Dr. Joanne O Flaherty

Levels of Moral Reasoning: an Investigation of Undergraduate Students at an Irish University Using the Defining Issues Test Dr. Joanne O Flaherty

Given the paucity of Irish based research on students? levels of moral reasoning, the authors conducted a longitudinal study of the levels of moral reasoning in a convenience sample of students in an Irish university. This study is timely as higher education institutions are becoming increasingly interested in the development of social capital and the whole person. The current study utilised James Rest?s Defining Issues Test 2 (DIT2). The current research is significant from various perspectives including the relationship between moral reasoning and moral action; education for citizenship; social capital; levels of tolerance and the historical conflation of religious and moral education in Ireland. Students made impressive gains in levels of moral reasoning over the four years. Some other main findings that emerged include: students? levels of moral reasoning are considerably lower than their international counterparts; pre-service teacher education students scored higher than students from a number of other academic disciplines and compared very favourably with student teachers in other jurisdictions. Possible explanations for some of these findings are suggested and discussed.