Promoting moral Growth in a Summer sport camp: The Implementation of theoretically Grounded Instructional Strategies

The present field experiment was designed to explore the effectiveness of social learning and structural developmental prescriptions for moral pedagogy in a summer sports camp. Eighty-four children, aged five to seven years, were matched on relevant variables and randomly assigned to one of three classes: (a) social learning, (b) structural developmental, or (c) control. Each of the classes shared similar curricula and was taught by two trained instructors for a six-week period. Educators is the experimental conditions implemented theoretically grounded instructional strategies in their weekly emphasis on specific moral themes. Analyses indicated significant pre-to-post gains on a Piagetian intentionally task and a measure of distributive justice within both experimental groups, but MANCOVA results indicated differences between the experimental and control conditions only approached significance.