An Empirical Investigation of the Moral Judgment Development of a Sample of High School Kuwaiti Teachers.

Recent years have witnessed a growing interest and concern among educationists, psychologists, philosophers and theologians in studying morality and development. Perhaps the major important contribution by a psychologist to the field of development, after Piaget, has been made by the late Harvard psychologists, Lawrence Kohlberg. While Kohlberg relies heavily on previous development theories of Piaget (1932), McDougall (1908), Baldwin (1906), Mead (1934), and Dewey (1895), he nevertheless builds a unique empirical framework allows the observation of normative ethics, research hypotheses, and interpretation of results (Kohlberg, 1969; 1981). Kohlberg (1984) identified three levels and six stages of reasoning: Preconventional Moral Reasoning level: is divided into two stages are characterized by a responsiveness to cultural rules and notions of right and wrong. It is the way children and young adolescents typically think about issues. Individuals' reasoning at stage one, Punishment and obedience orientation, is to avoid breaking rules result in punishment. Individuals at this stage have no internal standard for judging issues and are incapable of understanding another person's point of view. To those at stage two, Instrumental-Relativist Orientation, right is viewed as what is equal or fair. They tend to be concerned about reciprocity and fair exchange (doing something in exchange for something else). When a stage two individual's personal interests are fulfilled, he or she tends to follow established rules. Conventional Level reasoning : It consists of conformity to personal and social expectations, and loyalty to maintaining, supporting, and justifying social order. The two stages at this level are typical of the reasoning of many adults. Interpersonal Concordance or Good Boy-Nice Girl Orientation is the third stage. At this stage, individuals perceive good behavior as pleasing or helping others and being nice. Stage four, Law and Order, is characterized by concern for authority, rules, and enforcement of social duties. Laws are upheld except in extreme cases where they conflict with other fixed social duties (Kohlberg, 1984, p. 175). Postconventional Level reasoning: is Kohlberg's highest level. It is characterized by moral values and principles have validity and application apart from the authority of the or persons holding these principles and apart from the individual's own identification with these groups (Smith, 1978, p. 56). At stage five, Social Contract and Legalistic Orientation, individuals view right in terms of individual rights have been examined and supported by society and they have a clear awareness of the relativism of personal roles and opinions. Stage six, Universal-Ethical-Principled Orientation, is defined as following self-chosen ethical principles are comprehensive, universal, and consistent. The principles are abstract and ethical, not concrete rules or laws (Smith, 1978; Kohlberg, 1984). Kholberg, Rest, and the Defining Issues Test. Kohlberg's work was followed by of James Rest (1941-1999), who concurred with the majority of Kohlberg's theory. However, while Kohlberg's primary interest was to devise a theoretical system to represent the logic of thinking, Rest was also concerned with the development of a valid, reliable measurement instrument could be used to assess ethical reasoning and to test hypotheses about reasoning. Rest (1979) developed the Defining Issues Test (DIT) as an objective test of ethical development based on the six stages defined by Kohlberg. DIT research is based on the assumption that developmental stages of judgment involve distinctive ways of defining social and of evaluating crucial issues in them (Rest, 1979, p. 85). The output of the DIT is a continuous variable, the P-score, is interpreted as the relative importance a subject gives to principled considerations in making a decision about ethical dilemmas (Rest, 1975, p. …