Analysis of Growth Curve Modeling of Students’ Moral Reasoning on Applications of Modern Biotechnology
Keywords:
Application of Modern Biotechnology, Growth Curve Modeling, Moral ReasoningAbstract
This study examined the growth of students’ moral reasoning on the moral dilemma of applications of modern biotechnology. A total of 206 high school students participated in this study. They underwent four waves of assessment over one semester. We validated a hypothesized model of longitudinal data using a multilevel analysis framework by Mplus 8.0. The results showed that 32.6% of the total variance was due to individual differences (intraclass coefficient = .326). There was variation in terms of students’ initial moral reasoning scores ( = 2.719, p < .001). At an intrapersonal level, moral reasoning can be explained by time and moral sensitivity. Moral reasoning would increase by 0.19 point in each subsequent measurement (p < .05). At an interpersonal level, the mean of initial moral reasoning was 11.33 points (p < .01) and at the initial point, girls scored 1.377 points more than boys on the moral reasoning measure. Knowledge of DNA technologies and previous biology achievement could not explain the within- and between-person variance of moral reasoning, respectively. The pedagogical implications for moral education were also discussed.
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