Discuss one or more theories of Moral Understanding and evaluate its conclusions.

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Discuss one or more theories of the development of moral understanding and evaluate its conclusions.

The term morality, according to Shaffer (1993) means “a set of principles or ideals that help the individual to distinguish right from wrong and to act on this distinction.  Morality is important to society, as it would not function effectively unless there is some agreement of what is right and wrong.  There are many underlying processes and environmental factors, which limit or promote social, cognitive and moral development in children.  In modern society, television could be considered to be one of the major influences on a child’s moral development.  

There are three approaches to moral development; the cognitive approach, the psychodynamic approach and the social learning theory.  The Cognitive-Developmental approach of Piaget and Kohlberg studies how children become more able to reason morally and make moral judgements, whereas the Freud’s psychodynamic approach is more concerned with the development of the conscience and moral feelings such as guilt and anxiety.  The social learning theory of Bandura and Mischel investigates the development of moral behaviour and how role models in the family, society and the media, influence it.    

The theory I am going to discuss is Piaget’s Cognitive-Developmental Approach.  His theory of moral development is concerned with how the child’s moral knowledge and understanding change with age.  Piaget saw morality as any system of rules, which governs interaction between people.  The methods of investigation he used to develop his theories were, he looked at the way children imposed rules in their games.  He used games to study the development of children’s moral development as he thought that by studying rules in the context of a game, he could study the child’s spontaneous though directly.  He also, assessed changes in the child’s moral judgements by telling hypothetical stories about children who lied, stole or broke something.  When using hypothetical stories, Piaget was generally more interested in the reasons why the children give the answers they did and not particularly the answers.

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Piaget identifies stages of moral development just as he identified stages with cognitive development.  His theories of the way children think and their moral reasoning goes through a series of stages, as they are adapting to the world, these are also known as the processes of accommodation and assimilation.  He believed that as children’s reasoning about the world changes when they grow older and gain more experience, so does their reasoning about morality.  Their ability to think about the world in more complex ways is what causes them to move on from one stage to the next.  This is ...

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The Quality of Written Communication (QWC) is fine. There are moments - quite abundant in place, actually - where it seems the grammatical standard has slipped. In an exam this is more acceptable due to time constraints and writing pressure, though with coursework, where many drafts and re-drafts are permitted over a long period of time, grammatical/spelling errors like - "It has led to a much more realistic ways of understanding children’s moral development" should not be seen as coursework should be read through for these reasons. Other than that though, the candidate's QWC mark remains quite high.

The Level of Analysis shown here is very good. The candidate has demonstrated an extremely in-depth understanding of at least one moral development theory, and has mentioned - fortifying their answer with extra information (examiners love this) - a number of other beliefs about child development. It is especially nice to see plenty of counter-arguments made against Piaget because it shows the candidate has considered the reality of his theory and those psychologists who have called to question the validity of Piaget's assumptions about child intelligence and thinking ability, though with regards to this answer, it could be said that these counter-arguments should not be lumped towards the end of the essay, as it finishes on a rather pessimistic note otherwise. Where the candidate could also improve is their use of external research. Examiners like to see that the candidates show a strong enthusiasm for their coursework and have conducted external, independent research instilled throughout their response, showing that the candidate has addressed a number of professional sources in order to greatly enhance the strength and validity of their answer with the use of facts from further psychological research into the areas of interest e.g. - the study by which Kohlberg founded his Six-Stage Theory of Moral Development and his article summary (that all psychologists have to write when conducting psychological research). This is just one example, and sometimes such files are accessible without permission, so the candidates should hunt around for good sources - even a simple quote can improve the answer, like this candidate's reference to Schaffer's definition of morality at the start of their coursework.

The Response to the Question here is extensive, and covers a vast array of information pertaining to the proposed question. The candidate shows knowledge of many different theories of moral development and has extensively elaborated on that of the revolutionary Psychologist Piaget. Identifying correctly the beliefs of his method, the candidate shows a sound appreciation of his theory and reasoning behind it. But what the examiners would've liked to have seen more of in this answer is the use of counter-arguments structured throughout the answer, relating to the points made at certain points during the answer e.g. - when the candidate comments on how Piaget studied children's creation of rules when playing a simple game, the candidate could take their comments on how "some research" (which should be named and cited) refutes his belief that children operated at a much higher level of morality than he first thought.