Faculty of Cognitive Science and Human Development

Faculty of Cognitive Science and Human Development

MORAL EDUCATION: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Darfrina Allnia Allok

Bachelor of Science with Honours

LC (Cognitive Science)

331 D213 2005

2005

P.KHIDMAT MAKLUMAT AKADEMIK Kh'dmat MaklUmal AkaoemlJ\

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UNIMAS UNIVERSITI MALAYSIA S

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MORAL EDUCATION: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

DARFRINA ALLNIA ALLOK

This project is submitted in partial fulfillment of

the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Science with Honours (Cognitive Science)

Faculty of Cognitive Science and Human Development UNIVERSITI MALAYSIA SARAWAK

2005

BORANG PENGESAHAN STATUS TESIS

SESI PENGAJIAN : ~eo:l ~ '-005

Saya MflFP-UJll ru.t.NlA ~\G

(HURUF BESAR)

mengaku membenarkan tesis *ini disimpan di Pusat Khidmat Maklumat Akademik, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak dengan syarat-syarat kegunaan seperti berikut:

1. Tesis adalah hakmilik Universiti Malaysia Sarawak

2. Pusat Khidmat Maklumat Akademik, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak dibenarkan membuat salinan untuk tujuan pengajian sahaja

3. Pusat Khidmat Maklumat Akademik, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak dibenarkan membuat pendigitan untuk membangunkan Pangkalan Data Kandungan Tempatan

4. Pusat Khidmat Maklumat Akademik, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak dibenarkan membuat salinan tesis ini sebagai bahan pertukaran antara institusi pengajian tinggi

5. ** sila tandakan ("" )

(mengandungi maklumat yang berdarjah keselamatan atau DSULIT

kepentingan seperti termaktub di dalam AKTA RAHSIA RASMI 1972)

(Mengandungi maklumat Terhad yang telah ditentukan oleh OTERHAD

organisasi/badan di mana penyelidikan dijalankan)

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ITIDAK TERHAD

(TANDATANGAN PENULIS) (T ANDA T ANGAN PENYELIA)

Tarikh: Jf.

Dpril

c,100f) _Tarikh:

0Je/~d1fV~

Catatan: * Tesis dimaksudkan sebagai tesis bagi Ijazah Doktor Falsafah, Sarjana dan Sarjana Muda

*lika tesis ini SULIT atau TERHAD, sila lampirkan surat daripada pihak berkuasa/organisasi

berkenaan dengan menyatakan sekali sebab dan tempoh tesis ini perlu dikelaskan sebagai TERHAD.

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The project entitled Moral Education: A Critical Analysis was prepared by Darfrina Allnia Allok and submitted to the Faculty of Cognitive Sciences and Human Development in partial fulfillment of the requirements of Bachelor Science (Honours) in Cognitive Science.

Received for examination by:

(Encik Zaimmuarifudin Shukri Nordin)

Date:

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

My debts of gratitude are many and varied. First and foremost, I would like to thank God for the strength and wisdom that He granted me in completing this project.

The encouragement to work on this project came directly and indirectly from many sources. I should especially like to thank Encik Zaimmuarifudin Shukri Nordin, my supervisor who has . been unfailingly courteous, reassuring and helpful. I would also like to thank other lecturers especially Encik Lee Nung Kion and Dr. Shahren for their thoughtful criticisms during my final presentation. This project could not have been done without support from my family who never allow the distant to stop them from showing their love and care. I am also grateful to my dearest housemates:

Angela Chan, Anita Muda, Elizabeth Lugom, Farrah Raphael, Kristy Wong and Sweetie Munsing; I really thank God for the love that we have shared. I should like to take this opportunity to thank all UCF members especially Alexander Sela for all their prayers in every aspect. Besides that, I would like to thank Jacobina for her help and assistance especially in compiling this FYP.

In a special way however, I would like to thank Mutang Dennie Balang who knows, I hope, how much he means to me.

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Pu a i t 11 fum t Ak demj UNl ER$lTl MALAY lA SARAWM

Kota . amarahan

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgement iv

Table of Contents _v

List of Tables vii

Abstract viii

Abstrak ix

1. CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.0 Moral Development & Moral Education: An Overview 1.1 Literature Review

1.1.1 Jean Piaget

1.1.2 Lawrence Kohlberg 1.1.3 Piaget vs. Kohlberg 1.2 Objective

1.2.1 General Objectives 1.2.2 Specific Objectives 1.3 Research Scope and Limitations 1.4 Methodology

1.5 Chapter Organization

2. CHAPTER 2: MORAL EDUCATION AND PERSONALITY FORMATION

2.0 Introduction

2.1 Moral Education System: As Proposed By Piaget 2.2 Moral Education System: As Proposed By Kohlberg 2.3 The Moral Education System in Malaysia

2.3.1 Introduction.

2.3.2 Objectives of Teaching Moral Education (Pendidikan Moral) 2.3.3 Course Outline

2.3.4 ExaminationlEvaluation System 2.4 Personality Formation

2.4.1 Moral Knowing 2.4.2 Moral Feeling 2.4.3 Moral Action

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3. CHAPTER 3: THE RELIGIOUS MODEL OF MORALITY vs. THE EVOLUTIONARY MODEL OF MORALITY

3.0 Introduction

3.1 Morality: From the Perspective of Buddhism, Christian and Islam 3.1.1 Morality: Perspective of Buddhism.

3.1.2 Morality: Perspective of Christians 3.1.3 Morality: Perspective of Islam.

3.2 The Religious Model of Morality 3.3 The Evolutionary Model of Morality 3.4 The Comparison of the Two Model

CHAPTER 4: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 4.0 Introduction

4.1 Summary

4.1.1 The Analysis of Moral Education in Malaysia 4.1.2 Suggestions to Improve the Current Moral Education

in Malaysia

4.1.3 Religion and Morality: How Is It Related to Each Other?

4.2 Conclusion

4.3 Suggestions for Future Research

REFERENCE

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1.1

Piaget's Main Idea On Human's Understanding Stages 4 Table 1.2

Four Stages of Cognitive Development as Proposed by Piaget 6 Table 1.3

Three Levels of Moral Development as Proposed by Kohlberg. 8 Table 3.1

The differences Between the Religious Model of Morality and Evolutionary

Model of Morality 43

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ABSTRACT

MORAL EDUCATION: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS Darfrina Allnia Allok

This study aims to examine critically the central thesis of moral education. The objectives of this study are to explain the definition of Moral Development and Moral Education, to elaborate on two models of morality: The Evolutionary Model of Morality and The Religious Model of Morality and to understand Piaget's Moral Development Theory and Kohlberg's Moral Development Theory. Specifically, this study is done to see in depth how Moral Education and Moral Development affect one's personality fonnation, to see how religion and moral development is connected to each other and to give clear comparison between two models of morality: The Evolutionary Model and The Religious Model. This study has generally accomplished the objectives set out. The major finding is that moral education and moral education are so much related to each other. Moral development that occurred and moral education that one's received detennine their personality. It is hoped that the thesis has contributed something to the literature.

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ABSTRAK

PENDIDIKAN MORAL: ANALISIS SECARA KRITIKAL Darfrina Allnia Allok

Kajian ini berlujuan unluk mengkaji secara kritikal isu - isu pendidikan moral.

Objektif kajian ini adalah unluk menjelaskan maksud perkembangan moral dan pendidikan mora;, menerangkan dua model moraliti iaitu leori moralili dari sudul evolusi dan leori moralili dari pandangan sudul agama; serla memahami leori perlcembangan moral yang dicadangkan oleh Piagel dan Kohlberg. Secara khususnya, kajian ini diadakan unluk melihal sejauh mana pendidikan moral dan perkembangan moral mempengaruhi pembenlukan personalili individu; melihal bagaimana laktor keagamaan dan perkembangan moral berkail an/ara salu dengan yang lain; dan memberi perbandingan yang jelas di anlara dua model moralili iailu leori moralili dari sudul evolusi dan leori moraliti dari pandangan sudUI agama.

Kajian ini secara amnya lelah mencapai objeklif yang lelah disenaraikan. Dapalan /cajian mendapali bahawa pendidikan moral dan perkembangan moral amal berkait antara salu sama lain dan kadar perkembangan moral yang dialami serla pendidikan moral yang diperolehi oleh seseorang mempengaruhi pembenlukan personalili seseorang individu. Diharapkan bahawa kajian ini lelah menyumbangkan sesualu yang berguna unluk kajian dalam bidang ini.

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.0 Moral Development & Moral Education: An Over

Oxford Advanced Learner's dictionary define moral as principle of right and wrong behaviour. Education, on the other hand is define as a process of training and giving instruction especially of children and young people. Overall, Moral Education can be defined as the process of feeding children and young people with knowledge of right and wrong in their daily life.

Most of us have uncertain feelings about Moral Education. It is thought that children should have some basic moral training and learn to

avoid the worst moral wrong; yet Moral Education is related with religion and guilt, of which many are cautious.

People are also unsure of who should provide Moral Education. Some feels it should be done only in the home or by religious groups. Others think that parental teaching should be supported by other societal entities to which the child has access, such as the public school or the public library. Other controversies arise in Moral Education are such as when should the Moral Education started, what kind of environment that will serve Moral Education the best and many more.

Moral development is very much related to Moral Education. The word development itself can be defined as the action of being grown. In other words, moral development is the process of maturity in morality.

Moral Education exists to serve a purpose where moral development will reach it optimality.

In this study, moral development and Moral Education will be seen as an entity. How they reflect one's character will be discussed in depth.

1.1 Literature Review.

The purpose of literature review is to review and evaluate published

literature on Moral Education. It identifies issues that are relevant to this study.

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1.1.1 Jean Piaget.

According to Piaget (1965), all development emerges from action;

that is to say, individuals construct and reconstruct their knowledge of the world as a result of interactions with the environment. From his observations of children's application of rules while playing, Piaget draws a conclusion that morality too can be considered as a developmental process. In his research, Piaget observes differences between 2 children aged 10 and 13 respectively. From his research, Piaget found out that his sample of a 10 years old boy showed his beliefs in the absolute and intrinsic truth of the rules, which is the characteristic of early moral reasoning. In contrast, his sample of a 13 years old boy illustrates an understanding of the reasoning behind the application of rules, which is the characteristic of later moral thinking. Through his numerous researches, observations and studying his interviews with children, Piaget concluded that children begin in a "heteronymous" stage of moral reasoning, characterized by a strict adherence to rules and duties, and obedience to authority.

Piaget believes that this heteronomy results from two factors: the young child's cognitive structure and children's relative social relationship with adults. A highlight of Piaget's stand is he believes that individuals define' morality individually through their struggles to arrive at fair

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solutions. With this, he rejected Durkheim's theory which believes that moral development was a natural result of attachment to the group, an attachment which manifests itself in a respect for the symbols, rules, and authority of that group. Piaget's main idea on human's understanding stages are as described in the table below:

Stages Descriptions

Adaptation What it says: adapting to the world through 2 processes called assimilation and accommodation.

Assimilation: The process by which a person takes material from the environment into their mind, which may imply changing the evidence of their senses to make it fit.

Accommodation: assimilation eventually made differences to one's mind or concepts. Assimilation and accommodation go together.

Classification The ability to group objects together based on their common features.

Class Inclusion

The understanding more advanced than simple

I classification. At this stage, ability to link object as a

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sub - set of a larger class also been developed. For example crocodile is a class of objects. And there is another class call reptile. All crocodiles are reptiles too, so the class of reptiles includes that crocodiles.

Conservation The ability to recognize that objects or sets of objects even when they are changed about or made to look different.

Decentration The ability to move away from one system of identification (classification) to another one as appropriate.

The belief that you are the centre of the universe and everything revolves around you: the corresponding I

inability to see the world as someone else does and adapt to it. Not moral "selfishness", just an early stage of psychological development.

Egocentrism

The process of working something out in your head instead of working it out physically. For example while controlling our anger. Instead of showing that we are angry, we are comforting ourselves from inside, telling ourselves to calm down.

Operation

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The representation in the mind of a set of perceptions, ideas, and/or actions, which go together.

Stage Schema

A period in a child's development in which he or she is capable of understanding some things but not others

Table 1.1: Piaget's Main Idea on Human's Understanding Stages

Piaget identified four stages in Cognitive Development.

Stage Characteristic

Sensori­

motor (Birth -2 yrs)

•

Ability to differentiate self from objects

•

Recognizes self as an agent to an action and begins to act intentionally: shakes a rattle to make a noise

•

Achieves object permanence: realizes that things continue to exist even when no longer present to the sense

Pre­

operational (2-7 years)

•

Develop linguistic ability and learn to represent objects through images and words

•

Thinking is still egocentric: has difficulty taking

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Concrete operational (7-11 years)

Formal operational (11 years and up)

the viewpoint of others

• Classifies objects by a single feature: e.g.

classifying things through colour regardless of shape or vice versa.

• Ability to think logically about objects and events

• Achieves conservation of number (age 6), mass (age 7), and weight (age 9)

• Classifies objects according to several features and can order them in series along a single dimension such as size.

• Can think logically about abstract propositions and test hypotheses systematically

• Becomes concerned with the hypothetical, the future, and ideological problems

Table 1.2: Four Stages of Cognitive Development as Proposed by Piaget

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1. 2 Lawrence Kohlberg

Lawrence Kohlberg (1989) followed the development of moral judgment beyond the ages studied by Piaget. Later, he determined that the process of attaining moral maturity took longer and was more gradual than Piaget had proposed. In his research, Kohlberg identified three levels of moral development that consists of six stages of moral reasoning. They are as described in the table below:

LEVEL 1 PRECONVENTIONAL MORALITY

1^st stage • The pre-conventional level, a person's moral judgments are characterized by a concrete, individual perspective.

• Focuses on avoiding breaking rules that are backed by punishment, obedience for its own sake and avoiding the physical consequences of an action to persons and property

• Characterized by ego-centrism and the inability to consider the perspectives of others.

2^nd stage • One follows the rules only when it IS to someone's immediate interests. What is right is what's fair in the sense of an equal exchange, a deal, an agreement.

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There is an understanding that everybody has his(her)

~, own interest to pursue and these conflict, so that right is

relative (in the concrete individualist sense).

LEVEL 2 CONVENTIONAL MORALITY

3^rd stage

•

Aware of shared feelings, agreements, and expectations ^I which take primacy over individual interests.

•

Define what is right in terms of what is expected by people close to one's self, and in terms of the stereotypic roles that define being good

4th stage

•

Shift from defining what is right in terms of local norms and role expectations to defining right in terms of the laws and norms established by the larger social system.

LEVEL 3 POSTCONVENTIONAL MORALITY 5^th stage

•

Has received substantial empirical support

6^th stage

•

Entails reasoning rooted in the ethical fairness principles from which moral laws would be devised

•

Laws are evaluated in terms of their coherence with basic principles of fairness rather than upheld simply on the basis of their place within an existing social order.

Table 1.3: Three Levels of Moral Development as Proposed by Kohlberg.

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In his VIew on Moral Education, Kohlberg reject traditional character education practices. These approaches are premised in the idea that virtues and vices are the basis to moral behaviour. In other words, moral character is consisting of "bag of virtues", such as honesty, kindness, patience and other moral values. According to traditional approach, teachers' responsibility is to teach their students' these virtues through example. In addition to that, they also need to direct communication of convictions by giving students chances to practice these virtues, and by rewarding their expression. Traditional approaches provide no guiding principle in defining what virtues are worthy of espousal, and wrongly assumes a community consensus on what are considered "positive values".

This often left teachers end up arbitrarily imposing certain values depending upon their societal, cultural, and personal beliefs. Kohlberg also rejected the focus on values and virtues because of the complex nature of practicing such virtues. Although holding the same basic of moral value, people often make different decisions in their daily life. In short, Kohlberg believes that a better approach in nurturing moral behaviour should focus on stages of moral development. These stages are critical; as they consider the way a person arranges their understanding of

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virtues, rules, and norms, and integrates these into a moral choice (Power, Higgins, & Kohlberg, 1989).

1.1.3 Piaget vs. Kohlberg

By reviewing both researches conducted by Piaget and Kohlberg, a few conclusions have been made.

Firstly, Kohlberg's theory is an amplified version of Piaget's theory.

Kohlberg widen the age scale of the children Piaget's sample and come out with a more structured theory and assumptions.

Secondly, Piaget and Kohlberg both believe that Moral Development consists of a few stages. Shifting from one stage to another can be optimized by providing a relevant Moral Education.

Besides that, they also believe that in order to move from one stage to a higher stage, one need to fulfil the criteria in every stage. These criteria determine their maturity in terms of maturity.

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1.2 Objective

1.2.1 General Objectives

Generally, this study has 3 general objectives:

1. To explain the definition of Moral Development and Moral Education.

2. To elaborate on two models of morality: The Evolutionary Model of Morality and The Religious Model of Morality.

3. To understand Piaget's Moral Development Theory and Kohlberg's Moral Development Theory.

1.2.2 Specific Objectives

There are 3 specific objectives of this study:

1. To see in depth how Moral Education and Moral Development affect one's personality formation.

2. To see how religion and moral development is connected to each other.

3. To give clear comparison between two models of morality:

The Evolutionary Model and The Religious Model.

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1.3 Research Scope and Limitations

This research will only focus on revlewmg theories, articles and books by researcher in the field of Moral Education. Aspects that will be discussed in details are:

• Moral Education & Moral Development

• Personality formation

• The religious model of morality

• The evolutionary model of morality

Limitation of this research is difficulty in gaining information. Limited books on this area are provided in UNlMAS CAIS (Universiti Malaysia of Sarawak, Centre of Academic and Information Centre). Furthermore, internet service around UNIMAS is very limited with no cyber cafe provided in and around campus.

1.4 Methodology

For this research, the focus is concentrated to qualitative research.

Analytic and descriptive approaches are used. The prime sources of references are obtained mainly through books, articles, and journals from

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UNIMAS CAIS (Universiti Malaysia of Sarawak, Centre of Academic and Information Centre) and the World Wide Web of the Internet.

1.6 Chapter Organization

The first chapter is an introductory chapter. So, it would explain in details what Moral Development and Moral Education are all about.

Researchers' view will be discussed and compared as well.

Then, the second chapter will reflect the impact of Moral Education towards personality formation. As an introduction, suggested moral education by two experts in this field: Kohlberg and Piaget will be discussed. Following that, the current moral education system m Malaysia will also be discussed in chapter 2. Finally the three element of good character which was proposed by Lickona will be discussed to enable us to have a better insight on the character of a good moral education system.

Related to personality formation, the third chapter will continue to discuss moral development from the view of two model of morality. They are The Religious Model of Morality and The Evolutionary Model of Morality. The purpose of discussing this two models is to see how 8Omeone's perceive morality in different views; in this case view as a

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