The Teacher Intermediate Concept Measure as an Intervention Tool Summary

• In Event: Professional Ethics for Future Teachers: Toward a Common Vision

Abstract

Perspectives
The process of moral decision-making within professions is typically organized around issues of confidentiality, competence, informed consent, allocation of resources and professional autonomy, called Intermediate Concepts (ICs). Intermediate concepts and the associated principles are contextual and central to the moral dimensions of professions. They provide concrete guides for behavior; they contrast general moral schemas that are concerned with issues of fairness, justice and equality. Teaching is inherently a moral profession. Teachers are tasked with making daily decisions about what to teach, how to assign grades, how allocate resources and how to discipline students. They guide students as they realize the self, specifically their moral identity, transmit values and norms that enable students to become good citizens and engage in society (Bull, 1993; Sanger & Osguthorpe, 2013). Despite its very moral mission, teacher education programs have not emphasized moral education nor developed the means to test whether or not teachers apply their professional ethical standards in a meaningful way. Additionally, scholars have noted “the problematized gap between educators’ concern for the moral work of teaching and the lack of substantive, explicit attention to it within teacher education” (Sanger & Osguthorpe, 2011 p.570).

Purpose
This paper focuses on using the Teacher Intermediate Concept Measure (TICM) as an educational intervention to stimulate moral reasoning growth in education students.

Methods and Data Sources
To test these findings students will be presented with the stories in the TICM and asked to find the ethical concepts embedded in each story. Next students will be asked to rate and rank justification options. If students fail to match options with expert opinion they will receive a review session on moral theory. The final phase of the intervention will involve a group problem-solving task to find the most preferred course of action. Achieving group consensus provides each student with continuous peer feedback as they debate and negotiate their way to a unanimous decision. Students will complete the TICM and DIT-2 at the beginning and end of the intervention in order to investigate if the intervention produced gains in moral reasoning.

Results
In addition to its use as an outcome measure, the TICM has the potential to be used as a moral education intervention in teacher education programs. The intervention will provide active practice in problem solving that will bridge the gap between educational philosophy theory and specific prescriptions in teaching. Intervention studies reveal that dilemma discussion, instruction on moral development theory and social role-taking with guided reflection is associated with significant gains in moral reasoning of education students (Cummings, Harlow & Maddux 2007; Hurt & Sprinthall, 1977; Reiman & Peace 2002).

Scholarly significance
The goal is to raise the moral consciousness of pre-service teachers and aid in the development of strategies that result in sound moral judgments.

Author

• Shani Kerr, University of Florida