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…

Chief Academic Officers (CAO) are leaders in institutions of higher education and have wide decision-making scope. Previous research has clearly demonstrated the need for leaders to engage in ethical decision-making. Moral judgments are an aspect of ethical decision-making, so it is important for CAOs to make moral judgments. This study examined…

The purpose of the present paper is to examine the teachers' cognitive structures through moral judgment schemas, as well as whether the above-mentioned structures diversify among teachers, depending on education level, specialty, age, teaching experience, and gender. Moreover, another aim is to examine whether these cognitive structures can…

Teachers tasked with developing moral character in future physicians face an array of pedagogic challenges, among them identifying tools to measure progress in instilling the requisite skill set. One validated instrument for assessing moral judgment is the Defining Issues Test (DIT-2). Based on the work of Lawrence Kohlberg, the test's main…

This study investigates the effectiveness of pedagogical practices used to teach business ethics. The business community has greatly increased its demands for better ethics education in business programs. Educators have generally agreed that the ethical principles of business people have declined. It is important, then, to examine how common…

In this paper we investigate whether the level of motivation among mathematically gifted adolescents is related to their moral and religious judgment. The sample consists of first-year students (N = 20) at a Finnish private and independent boarding school specializing in mathematics. We formulated the following research questions: (RQ1) Is the…

The goal of this study was to investigate how moral development changes over time for teacher education master's students during their year-long internship. Data on the Defining Issues Test-2 was collected at three points in time during the full-year teaching internships (beginning, end of first semester, and end of second semester). These…

Administered standard and modified versions of the Defining Issues Test (DIT) to 40 older adults. Contrary to previous studies, the self/other manipulation failed to significantly influence older adults' moral judgments. The role of cognitive/perspective-taking and personal/affective factors in moral reasoning abilities are discussed. (JAC)

This literature review examines the potential of selective recall for assessing level of moral reasoning. Rest's Defining Issues Test was administered to five individuals to test the applicability of certain principles of selective recall in assessing moral reasoning. (IAH)

The Defining Issues Test (DIT) of moral judgment, a stage preference approach, is compared with the Moral Judgment Test (MJT) widely used in Europe. The MJT is a stage consistency test. Construct validity is defined in terms of seven types of studies, which support use of the stage preference approach. (SLD)

Fifty school administrators completed Rest's Defining Issues Test (DIT) and Patterson's Moral Action Choice Test (MACT) as part of a study to determine how Kohlberg's theory of moral development might apply to day-to-day administrative decision-making. The respondents were presented with hypothetical moral dilemmas and asked to explain what they…

The Defining Issues Test (DIT), which utilizes the moral development stage theory of L. Kohlberg, was administered to 41 students from an upper middle class school district in Pennsylvania. The scores of students who elected to attend the alternative high school were compared with the scores of students who elected to attend the district's…

Gains in moral judgement, as measured by the Defining Issues Test (DIT), correlate strongly with advancing education. Curricula that are strongly biblically based may not promote, and students with a strong fundamentalist orientation may not demonstrate, such moral growth. Students at an interdenominational, but very conservative seminary,…

Research on moral development from a cognitive-developmental perspective has been undertaken predominantly with Western subjects and most often with males. To investigate variables associated with moral reasoning among Palestinian Arabs, 259 male and female university students between the ages of 18 and 26 completed Rest's Defining Issues Test…

This study was conducted to determine the relationship between moral judgment and personality or attitude toward authority; variation of attitude toward authority through adolescence; and bias of Kohlbergian moral development toward a liberal political philosophy. Results were discussed in terms of the political and psychological features of…