The effectiveness of teaching philosophy for children Program at moral maturation in female first secondary school students

The study sought to evaluate the influence of the Philosophy for Children (P4C) program on the moral development of students. Employing a quasi-experimental approach with a pre-test and post-test control group design, the research focused on female lower secondary students in Khoy enrolled in the 2022-2023 school year. Through multi-stage cluster sampling, 38 students from five different schools were selected, with 19 students assigned to the experimental group and 19 to the control group. The curriculum included Iranian narratives with philosophical content, such as Masnavi and The Conference of the Birds, which were presented to the experimental group over fifteen 45-minute sessions. The study conceptualized moral maturity as encompassing three dimensions: moral cognition, moral identity, and moral competence. These dimensions were assessed using the Moral Cognition Questionnaire by Swanson and Hill (1993), the Moral Identity Questionnaire by Aquino and Reed (2002), and the Moral Competence Questionnaire by Hannah and O'Leary (2010). Data analysis involved single-variable and multi-variable covariance analysis. The findings suggest that the P4C program enhanced moral cognition and its sub-components, moral identity and its sub-components, and moral competence. Consequently, P4C appears to be an effective method for fostering moral maturity in students by creating a space for open philosophical dialogue within a research community context and utilizing narratives rich in philosophical content.

Introduction

Paying attention to the mental, physical, moral and spiritual health of students is of particular importance because the health of society depends on the health of its members. Today, more than ever, children and adolescents need to learn and internalize moral principles and benefit from them in their daily lives; for this reason, bringing students to a level of moral maturity, in addition to formal education in various subjects, can be one of the goals of education and upbringing. Moral maturity is one of the most important capacities that, by covering cognitive and motivational structures, is an important predictor of moral performance (Karataş & Sarıcam, 2016). Achieving moral maturity and its growth and development are very important and necessary, especially for adolescents who are at a critical stage of their lives. The main mission of moral maturity is to help individuals choose and carry out moral behaviors (Hassan-Niya and Sheikh-e-Islami, 2019). The core of Piaget's moral theory is moral reasoning, but the individual's behavior may contradict his moral reasoning, or despite sufficient knowledge about good and bad actions and behaviors, he may still face challenges and difficulties in acting morally; for this reason, we increasingly see people who commit immoral acts such as breaking the rules, cheating on exams, lying, aggression, etc.; therefore, moral reasoning alone cannot be a guarantee for acting morally. It seems that there is another variable between moral cognition and performance that is a bridge between moral judgment and action (Abbasi et al., 2018); Blasi calls this concept moral identity. Moral identity means personal self-concept and adherence to moral values ​​and principles (Hardy, 2010), which is the motivation to act morally in behavior. Ethical behavior is the result of the mutual integration of different ethical components (Hardy & Carlo, 2011) and moral identity only provides the necessary motivation to perform ethical behavior, but it is not a sufficient condition. Individuals need to monitor the information used in decision-making situations about how to act and recognize the correct behavior (Sadler-Smith, 2012) and assess the accuracy of the information. This capacity that monitors moral cognition is called metacognition and affects individuals' behavior by enriching existential thoughts with better self-knowledge (Parsai et al., 1400). An often overlooked point is that even having a high moral identity and metacognition may not lead to ethical performance simply because the individual does not have enough self-confidence to perform the behavior; Moral efficacy is the third component of moral maturity (Hasan-Nia and Sheikh-Al-Islami, 2010) which enables individuals to provide the necessary measures for moral performance, along with moral metacognition and moral identity, and to be able to have moral behavior. The sum of the components of moral metacognition, moral identity, and moral efficacy is known as moral maturity.
So far, numerous methods have been used to teach morality and its development, and due to the importance of moral education, there is a need to use effective and new methods and tools to promote the moral maturity of students.
Over the past few decades, a new paradigm in teaching thinking has been proposed by Lippmann under the title of "Philosophy Education Program for Children" and is becoming one of the most common methods of cultivating thinking around the world. The goal of this program is not to philosophize, but rather to engage the child's mind in the form of stories and challenge them by visualizing the complexity of moral action in daily life (Sharp, 1995), thereby strengthening their ability in moral issues (Salmi et al., 2018), reasoning skills, intelligence, and most importantly, critical thinking skills so that children and adolescents learn how to adapt appropriately to situations. The Philosophy for Children (PFC) program was designed by Lipman in 1968. His goal in designing this program was to develop children's thinking ability and wanted children to become more thoughtful, logical, flexible, and considerate people (Norouzi et al., 2015).
 

Materials & Methods

The present research method is quasi-experimental and pre-test and post-test with a control group. The statistical population of the research included all female students of the first year of high school in Khoy city who were studying in the academic year 1401-1402. Using the multi-stage cluster sampling method, 38 students were randomly selected as samples from among the students of five schools; using the Gpower software, the required sample size for each group was calculated as 19 students. Moral maturity consists of moral metacognition, moral identity, and moral efficacy components, which were measured using the moral metacognition questionnaires of Swanson & Hill (1993), moral identity questionnaire of Aquino & Reed (2002), and moral efficacy questionnaire of Hannah & Avolio (2010).
The philosophy education program for children in this study is an educational package consisting of a number of Iranian stories (stories from the fifth book of Rumi's Masnavi and Mantiq al-Tayr by Attar) with philosophical themes and subtext (appropriate to the dependent variables) that play a significant role in developing the imaginative and thinking dimension. The training package was validated using expert validation (CVR value of 0.99) before implementation and was implemented in fifteen sessions by an experienced educational psychologist who had completed the Philosophy for Children program facilitation courses. The duration of the training sessions was approximately 45 minutes.
 

Discussion & Result

In order to investigate the effectiveness of the philosophy education program for children on students' moral maturity, multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) and univariate analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) tests were used.
According to the results of the research, the philosophy education program for children led to a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in the moral metacognition variable (〖Partial η〗^2=0.88, p<0.001, F=42.570) and its components including person (〖Partial η〗^2=0.77, p<0.001, F=56.245), task (〖Partial η〗^2=0.31, p<0.001, F=30.33) and strategy (〖Partial η〗^2=0.61, p<0.001, F=49.112), and the moral metacognition of the experimental group increased.
Also, the philosophy education program for children significantly increased moral identity and its components including internalization (〖Partial η〗^2=0.407, p<0.001, F=511.49) and symbolization (〖Partial η〗^2=0.260, p<0.001, F=241.25) in the experimental group compared to the control group.
Also, the philosophy education program for children resulted in a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in the moral efficacy variable (〖Partial η〗^2=0.63, p<0.001, F=80.127).
 

Conclusion

The philosophy education program for children enables them to learn how to recognize the functions of the mind and brain, methods of developing and strengthening thinking, and optimal use of intellectual powers in a desirable manner, which leads to the development of cognitive skills, the ability to question, moral development, and self-control in them, as a result, the ability of these people to evaluate arguments, understand cause-and-effect relationships, discover and analyze concepts, and also draw correct conclusions from events is enhanced. By creating an attractive exploration opportunity around topics that engage the child's mind, this program, in addition to developing the power of thinking and pondering on issues, leads to reflective thinking, collaborative thinking, a sense of adequacy in producing and cultivating ideas, and moral responsibility (Asl-Marz et al., 2018). In the present study, adolescents, with the help of stories and discussions, became familiar with the moral values ​​and moral norms of society and interacted with them with respect for the beliefs and rights of their peers. Adolescents who can distinguish between good and evil, recognize social norms, and understand the rights of others are more likely to develop and take steps toward moral maturity in moral skills, that is, understanding the values ​​of others and society and transforming them into a form of social behavior.
Philosophical thinking requires thinking about thinking, and a philosophy education program for children helps students learn to examine their thoughts, test the consistency of their thoughts with evidence and assumptions, and evaluate their relationships with everyday activities.
These children and adolescents are more likely to evaluate their behaviors and, if they recognize them as unhelpful and immoral, to abandon them, and to choose moral activities based on their knowledge and experiences. The more knowledge a child or adolescent has about their moral duties, strategies, and cognitive abilities, the higher their moral metacognition and uses this information in their actions.
An adolescent who has a better understanding of the goals, situations, and factors necessary to perform a moral act is more likely to demonstrate high levels of moral behavior than an adolescent who fails to fully understand the nature of a task (Swanson & Hill, 1993); therefore, in the philosophy education program for children, individuals place themselves in story situations, discuss and reason about the story, evaluate and think deeply about the moral situation, and make decisions about moral actions and behaviors, and ultimately their moral metacognition grows.
Meanwhile, philosophy for children is a type of education that combines philosophical methods and content with pragmatic ideas of the research community in order to acquire thinking skills, moral skills, social skills and perspectives necessary for a democratic citizen (Benisi and Mirzaei, 2017). In fact, through the philosophy education program, the research community is formed, thoughts are cultivated, creativity grows and moral principles, namely tolerance, tolerance and acceptance of ambiguity, find an objective manifestation. Therefore, in the PHBEC program, children and adolescents learn in practice that they need a criterion of measurement in the capacity of judgment and judgment and that rejecting or proving a theory without reason is not moral and acceptable, which causes the emergence of a kind of moral self in them. With this moral self and the individual's perception of his moral commitments, higher moral behaviors can be expected from him. Therefore, these adolescents have a high moral identity.
The philosophy education program for children makes children and adolescents refuse to accept crude and unquestioning submission to any belief, as a result of which the socio-moral and ideological consequences of these submissions among them are reduced (Delbery et al., 2010). They become less fascinated by the opinions and attitudes of adults and important people in their lives, and the moral opinions of others can no longer be imposed on them. So that their moral behaviors become independent of the opinions of others and they achieve moral efficacy.