Calling for character education: promoting moral integrity in early childhood education in Jordan

ABSTRACT

The study aimed to provide insights into the moral integrity of children in one Jordanian school in Amman. In the absence of values, the situation in Jordanian schools continue to deteriorate ethically, there is an increase in cheating, bullying, and vandalism. Therefore, this study aimed to measure the effectiveness of a character education program that was implemented in one private school on 6-7-year-old children (N-47). The study measured the improvement in children’s moral integrity in four different dimensions (empathy, honesty, respect and courage). A tool was developed to measure children’s moral integrity (CMIS) through comparison of pre and post data. The results indicated a significant increase in all dimensions of the moral integrity scale in the post test in favor of the experimental group. Moreover, there was no significant difference in the post test in the moral integrity overall scale according to gender. Recommendations and implications for future research were presented.

KEYWORDS:

• Child integrity
• child character education
• children moral integrity scale
• morals
• honesty
• empathy
• respect
• courage

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr. Amy Betawi is an associate professor of Early Childhood Education at the faculty of educational sciences at The University of Jordan. She supervises graduate students, serves as an editor on the editorial board of several international journals such as: The International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, Journal of Teacher Education, World Journal of Educational Research. Dr. Betawi served as an Assistant Dean for Quality Assurance at the faculty of educational sciences and Faculty of Graduate Studies for two consecutive years. She is an active individual, with several research publications in ECE, children’s social development, early childhood teachers’ education and beliefs, refugees and father involvement studies. She is a child advocate and an active community member who participates in several activities in (lectures, radio and TV interviews) to spread awareness about several early childhood issues.

ORCID

Amy Betawi http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6936-9912