The University Elite Athletes’ Moral and Social Value Reasoning with Validating the Korean Version of the RSBH Value Judgement Inventory

Abstract

The purposes of this study were three fold: (1) to examine university elite athletes’ moral and socal value reasoning differences depending on the general descriptive characteristics (gender, age, how long he/she participated in sport), (2) to examine the consistence if questions about perceived moral action correlate with moral reasoning on the RSBH, and (3) to validate the Korean version of the RSBH Value Judgement Inventory. We randomly selected sample as 122 university elite athletes. The translated instrument used was the RSBH, a valid and reliable US instrument to measure moral and social value reasoning. The females had significantly higher scores with moral value reasoning than males. Using ANOVA, we found there were no significant differences among answers related with moral value reasoning. There were significantly differences between their perceptions of how they play and with moral reasoning scores. In conclusions, the university elite athletes appear not to follow sportsmanship and fair play when they actually play game, even though they thought that they have to play with sportsmanship and fair play.