Teacher Reasoning and Moral Judgement in the Context of Student Discipline Situations

Abstract

Twenty‐four high school teachers were interviewed about specific hypothetical discipline incidents in moral and social‐conventional domains, before and after attending an in‐service programme introducing a whole‐school approach to discipline. Their reasoning was found to be related to the teachers’ individual moral judgement levels (as assessed by the Defining Issues Test or DIT). The teachers in the high principled group (DIT‐%P score over 46) responded to the incidents with more perspective coordination, and provided more information in the form of domain‐appropriate rationales, than teachers in the low moral judgement group (DIT‐%P score below 38). The relationship was not constant across discipline incidents. The importance of teachers’ individual moral judgement levels in explaining variations in teachers’ reasoning about the teacher's role in school discipline situations and teachers’ interpretations of educational methods are discussed [1, 2].