Teacher Ability to Predict Middle Level Student Responses to Ethical Dilemmas

Abstract

As an indication of their understanding of the moral development of middle level students, 87 teachers were asked to predict student responses to the behavior of fictitious students in an ethical dilemma scenario. Two hundred and thirteen students in grades 6, 7, and 8, were asked to rank fictional characters in a scenario from least admired to most admired. Eighty-seven teachers were also asked to rank the characters as they believed students would rank them. Choices of the least admired and the most admired character for students and teachers were compared using the chi square statistic. Results indicate that teachers were able to predict which characters students would admire the least but were unable to predict which characters the students would most admire. Grade level and gender differences among the students and subsequent teacher predictions were also noted.