Using multilevel modeling, moral reasoning was investigated with respect to individual characteristics and school-related (i.e. university/college) factors. Researchers observed significant effects for the individual characteristic of political orientation. Additionally, all investigated school-related factors were significant. Only main effects…

The Center for the Study of Ethical Development archives DIT data and, in this way, it is possible to investigate normative trends, which is the purpose of the present study. Specifically, online DIT-2 data is used. Results support the notion that the primary difference in the paper/pencil version and the online version of the DIT-2 is simply the…

The moral role of the teacher has long been recognised and this has implications for the selection and education of student teachers. There is growing recognition of the importance of teachers' capacity to make sound moral judgements and of the influence of teachers' levels of moral reasoning on their professional practice. The paper presents the…

We utilized data from a multi-institutional longitudinal study to investigate the association between diversity-related coursework and moral development among students over 4 years of college. Our findings parallel the prior research, which support the positive effects of diversity on college students, by offering new evidence that diversity…

This study aimed to develop a valid and reliable measurement tool to enhance ethical evaluation literature. The tool consists of two subscales named "Bases of ethical evaluation," and "Grounds of ethical evaluation." In order to determine the factor structure of the scales, both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were…

This qualitative study explores the moral behavior in the lived experience of resident assistants who administer disciplinary policy at a large, public, urban institution located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The 12 participants volunteered to be interviewed by the first author utilizing the research question, "What is the…

Many higher education studies have examined linear relationships between student experiences and outcomes, but this assumption may be questionable. In two notable examples previous research that assumed a linear relationship reached different substantive conclusions and implications than did research that explored non-linear associations among the…

The ethics assessment industry is currently dominated by the second version of the Defining Issues Test (DIT2). In this article, we describe an alternative assessment instrument called the Sphere-Specific Moral Reasoning and Theory Survey (SMARTS), which measures the respondent's level of moral development in several respects. We describe eight…

The purpose of this study was to add to the limited body of knowledge on the effect of the media ethics course, specifically to investigate the effect of the course on the growth in moral judgment reasoning of students through a quasi-experimental pre-test, post-test analysis using the Defining Issues Test 2 (DIT-2). Results demonstrated…

This article examined how the group membership of the person being judged influenced the level of moral reasoning. Nearly 200 ordinary Italians were given two measures of moral ingroup inclusiveness (the Bogardus social distance scale and a self-categorization measure) and the short form of Rest's Defining Issues Test (DIT). The protagonists in…

This study investigated the effect of scaffolding computer-mediated discussions to improve moral reasoning and argumentation quality in pre-service teachers. Participants of this study were 76 teaching education students at a Turkish university. They were divided into three groups: (1) a computer-supported argumentation group; (2) a…

This study used a quasi-experimental design to examine whether exposure to moral development theory and dilemma discussion in the asynchronous online learning environment resulted in significant gains in principled moral reasoning (DIT N2-scores) of undergraduate elementary and secondary education students. Participants were undergraduate students…

The important role of the teacher in developing morally sensitive individuals is widely acknowledged. This paper examines the integration of context-specific moral development interventions within a four-year undergraduate teacher education programme in Ireland. The intervention strategy employed a case-based pedagogical approach where…

This study was conducted to investigate the moral development of one hundred Kuwaiti high school teachers. They ranged in age from 23 to 48 years with a mean of 28.6 years and a standard deviation of 8.3 years. The teachers' individual moral judgment levels were assessed by the Defining Issues Test (DIT)--an objective test designed by James Rest…

In this era of increased accountability, it is important to consider how student affairs researches and assesses the outcomes of efforts to increase moral competence. This article examines both qualitative and quantitative inquiry methods for measuring moral development. The authors review the instrumentation and methods typically used to measure…