Comparing Moral Education Models at a Military Academy in Taiwan

• Published in: Journal of academic ethics Vol. 16; no. 2; pp. 173 - 193
• Main Author: Yu, Yi-Ming
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.06.2018; BioMed Central, Ltd; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Administration; Beliefs; Between-subjects design; Cognitive Development; College Freshmen; Cultural Pluralism; Education; Educational Change; Educational philosophy; Educational Quality; Effectiveness; Environmental Influences; Ethical Instruction; Ethics; Evaluative Thinking; Extracurricular Activities; Focus Groups; Foreign Countries; Hidden Curriculum; Imitation; Instructional Effectiveness; Integrated Activities; Interviews; Learner Engagement; Military Schools; Moral education; Moral Values; Organization and Leadership; Social Bias; Social Desirability; Social Values; Teaching Methods; Teaching Models; Thinking Skills; Values Clarification; Taiwan; Character education; Virtue education; Personal education; Moral education; Core value; Soldierly ethos
• ISSN: 1570-1727; 1572-8544
• DOI: 10.1007/s10805-018-9301-x

This study compared the effects of three education models, namely, the bag-of-virtues (BV), values clarification (VC), and virtue ethics (VE) models, through qualitative and quantitative approaches. In the quantitative study (Study 1), a between-subjects design was adopted in sampling 120 freshman cadets from a Taiwanese military academy. For the qualitative study (Study 2), focus group interviews were conducted with 10 freshman cadets. The results show that the VC model was the most effective among the three moral education models, followed by the VE and BV models.