Browsing by Author "Moodley, Trevor"

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    The relationship between moral reasoning and perceptions of family functioning during adolescence
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2003-03) Moodley, Trevor; Ackermann, C. J.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Educational Psychology.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study focused on the moral development of adolescents, their perceptions of their families' functioning in terms of various dimensions and the relationship between these perceptions and adolescents' levels of moral development. The research group comprised of 268 learners attending an Afrikaans secondary school. All the participants had Afrikaans as their first language and they were catergorised into two age cohorts; namely the 13/14-yearolds and the 17/18-year-olds. Gender was also represented in the study. The participants' levels of moral reasoning were measured by the Menings oor Sosiale Optrede Vraelys (MOSOV), an unstandardised instrument that was formulated in terms of Kohlberg's cognitive-developmental theory of moral development. This instrument consisted of six moral dilemmas. According to Kohlberg's theory moral development is culturally universal and follows an invariant sequence of stages. Furthermore, moral judgment takes place on three levels, the pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional levels. The pre-conventional level usually develops during childhood, most adolescents and adults will only reach the conventional level and only a small percentage of adults will reach the postconventional level of moral reasoning. Participants' perceptions of family functioning were measured by the Family Functioning in Adolescence Questionnaire (FFAQ). This standardized instrument measures family functioning in terms of six dimensions, namely: structure, affect, communication, behaviour control, value transmission and external systems. The results for moral reasoning levels indicated that the post-conventional level was the most common level of moral reasoning used by participants (at least 56% of the time). This tendency was represented for both age and gender variables within the research group. The second most common level of moral reasoning was the conventional level. Only a small representation of the pre-conventional level occurred. The results were inconsistent with Kohlberg's theory in terms of the proportional representation of the three levels. The results for participants' perceptions of their families' functioning indicated that their perceptions of family functioning for each of the dimensions, was mainly average (mean stanine scores of 4-6 were obtained). Significant mean differences between the various research groupings were also found for some of the dimensions. The results indicated that only two of the MOSOV's moral dilemmas correlated significantly with some of the family functioning dimension mean scores. One was a positive correlation whilst the other was a negative correlation. The general absence of significant relationships and the presence of a significantly negative correlation between moral reasoning levels and perceptions of family functioning was inconsistent with the literature that generally supports the view that a positive relationship exists between family functioning and moral development of the adolescent. A secondary focus was to measure the construct validity and reliability of the MOSOV instrument for this study, since this was an unstandardised instrument. The results showed that construct validity was present but reliability was not high enough. The results of the study therefore need to be treated with circumspect.