Going Deep into Mechanisms for Moral Reasoning Growth: How Deep Learning Approaches Affect Moral Reasoning Development for First-year Students

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to determine the effects of deep approaches to learning on the moral reasoning development of 1,457 first-year students across 19 institutions. Results showed a modest positive relationship between our measures of deep approaches to learning and moral reasoning at the end of the first year of college even after controlling for precollege moral reasoning. After accounting for a host of demographic and relevant student characteristics and for the natural clustering of students, we found that the integrative learning subscale, which captures students' participation in activities designed to integrate information from varied sources and diverse perspectives, positively affected moral reasoning among first-year students. Implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed.Keywords Moral reasoning development Á Deep learning Á Quantitative Á First-year students Despite the ubiquity of findings linking formal participation in college to moral reasoning development (see Burwell et al

The Impact of Taiwanese College Students’ Learning Motivation from Self-Determination Perspective on Learning Outcomes: Moderating Roles of Multi-Traits

“…Our replication of multi-institutional studies suggests that three DAL constructs could be useful for formative assessment, enabling HEIs to track progress across time and possibly across institutions. This study also supports the implicit hypothesis made by Mayhew, Seifert, Pascarella, Nelson Laird, and Blaich (2012) that higher-order, integrative and reflective learning are themselves manifestations of a higher order learning factor; namely, DAL. Our measurement of three DAL constructs differed from that of Campbell and Cabrera's (2014), as it was found the higher-order learning construct was the most reliable indicator of the second order DAL constructs, with fewer measurement errors.…”

Developing Moral Character

“…These are just two examples in which student affairs practitioners may use critical conversations in which students are asked to: (a) reflect on themselves and situate their ideologies within the broader context of justice in service of the public good, and (b) integrate diverse perspectives as a means to “articulate strategies for grappling with competing hypotheses and points of view” (Mayhew et al., , p. 42). Within a context of challenge and support, these and other approaches can be instrumental in creating transformative learning environments that foster students’ journeys toward moral character development and wise and ethical stewardship.…”

“…Research from the WNS found statistically significant relationships between curricular and cocurricular conditions and moral reasoning development for students in a transitional phase of moral reasoning, but these relationships were not significant for students in a consolidated phase (Mayhew, et al, ). For example, influential peer interactions, number of courses that asked students to connect historical, political, and social events, as well as the number of diversity courses were all positively associated with moral reasoning development at the end of the first year of college for students in a transitional phase of moral reasoning but had no effect for students in a consolidated phase.…”

“…These two studies, in their own unique ways, examined students’ openness to engaging the dissonance and disequilibrium often experienced in the first year of college. What is interesting is that the measures of challenge and support in the Mayhew and colleagues () study (academic challenge and high expectations, and good teaching and high‐quality interactions with faculty) were not significant predictors of moral reasoning development for students in either the transitional or consolidated phases but students’ meaning‐making structures were clearly related to moral reasoning development. Given that past research has suggested the importance of challenge and support in developing learning partnerships to facilitate self‐authorship (Baxter Magolda & King, ), an opportunity appears for student affairs practitioners to challenge and support students in transitional and consolidated phases “by concentrating on the fundamental meaning making orientation of students and utilizing a range of contexts and experiences” (Lindsay et al., , p. 30).…”

Measurements Matter: Taking the DIT-2 Multiple Times and College Students’ Moral Reasoning Development

“…All independent variables were justified by the extensive literature reviews performed by Mayhew (2002, 2005) and by more recent studies conducted by Mayhew (Mayhew and King 2008;Mayhew and Engberg 2010;Mayhew et al , 2012aMayhew et al , 2012b. This body of research demonstrated the relationships present between moral reasoning development as a dependent measure and gender, pre-college characteristics, curricular experiences, and personal views.…”