Andrew Garrod

Fostering Children's Revision Skills through Training in Comprehension Monitoring.

Two studies were conducted to learn if childrens ability to revise problematic texts could be facilitated through training in a comprehension monitoring strategy

Moral Reasoning in a Karmic World

Based on an analysis of Buddhist philosophy and supported by data from interviews with adolescent and young adult Tibetan Buddhist monks, the claim is made that Western moral reasoning theories are in

Culture, Ethnic Conflict and Moral Orientation in Bosnian Children

Previous research has identified two moral orientations in peoples reasoning about moral dilemmas: an orientation to rights, fairness, and justice and another based on care, compassion and concern for others and the self. To investigate the association of political violence and ethnic conflict with childrens preferred moral orientation, two studies were conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the first with 10-12-year-olds and the second with 6-8- and 9-11-year-olds. In the first study, childrens solutions to dilemmas involving animal characters were most likely to reflect an orientation to care and concern rather than to justice and fairness. In the second study, children who responded to stories involving humans were even more likely to offer solutions from the care perspective than those who heard stories about animals. No consistent gender differences were observed. These results were generally similar to those from North American samples; however, the content of Bosnian childrens responses also reflected their experiences with displacement and their concerns about the role of physical power in conflict resolution.

The Development of Moral Orientation in Elementary School Children.

While much research has focused on issues of justice in childrens moral learning, little is known about childrens use of other moral orientations in solving moral problems. A study was conducted with children drawn from Grades 1, 3, and 5 (total n=54). Fables were used as the moral dilemmas, since previous research had shown that they could be solved from either a justice or a care orientation. In individual interviews, children were asked how they would solve the problems in the fables, whether there was a different solution, and what the best solution (justice or care) would be. They were then asked to explain the logic of the solution they offered. The results from the study showed that (a) children tended to adopt a care orientation as their first solution and to consider it the best solution, (b) there were no differences between first- and third-grade boys and girls, (c) solutions involving violence and tricks appeared among the fifth-grade boys only, and (d) the ability to explain the logic of both orientations to the fables problem was correlated with childrens use of abstract reasoning skills on beginning formal operational tasks and with perspective-taking ability.

Children's Moral Orientation: Does the Gender of Dilemma Character Make a Difference?.

Abstract Previous work has found few gender differences in moral orientation among children. Two experiments were conducted with third grade children (8‐year‐olds) to learn if childrens moral orientation would be affected by the gender of dilemma characters: all male, all female, or mixed gender. Children responded to stories in which animal characters faced a conflict. Childrens suggestions as to how the characters should solve their problems were coded as expressing a concern for others (care orientation) or a focus on issues of rights and justice (rights orientation). Both boys and girls showed a small but consistent preference for the care orientation, and their reasoning was not influenced by the gender of the characters. Children tended to misremember female animal story characters as male (Experiment 1), unless an illustration depicting the characters’ gender accompanied the text (Experiment 2). Overall, the results point to the role of childrens literature in creating stereotyped expectations a...

Correlations among field dependence-independence, sex, sex-role stereotype, and age of preschoolers.

Preschoolers (27 boys, mean age = 4.7 yr.; 24 girls, mean age = 4.6 yr.) were assessed for field dependence-independence (Preschool Embedded Figures Test), sex-role stereotyping (Sex-role Learning Inventory), and receptive verbal intelligence (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—Revised). Relative to the girls, the boys were significantly less field-independent and significantly more sex-role stereotyped. After age and Peabody IQs were partialled out by multiple regression, same-sex typing in boys and cross-sex typing in girls were significant predictors of field independence. The regression analysis also suggested that, by 5.3 yr. of age, the boys as a group surpassed the girls on field independence. Limitations of the present research and educational implications of the over-all findings are discussed.

Moral Reasoning among Tibetan Monks: A Study of Buddhist Adolescents and Young Adults in Nepal

This cross-cultural pilot study of moral reasoning had twofold purpose: (a) to examine Kohlbergs model of moral reasoning in a non-Western, historically independent society; and (b) to explore its adequacy for representing comprehensively the moral domain of a Buddhist culture. Twenty adolescent and young adult monks from a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Nepal were administered culturally adapted Kohlberg interviews. The findings support certain assumptions underlying Kohlbergs claim to universality, but raise doubts about the ability of his theory to encompass concepts fundamental to a Buddhist worldview and morality.