Endeavours to assess moral reasoning in education have largely been via established but less contemporary measures, with recent measures developed more than a decade ago. Together with the call to go beyond assessing cognitive constructs, and the intended learning outcomes of the Singapore Ministry of Education Character and Citizenship Education…

In this article, I respond to Noel Card's "Methodological Issues in Measuring the Development of Character." I focus on the ways in which social scientific knowledge represents human constructions of the world and the implications of this stance for the measurement of character. Further, I consider how context influences those…

In this article I provide an overview of the methodological issues involved in measuring constructs relevant to character development and education. I begin with a nontechnical overview of the 3 fundamental psychometric properties of measurement: reliability, validity, and equivalence. Developing and evaluating measures to ensure evidence of all 3…

This study examined differences in participants' perceptions of their Character Development, Leadership, and Environmental Service prior to and immediately following participation in a North Carolina Outward Bound School (NCOBS) course using the NCOBS Course Impression Survey (NCOBCIS). The three-fold purpose of this study was to confirm the…

Research about the structure of character has largely assessed purported universal attributes. However, character develops within specific social, cultural and institutional contexts. As part of the first wave of a longitudinal study (Project Arete) of character development among cadets at the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point,…

This article is intended as an initial investigation into the foundations of moral psychology. I primarily examine a recent work in moral education, Daniel Lapsley's and Darcia Narvaez"s "Character education", whose authors seem to assume at points that criteria for discerning moral actions and moral traits can be derived apart from ethics or…

"Values and Teaching", by Raths, Harmin, and Simon (1978) is examined in the context of Dewey's approach to moral education. While the books' authors claim that their approach is practical, the relationships among such concepts as "overdissenting", "aggresssive", "overconforming", and "submissive"…

An overview of Kohlberg's theory of moral development is presented; three interviews regarding the theory are reported, and the author's own moral development is compared to the model; finally, a critique of the theory is addressed along with recommendations for future enhancement. Lawrence Kohlberg's model of moral development, also referred to…

Previous studies failed to determine whether Gilligan's (1982) justice and care perspectives represent two distinct orientations of moral reasoning. Using methods developed in research on reasoning and discourse processes, a study used a discursive framework to validate an alternate methodology for the investigation of moral orientation reasoning.…

Developed a scale to measure individuals' desire for moral approbation. Factor analysis of data from 382 university business students supported the viability of desired moral approbation, which was composed of three constructs: (1) desire for approbation from others; (2) desire to avoid moral blame from others; and (3) desire for moral approval…