering
moral reasoning and judgment (determining the moral justification of an
action) among the secondary school students, to address the issue
related research question, as whether students’ moral knowledge
accounts for variations in their moral reasoning. The research data for
this correlational study was collected on two variables i.e. moral
knowledge and moral reasoning of the students. For the purpose,
researcher developed two instruments and used for measuring the
variables involved in the present research. An achievement test was
developed to measure moral knowledge of the secondary school students
while, a test based on moral dilemmas was constructed to assess their
moral reasoning. Psychometric properties of both the tests, for validity
and reliability purpose, were ensured through expert judgments. Further
improvement in tests was made on the basis of students’ responses that
were taken in piloting of the instruments. A sample of 600 students of the
grade 9 with their age range 14-16 years participated in the study. The