Comparision of the moral development of the students attending to different primary schools from different variables

Abstract

Moral development is one of the most important elements for individual personnel development. The studies related moral and cognitive development implies that every individual is expected to reach to the highest phase of the cognitive development, but, he is not expected to reach to highest phase of his moral development and each individual has his own moral development process.
This study was conducted to reveal whether there is a significant difference in their moral judgment levels among students attending various schools. The moral judgments of the students attending various schools were compared with different variables. These variables change from the educational institutions they attend to their sexes, and their preschool education.
The population of the study is limited to Grade 8 students attending Private Diltaş Educational Institutions, Private Lale Institutions and Public Rebii Karatekin Primary School, all affiliated to National education Administration of Konya Province. In the study, total of 212 students, of whom 104 attend the public school and 108 attend the private schools, were reached. These 212 students were administered to Turkish version of the Defining Issue Test (DIT). In the analysis of the collected information, the test of two students, one attending to public school one of the private schools were not evaluated by virtue of test reliability. The independent (t) test was used in the analysis of the collected data. According to independent variables, in significance of control of the differences between student groups' moral judgment point averages, a significance level of 0.05 was adopted. The findings of the study are summarized below:
Insignificant difference has been found between the 8th grade students attending the public school and those attending the private schools in respect of their moral judgments.
According to sexes, the differences between boys' and girls' moral judgments were found to be insignificant although the girls' points in phase 4 seemed to be higher than those of the boys' are.
Insignificant difference has been found between the 8th grade students who received pre-school education and those who did not in regard to moral judgments levels.
In the light of these results obtained from the study, various suggestions were made to raise the students' levels of moral judgment.