A Reliability and Validity Study of the Defining Issues Test: The Relationship of Age, Education, Gender and Parental Education with Moral Development.

Abstract The aim of the study is twofold: First and main aim was to develop a valid and reliable Turkish version of the DIT which is one of the most important instruments in the psychology and education research; second is to explore the relationships between moral development and age, gender, education, and parental education. The study group consists of 584 volunteer participants from three universities. As an instrument of the present study, developed and validated Turkish version of the DIT which is Degerleri Belirleme Testi (DBT) was used. Three schemas, personal interests, maintaining norms, and post conventional, were obtained from the instrument. For three schemas obtained from the DIT, the values of Cronbach's alpha and test-retest correlation coefficients change in the range of .53 to .60. Face and content validity of the DIT were also provided. The relationships between moral development and other selected variables (age, education, gender, and parental education) were presented in the findings section. Key Words Moral Development, Reliability and Validity of the DIT, Age, Gender, Education and Parental Education. The most prevalent moral development theory in psychology and educational psychology has been Lawrence Kohlberg's cognitive and developmental moral theory. Several instruments have been developed by the researchers based on the Kohlberg's cognitive and developmental moral theory. One of the most prominent instruments is the Defining Issues Test (DIT). As used throughout the most of the countries, in Turkey, it is necessary to develop and validate a Turkish version of the DIT. Therefore, the main purpose of the present study was to develop a valid and reliable Turkish version of the DIT which is one of the most important instruments in the psychology and education research. Kohlberg's Moral Development and Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development Kohlberg modified and extended Piaget's theory, proposing that moral development is a universal cognitive-continual process that develops in stages. Each stage includes a justice approach which is coherent and separate (Kohlberg, 1969, 1973; Kohlberg & Kramer, 1969). Kohlberg's theory of moral development proposed six stages within three different levels. Preconventional Morality (First and Second Stages): Social expectations are outside ego. Keeping the rules is important because it is a means to avoid punishment. Conventional Morality (Third and Fourth Stages): At this level, agreements, rules, obligations, and expectations occur as a part of ego. Postconventional Morality (Fifth and Sixth Stages): At this level, an individual has the principles of independence, equality, and cooperation. As an alternative to Kohlberg's theory, recently Neo-Kohlbergian researchers (i.e., Minnesota Research Group) proposed a new moral reasoning approach named Schema Theory (Rest, Narvaez, Bebeau, & Thoma, 1999; Walker, 2002). This theory consists of three levels. First level refers to collection of Kohlberg's second and third stages; second level equals to fourth stage; third level refers to collection of fifth and sixth stages. The Effect of Age, Education, and Gender on Moral Development In the literature related to moral reasoning, it was claimed that there are several important variables influencing moral reasoning. Moon (1986) stated that age and education are important needs and prerequisites for students' moral development. Rest, Davison and Robbins (1978) reported that age affects people's judgment about the moral issues. As a result, it can be claimed that there is a consensus among the researchers about the influence of age and education on peoples' moral development (Gielen, 1996; Martin, Shafto, & Vandeinse, 1977; Moon, 1986; Rest, 1975; Rest et al., 1999; Rest, Narvaez, Thoma ve Bebeau, 2000; White, 1975). Rest (1986) did not find a significant relationship between students' moral development and their departments in the university, and Bebeau (2002) reported that there is not any significant relationship between students' moral development and their schools. …