Abstract

The purpose of this research project is to determine the effect of moral Education on students’ behavioral development in the Buea municipality. The study was guided by three specific objectives which were to investigate  the effect of moral sensitivity on students behavioral development,  the effect of moral judgment on students behavioral development and the effect of moral character on students’ behavioral development.

The students made use of 3 theories  which are the  Kohberg’s theory  of moral development, (2014) the theory of moral  Education by Micheal Hand (2017) and the Behavioral theory by Bandura (2018)  the study made use of the descriptive  survey research design    with sample size of 60 students from three secondary schools in Buea municipality.

The questionnaire was used to collect data for the study. The descriptive statistics was use to analyze the data collected from respondents done and presented with the use of sample percentages, tables and figures.  The finding of this study revealed that moral sensitivity, moral judgment and moral character affect students’ behavioral development in the Buea municipality.  Based on the finding it was recommended that schools

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

Many students are entering schools without the basic value that has built this country. Depressing report of students cheating, lack of self-discipline and a lack luster approach to school work are common.

The autonomous development of one’s own value orientation and the ability to reflect on values are now more important moreover, the tendency towards globalization has broaden the cultural spectrum in which many people live and society has become more diverse. This raises the question “How can school prepare students to participate in the sociocultural practices of the society and to make their own choices.

The person that we develop into these students is influence by our community, family and school shall need to be taught respect and responsibility because it is important, not just in response to a negative incident that occurs.

A complete education meets the academic and social needs of students in a proper learning environment. Student need more than to just be told to do well in school or be on their best behavior. They should act in certain ways. The goal of implementing character education is to provide children with the knowledge of become respectful of themselves and other as well as resist negative peek pressure.

To sustain a comfortable learning atmosphere, students need to interact with others in a positive manner and maintain good behavior during instructional time. Moral Education addresses the way students feel about themselves and negative behavior. In this way, applying moral education practices will improve the student behavioral development.

Background Of The Study

Throughout history, Education has had two primary goals. To educate people intellectually and to teach them to be morally good when the first common schools were founded in the new world, moral education was the prime concern. New England puritans believes the moral code resided in the bible.

Before it was imperative that, children be taught to read, thus having access to its grounding wisdom. As early as 1642 the colony of Massachusetts passed a law requiring parents to educate their children. In 1647 the famous old deluder Satan act strengthened the law. Without the ability to read the scripture, children would be prey to the snare of Satan (Wattz, 2011). More specifically, children need to learn how to live harmoniously in the society

Historically, the mission of schools has been to develop in the young both the intellectual and the moral virtues. Concern for the moral virtue such as honesty, responsibility, respect for others is the domain of moral education. Standard of behavior or principles of wrong and right is known as moral Berkowitz, (2002). In the society as a whole, everybody is expected to have a certain standard of behavior. In this case students are not left out.

According to Springer hink, (2015).moral Education refers to as helping children and young people to acquire a set of beliefs and values regarding what is right and wrong. Moral Education also helps children develop the disposition to act in accordance with such beliefs and values.

According to Durkheim (2018) in the early 80s, amide the widespread concern over student’s poor academic achievements and behavior, Educators, rediscovered the word character. Moral education had a religious tinge which made many uneasy. In the 1960s the Bible was the source in public schools for moral introduction.  When differences arose over which bible to use, the MCGUFFEY reader was introduce as a way to teach, the virtue of history had wothriftiniss, kindness, patriotism.

According to fild, 2001, in the early 1960s and 1970s, moral Education change dramatically when value verification, moral delima discussion and decision making, processes replace the traditional emphasis on learning right from wrong and acting right. These programme failed to distinguish between the personal preferences of students and true moral values.

Damon (2003) said that every enduring community has a moral code and it is the responsibility and the concern of its adult to instill this code in the hearts and mind of its young. Since the advent of schooling, adult have expected to contribute positively to the moral Education of children watt (20110 states that moral Education began in Europe and laid its foundation for the formal American system of Education During the late 18th century, moral programmes in America, were replacing religion as the purveyor of moral development for many young Americans.

New Delihitime com (2018) advocated that moral Education is important as it teaches diversity, tolerance, mutual respect and pluralistic values. Moral values are values that express ideas about the good life. As such, concern for the moral virtues, such as honesty, responsibility and respect for others is the domain for moral Education.

Chanz (2003) states that, formal Education had a distinctly moral and religion emphasis. Harvard College was founded to prepare clergy for their work. The founders writing particularly those of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John and Abigail Adams and Benjamin Franklin, are filled with admonitions that their new country make Education a high priority. While the early leaders saw economic reasons for more and longer schooling. They were convinced that the form of government they were adopting was at heart, a moral compact among people, nineteenth century. As the young republic took shape, schooling was promoted for both secular and moral reasons. In 1832, a time when some of the founding fathers were still alive.

Abraham Lincoln wrote in his first political announcement (march 9 1832), I desire to see a time when education and by its means, morality”. Sobriety, enterprise, and industry shall become much more general than at present: Harace Mann, the 19th century champion of common school strongly advocated for moral education due to a wide spread  of drunkenness, crime and poverty during the Jackson period in which they lived. Still in the 19th century teachers were hired and trained with the clear expectation that they would advance the moral mission of school and attend a character formation literature, biography, and history were taught with the explicit intension of infusing children with high moral standards and good examples to guide their lives. Students copy book headings offered morally uplifting thoughts: Quarrel some persons are always dangerous companions and praise follows exertion”. The most successful text books during the 10th century and early 20th century were filled with moral stories, urging and lesions.

During this period of our evolution as a nation, moral education was deep in the very fabric of our schools. The difference religion cause moral education to become problematic. In the United States, as a group of colonies and later as a new nation, the overwhelming dominant religion was Protestantism.

The root of the moral code waves of  immigrations from Ireland, Germany, and Italy came to the country from the mid- 19th century forward, the pan- pro testament tone and orthodoxy of the schools came under scrutiny and a reaction set in. Weaned from their faith. Catholics develop their own school system. Later in the 20th century, other religious group such as Jews. Muslims and formed their own schools. Each group describes, and continued to desire that its moral education be rooted in its respective faith code.

Coles (2007) explains that, during the last quarters of the twentieth century, as many schools attempted to ignore the moral dimension of schooling, three things happened, achievements scores began to decline discipline and behavior problem increased, and voices were raised accusing the school of teaching secular humanism.

As the same time, educations were encouraged to address the moral concerns of students using two approaches: Value clarification and cognition developmental moral education.

According to Einstein (2001) state that for educational system is better in Cameroon, the educational system should be holistic: inclusive of evidence of a well-integrated personality with positive intellectual and skills, socio –cultural and emotional dispositions, religious and moral norms. Accordingly, the education of then whole person must be grounded on moral and religious values such as obedience, order, strengthening conscience as well as honesty.

These values are inculcated both at home and in school. Although, different philosophical and educational theories of divers proximate aim and ends of education, they all point to the development and formation of one’s personality.

Education then in its fullest sense is a moral enterprise. It is continuous effort to guide the learner to know and practice what is good and what is ethical and to guide him/ her to live a life that is meaningful. Thus, education, by its method, curriculum and goal, is supposed to be holistic.

Many aspect of student’s life are constitutive element of moral Education. The school $ the character as a moral person, for instance are extremely significant for student’s moral development. (Kohlberg’s just community approach to moral education (power et al 2000) has been very influential on research on research into the moral climate in schools.

This approach focuses on how schools can be transformed into democratic, moral communities and on effects of the moral atmosphere on students moral development, besides school, culture, teachers as moral examples and the interaction between teachers and students have a significant influence on students (Hansen 2001, oser 1994, pring 2010. Hansen (2001) makes a distinction between moral education and education as a moral endeavor?

He suggests that although many moral applications of teaching as an endeavor is inherently moral. In contrasts moral Education refers to the deliberate teaching of particular values, attitude and disposition to stimulate the pro-social and moral development of student’s. In this regard we focus on curriculum oriented approaches to moral Education that have the deliberate aim of enhancing student’s pro-social and moral development.

Looking at the curriculum means that will concentrate on teaching strategies and instructional designs at the classroom level & on the learning activities of students. This lane of approach has receive less attention than the school culture and the teacher as moral exemplar as in the relation to the moral development of student.Solomo et al. (2001) discuss a number of schools base project or curricular that focus mainly on primary Education. They mention a few imperical students.

The belief and the role of characters regarding the aim of moral Education for sustainability in Cameroon. The studies raise three questions concerning the view of teachers. And the practice of character morals in the classroom. It was important to explore the answers of these questions to solve societal and ethical issues such as globalization moral judgment, character Education and citizen participator.

There are few instances that have opened the door. Of discussion and ethical decline that has not only affected the moral values in present time but also harmpact the sustainable growth of morality.

Therefore, characters percephication  and believes about the aim of moral Education and the areas that are necessary to be learn by the students are significant because characters play a vital role in the moral development of the students additionally this research may contribute to the global and park cularlyasion literature of University characters professionalism in term of moral transformers.

According to (NCI thesaurus) school culture the evolution of actions, including reactions and responses to the environment, over an individual’s lifespan. By Americans psychologist Association (2020)Parents are the primary adult in children’s live. They provide children with emotional and physical bonds.

They are the main role model who influence children’s physical, social and mental spiritual and moral development. Children spend an incredible amount of time in school. School and school culture have a great impact on student moral development.

According to shumaker and Heckel (2007), most children are behavioral development has three goals: To understand human development from a behavior analytic perspective To reach out to developmental specialists with the innovations that behavior analytic approaches have provided.

To publish behavior analytic interventions that measures and promote development and change specifically educational and clinical interventions that stimulate research in evidence based practices.Theoretically the researcher will use 3 theories to back up her work. The Kohlberg theory of moral development (2014), a theory of moral Education by Michael Hand (2017) and Bandura social learning theory (2018

Finally, there is an urgent need for parents, teachers, educational and governments to re-engage the hearts, minds and hands of children in forming their own characters, helping them to know the good, love the good and do the good in a holistic manner. The moral challenge placed before us by secular education needs to be tacked with utmost seriousness and caution in Cameroon schools. Moral Education is an urgent task and should be the sole and continuous focus all schools in Cameroon.

Statement Of The Problem

Some of these students exhibit acceptable behavior like obedient, politeness, honesty and decency while some of them are truant, dishonest, undisciplined, and disobedience and have become threat in school and the society as a whole.

The school and the society faced problems like bullying, sexual immorality the use of weapons against their friends, the abuse of drug like, tramadore and marijuana. This has affected the student’s academic performance and behaviors both in school and at home and has also affected the society as a whole. Many principals spent a significant amount of time dealing with these students in appropriate behaviors.

Civilization weaken where their principles and believes break down. One of the most basic responsibilities of adults is to pass on values that will help children succeed in life. Children are not born with knowing how to act appropriately, “Moral Education is the deliberate effort to cultivate virtue that is objectively good human qualities that are good for the individual person and food for the whole society” (Likona, 2003). Children are the future & therefore need to be prepared for it by our families, community and Educational System.

Moral Education as a research in this study maybe one of the ways for the educational system to help Children develop into more responsible young adults. Through moral Education programmes which are pro-active approaches to improve discipline in our schools. Being a responsible student began with self-control and strong values. The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of moral Education students when they are not under supervision of their classroom teacher.

Objective Of The Study

The main objective of the study is to examine the effect of moral Education on student’s behavioral development in secondary schools in Buea Municipality.

Specific Objective

1. To examine the effect of moral sensitivity on the behavioral development of students in secondary schools in Buea Municipality
2. To examine the effect of moral judgment on the behavioral development of student’s in secondary schools in Buea Municipality
3. To examine the effect of moral character of students behavioral development in secondary schools in Buea Municipality