Kohl berg's Cognitive‐Developmental Theory in Educational Settings: Some Possible Abuses

Abstract

Kohlberg's cognitive‐developmental theory provides teachers with a framework for understanding the change and development of moral judgment and decision‐making of their pupils. One major abuse, however, may be when teachers take the stage labels associated with the hypothesized stage levels of moral judgment as indicative of static student qualities or characteristics, by placing more emphasis on perceived and labelled qualities than on the actual moral reasoning of the student. This, it is suggested, together with some empirical examples, may obscure the developmental trend of the student's moral judgment or even affect the teacher's expectations and consequently student's performance, and fails to take into account such factors as environment and interpersonal interaction. A study is reported in which curriculum consultants exposed to moral development theory were tested to determine whether they would use Kohlbergian labels of stage content or actual moral reasoning when required to make assessments. Suggestions are put forward as to how moral development theory can be more closely linked to pedagogy.     

Self‐reflection and resilience in educational research

This article revisits the critical realist ethnographic process that was adopted in my doctoral thesis, which was concerned with the experiences of ethnic identity of white British and Pakistani British children as they started kindergarten in the northwest of England. The article focuses on the ethnography that emerged from the visits that I carried out alongside staff to children's homes before they started kindergarten and on the way in which these were portrayed and analysed in the final thesis. I conclude that the process of observation, writing field notes and then producing a fuller ethnography produced a very partial representation of the empirical world. This was problematic in that, in critical realism, what is observed in the world of the ‘empirical’ and considered in the world of the ‘actual’ forms the basis for understanding the underlying causal tendencies which point to the underlying explanatory concepts in the world of the ‘real’. I argue, however, that more careful critical realist ethnography has the potential to be a powerful methodological framework which accepts the contested nature of reality but which, unlike postmodernism, provides a means of addressing possibilities and of moving beyond ‘undecidability’.     

Adaptation and Self‐Determination in English Primary Schools

abstract

New government policies have to be mediated through teachers. Research among some teachers in primary schools revealed a number of creative adaptations to the National Curriculum. Some were strongly ‘resisting’ some elements. Where conditions were favourable, this developed into ‘appropriation’. A powerful aid towards appropriation can be ‘resourcing‘—ways in which the teacher role can be enhanced. At times, the teacher's work might be ‘enriched’ by the National Curriculum. However, at other times, another teacher might be forced to ‘re‐route’, and retire from teaching. Running through all these modes of adaptation is the interconnecting theme of self‐determination. Four aspects of this—self‐defence, self‐reinforcement, self‐realisation and self‐renewal—are revealed in the adaptations. The changes have been cathartic for teachers’ sense of self, but some, at least, are emerging stronger than before, whether they are still teaching or not.     

Self‐esteem and National Tests in Years 2 and 6: a 4‐year longitudinal study

ABSTRACT This 4‐year longitudinal study measured the self‐esteem, reading and mathematical attainments of four cohorts of children on two occasions‐‐in Year 2 and again in Year 6. All Year 2 children(N = 842) in five randomly selected primary schools within one Local Education Authority (LEA) comprised the sample, of which 588 were present in Year 6. The Lawseq questionnaire (Lawrence, 1982), Mathematics 7 and 11 (NFER, 1987a, b) and the Primary Reading Test Levels 1 and 2 (France, 1981) were administered to this sample. Results showed that Cohorts 3 and 4 had the lowest self‐esteem scores in Year 2 and the highest in Year 6 (significant at the 0.1% level). Attainments in mathematics were stable over the 4 years, but reading comprehension means were significantly higher in Year 6 than Year 2 (at the 0.1% level). Discussion centres on the age effects of self‐esteem responses as well as the effects of context and domain specific factors on self‐esteem.     

Self‐esteem in Children with and without Motor Co‐ordination Problems

This article presents results from a study of 36 pupils (8–10 years of age) in face‐to‐face conversations with their teachers about water as an environmental phenomenon based on a photograph of a rainforest. The teachers’ rather vague goal was to have the pupils talk about the water cycle. The sessions were audio‐recorded and analyzed with respect to: (1) scaffolding strategies used by the teachers, (2) possible implications of these strategies on the pupils’ sense‐making, and (3) what accounts of the water cycle as a school‐science learning‐content were made. Three different patterns of scaffolding strategies were found. Some pupils did not even come close to talking about the water cycle, whereas others arrived at a rather fragmented picture.     

Critical Pedagogy in Process: A Collaborative Self‐Study

... the most important consideration in formulating purpose in education is the happiness of the students themselves. — T. Makiguchi     

Theory and practice in self‐esteem enhancement: Circle‐Time and efficacy‐based approaches—a controlled evaluation

There are differences of opinion about self‐esteem enhancement in the classroom; these differences exist at both conceptual and practical levels. The aim of this study was to ascertain whether techniques employed by primary school teachers as a day‐to‐day part of their teaching can have measurable effects on the self‐esteem of their pupils. Two different approaches to self‐esteem enhancement in primary classes were evaluated. The participants were 519 primary school children and their teachers (n = 21). Circle‐Time and efficacy‐based approaches were compared with a control condition over a four‐month period. On two self‐report measures of self‐esteem, gains were found for both experimental conditions, but not for the controls. Significant sub‐scale differences suggested that the two approaches achieved their effects in different ways, consistent with a two‐dimensional model of self‐esteem. Circle‐Time methodology, focusing on the creation of a climate in which individuals are respected and valued, is more likely to help children to develop a sense of self‐worth. On the other hand, an efficacy‐based approach tends to focus on the achievement of performance goals, and is thus more likely to develop the self‐competence dimension. It is argued that we should now reconsider how we think about self‐esteem enhancement in primary classrooms.     

Self‐regulated pupils in teaching: teachers’ experiences

This article outlines in a theoretical and practical way the concepts of self‐regulated learning, learning strategies and metacognition by looking at concrete examples in the classroom. The teachers presented in the article were taking part in a research and development (R&D) work project in which they were cooperating both with each other and a researcher who was facilitating their way through the development processes. The article focuses on how the teachers introduced learning strategies, how the strategies were adapted to the pupils, how the strategies were connected to various tasks and what the use of strategies means for the pupils’ learning in the studied context. The overall aim of the article is to illuminate how the teachers experienced the pupils’ use of strategies in their learning work. Findings from the study indicate that teachers have to adapt the introduction and use of strategies to the pupils’ development levels and that pupils from 13 to 16 years of age need help from their teachers, both in learning and in controlling their own learning processes.     

Self‐acceptance and Behaviour Control in Creatively Gifted Young People

An investigation was made into the relationship between self‐acceptance, locus of behaviour control and the level of adolescents’ creative thinking abilities. From a sample of 250 pupils, aged 13–14 years, 30 creative and 30 control non‐creative pupils were selected, their scores on several measures were compared, and the results then analyzed for locus of control and self‐acceptance. Comparisons were also made between the boys and girls. The young people with a high level of creative thinking ability (fluency, flexibility and originality of thinking) were found to have significantly higher levels of internal control and self‐acceptance when compared with the less creative control group. Girls showed a higher level of internal locus of control than boys.     

Self‐concept,enterprise and educational attainment in late adolescence

Abstract

This study used data obtained from a large random sample of 16‐19 year olds in four areas in U.K. and from a smaller university student sample to construct an easy‐to‐use measure of purposefulness, a characteristic lying at the core of the concept of enterprise, and to examine the relationship between purposefulness and educational attainment.

This instrument was found to be reasonably valid and reliable for both samples. Further, for women, purposefulness was positively related to educational attainment whilst for men this was not the case. The implications of this study are threefold: conceptualising enterprise in terms of a person's motivational, attributional and behavioural style has implications both for the content of, and expectations from, enterprise education and training. Second, the difference in the relationship between educational attainment and purposefulness for the two sexes suggests that there may be different opportunities that the educational system and the labour market offers to men and women. Third, this measure can be usefully employed for vocational guidance.     

Academic Self‐concept,Implicit Theories of Ability,and Self‐regulation Strategies

The purpose of the present study is to explore how academic self‐concept and implicit theories of ability are related to four self‐regulation strategies—motivation/diligence, concentration, information processing, and self‐handicapping. The hypothesis is that academic self‐concept and an incremental theory of ability are (1) positively related to motivation/diligence, concentration, and information processing strategies, and (2) negatively related to self‐handicapping strategies. On the basis of inventories 168 teacher students and 60 sport students (a total of 178 females and 50 males) were scored on academic self‐concept, incremental and fixed theories of ability and the four self‐regulation strategies. Multiple regression analysis was used for each self‐regulation strategy as dependent variable, and with academic self‐concept and the ability theories as independent variables. Results revealed that an incremental theory had, as predicted, a positive relation with motivation/diligence and concentration, but had only trivial relations with information processing and self‐handicapping, whereas a fixed theory had only the predicted relation with self‐handicapping. As hypothesised, a high academic self‐concept was positively related to motivation/diligence, conception, and information processing and negatively to self‐handicapping. The findings may indicate that, in order to promote meta‐theoretical processing and prevent student from self‐handicapping, it is important to strengthen academic self‐concept, and to foster an incremental conception of ability among students.     

Self‐regulation strategies improve self‐discipline in adolescents: benefits of mental contrasting and implementation intentions

Adolescents struggle with setting and striving for goals that require sustained self‐discipline. Research on adults indicates that goal commitment is enhanced by mental contrasting (MC), a strategy involving the cognitive elaboration of a desired future with relevant obstacles of present reality. Implementation intentions (II), which identify the action one will take when a goal‐relevant opportunity arises, represent a strategy shown to increase goal attainment when commitment is high. This study tests the effect of mental contrasting combined with implementation intentions (MCII) on successful goal implementation in adolescents. Sixty‐six 2nd‐year high school students preparing to take a high‐stakes exam in the fall of their third year were randomly assigned to complete either a 30‐minute written mental contrasting with implementation intentions intervention or a placebo control writing exercise. Students in the intervention condition completed more than 60% more practice questions than did students in the control condition. These findings point to the utility of directly teaching to adolescents mental contrasting with implementation intentions as a self‐regulatory strategy of successful goal pursuit.     

A Study in Self‐assessment: tutor and students’ perceptions of performance criteria

This paper reports a study which implemented and evaluated a method of student self‐assessment. The theme of the importance of marking criteria (Orsmond et al., 1996) is developed. Pairs of first‐year undergraduate biology students were asked to complete a poster assignment on a specific aspect of nerve physiology. The study was designed to allow the evaluation of (1) student self and tutor marking for individual marking criteria; and (2) student vs student marking of their poster work for individual marking criteria. A comparison between the tutor and the student self‐assessed mark reveals how important it is to consider the individual marking criteria rather than the overall mark. These results support our findings on peer assessment reported earlier (Orsmond et al., 1996). The results also illustrate the potential pitfalls that exist when making assumptions about the degree of student/student interaction and students’ marking ability. This study supports previous work which showed that self‐assessment is extremely useful in helping students reach their learning goals, i.e. it is a strong formative educational tool and can be used in order to bring about behavioural changes in students with regard to their own learning processes.     

Self‐advocacy: Encouraging students to become partners in differentiation

The intent of this study was to discover what relationship, if any, exists between creative personality characteristics and psychic overexcitabilities (OEs), as defined by Dabrowski's Theory of Emotional Development. Twenty‐one gifted seventh and eighth grade students were given the Something About Myself (SAM) portion of the Khatena‐Torrance Creative Perception Inventory and the Overexcitabilities Questionnaire. The seven subjects with the highest SAM scores were designated as the High Creative, the seven lowest as the Low Creative group. At test was performed on the group means of the two groups on the five dimensions of overexcitability. Differences between the High Creative and Low Creative groups were significant (p < .025] for imaginational and intellectual OE and (p < .05) for emotional OE. Differences Between the groups on psychomotor and sensual OE were nonsignificant. These findings have implications for parents, teachers, and counselors of creatively gifted students.     

Strategies of alliance: Models and modes of post‐secondary‐university integration

Abstract

Late in 1996, Kalgoorlie College and the Western Australian School of Mines in Western Australia were merged to form an expanded campus of Curtin University, based in the state capital city of Perth. This paper uses a frame analytical approach to examining how differing and competing interpretations and commitments affected how the merger was played out. Three important frames, each of which had a major influence on the merger for periods of time are identified: one that emphasised regional social and economic development, another centred on education for industry and a third based on economic rationalism. This analysis connects changes in the direction of the merger to shifts in the way the merger was framed.     

The Psychology of Delivering a Psychological Service: Self‐organised learning as a model for consultation

The article describes how one Educational Psychology Service in the UK developed a service delivery based on self‐organised learning (SOL). This model is linked to the paradigms and discourses within which educational psychology and special educational needs work.

The work described here is dedicated to the memory of Brian Roberts, academic, close friend of Steve and a source of inspiration to both the authors.     

Predicting university performance in Psychology: the role of previous performance and discipline‐specific knowledge

Recent initiatives to enhance retention and widen participation ensure it is crucial to understand the factors that predict students' performance during their undergraduate degree. The present research used Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to test three separate models that examined the extent to which British Psychology students' A‐level entry qualifications predicted: (1) their performance in years 1–3 of their Psychology degree, and (2) their overall degree performance. Students' overall A‐level entry qualifications positively predicted performance during their first year and overall degree performance, but negatively predicted their performance during their third year. Additionally, and more specifically, students' A‐level entry qualifications in Psychology positively predicted performance in the first year only. Such findings have implications for admissions tutors, as well as for students who have not studied Psychology before but who are considering applying to do so at university.