Making ethics teaching more effective with a three step model

Hans Teke

doi:10.1007/s40889-020-00110-2

Abstract

In this study, the impacts of two different “methods” for teaching ethics as part of the religious education in the Swedish upper secondary school were compared by means of a non-randomized controlled trial in two parts, involving 542 students. The question was which “method” had the greatest capacity to generate long-term ethical awareness in the students. The intervention condition consisted of students whose teachers were instructed to teach according to the Three Step Model, a teaching method influenced by research concerning how moral autonomy and ethical awareness could be increased by means of instruction and training. The control condition consisted of students whose teachers were instructed to teach basically as usual but with some added guidelines. During the trial, all students were given a pre-test before the ethics section had started and a post-test 10–12 weeks after it was finished. When quantified and summarized, the results showed an advantage of the intervention condition in measure B (development of demonstrable knowledge) but an advantage of the control condition in measure A (self-assessed ethical awareness); however, the advantage of the intervention condition was clearer and stronger. Even though the intervention students did not experience a stronger development, they appeared to have learned significantly more, not least in terms of procedural knowledge in ethical problem solving. The tentative conclusion is therefore that the Three Step Model is a more effective method for increasing ethical awareness, at least if one defines ethical awareness and measures it the way it was done in this study.

Highlights

In this study, the impacts of two different “methods” for teaching ethics as part of the religious education in the Swedish upper secondary school were compared by means of a non-randomized controlled trial in two parts, involving 542 students
One way of doing it would be to compare at least two different ways of teaching ethics in this regard and see which one is the most effective. This was done in a large-scale quantitative study, a non-randomized controlled trial, in which an intervention was made in the ethics section of the religious education in the Swedish upper secondary school
What we have seen in this study is that the intervention group, whose teachers followed the Three Step Model, scored higher in measure B while the control group, whose teachers just followed the basic teaching guide, scored higher in measure A

Summary

Introduction

The impacts of two different “methods” for teaching ethics as part of the religious education in the Swedish upper secondary school were compared by means of a non-randomized controlled trial in two parts, involving 542 students. One way of doing it would be to compare at least two different ways of teaching ethics in this regard and see which one is the most effective This was done in a large-scale quantitative study, a non-randomized controlled trial, in which an intervention was made in the ethics section of the religious education (a mandatory but nonconfessional subject) in the Swedish upper secondary school (covering the ages 16– 19). Both of them aimed to improve the teaching practice in their respective areas by identifying the characteristics of the instructions that generated the largest effect sizes What both analyses indicated was that the best results were achieved when the instruction had a cognitive orientation, i.e. aimed at giving the students strategies for ethical problem solving or reasoning – that is, without the dependence on normative theories They go from solving the problem heteronomously, i.e. with reference to a moral rule or authority, to solving it more autonomously, i.e. with arguments from the concrete situation (Kavathatzopoulos 1993, p. 384.) In a word, they become better at solving ethical problems deliberately by themselves, which does not necessary mean that they become “better” or more altruistic people, but rather that they become less prone to make blind, hasty or one-eyed decisions, which we do when strong emotions are involved. (Kavathatzopoulos and Rigas 2006, p. 55 f)

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