Influence of Constructive Controversy on Children's Moral Development

Constructive Controversy has been increasingly used in educational settings to encourage critical thinking about curricular issues of interest. Most of the research to date has focused on academic achievement and higher order thinking skills in the participants. This study examined the impact constructive controversy had upon students¿ moral development; specifically looking at Rest¿s four components of moral development and the associated sets of ethical skills. The students involved were third through fifth graders in two mixed grade classrooms in a suburban public elementary school. Half the participants were assigned to work individualistically on a curriculum based moral issue and the other half were assigned to work on the same issue using the constructive controversy procedure. The constructive controversy procedure had a statistically positive effect on three of the four components of moral development after the two week course of the study.