- Title
- Moral judgement to moral action - implications for education
- Creator
- Beaumaris, Arini
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2010
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- Recent educational research has pointed to the potential for values education to enhance student wellbeing by helping to develop their pro-social behaviours and effective work habits. Most crucial to the process of values education is understanding more about the ways in which children learn to consistently act-on-moral judgement and so function in the moral or ethical domain. This study focuses on appraising, with the use of research literature and the lived experience of 22 adults from diverse cultural backgrounds, ‘what works’ in translating moral judgement to moral action. It explores, from scientific, religious and educational perspectives’, elements of success in moral functioning, with the goal of shedding greater light on the processes of moral learning and moral functioning. On the basis of the study, it is postulated that moral functioning is a competency, based on acting out of the highest stages of the domains of knowing (cognition), loving (affect), and willing (conation). Hence, it is proposed that a person who develops the capacity to reflect on emotional feedback and the consequences of their actions (knowing), to consider the needs of others (loving), and who is prepared to take responsibility in a situation (willing), is more likely to act-on-moral judgement. The proposition above supports brain functioning theories on moral learning and challenges conventional notions of how we learn to function in the moral domain. On the basis of such insights, the study suggests that children would benefit from an intentional process of facilitated reflection upon feeling states and personal moral experiences, in a safe and caring environment. Facilitated reflection supports the creation of new moral prototypes, or exemplars, to help develop moral imagination and to learn how to respond more appropriately the next time a child is faced with a similar moral scenario. It is further proposed therefore that such methodology should be incorporated into values education in schools.
- Subject
- character education; values education; moral action; moral learning; moral functioning; brain based learning
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/805543
- Identifier
- uon:6886
- Rights
- Copyright 2010 Arini Beaumaris
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Thesis | 1 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |