Moral Development and Student Motivation in Moral Education: A Singapore Study

Abstract

Recent world events such as the threat of terrorism and the global economic crises have rekindled an interest in ethics and values education. This study, conducted in Singapore, combines a Kohlbergian approach to the assessment of moral judgement with a framework based on the self-determination theory to assess the motivational regulations of adolescent students towards civics and moral education (CME). The findings show that the Singaporean students' development of moral reasoning follows the trend prescribed for their age groups in Kohlberg's theory. With regard to their motivation in CME, students showed a moderate degree of autonomous motivation, although the correlations between moral development stage and motivation in CME were low.