Article

College Students\' Perceptions of Moral Competence: Identifying Moral Competence

Author

이지혜,문용린

Information

pp. 107~128 / 2012 Vol.19 No.3

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify college students\' perceptions regarding the question of ‘moralcompetence’. A free-listing survey was conducted with 150 subjects to elucidate their perceptions of moralcompetence, and the collected qualitative data were analyzed using the ‘Concept Mapping’ methodology. As aresult, 8 categories and 80 competencies were identified. It has been widely thought that the domain of‘Moral-communion’ was the key competency domain required for moral behavior. However, it was found that‘General-personal’ domain competencies were also perceived as equally important as ‘Moral-communion’ domaincompetencies. The domain of ‘Moral-communion’ included items such as ‘Altruistic citizenship(charity anddonation, humanity, caring, etc.)’, ‘Social responsibility and trust(moral self-assurance, consistency, responsible,etc.)’, ‘Pursuing Universal values and general good(conscientious, keeping universal standard)’ and ‘Principled andsense of justice(courage, strong belief of acting, indissolubleness)’. The ‘General-personal’ domain included itemssuch as ‘Pursuing social relationship(sociability, emotional sensitivity, sensitive for other\'s needs, etc.)’, ‘Selfregulation and maturity(self-reflection and introspection, perceptive, positive mind-set, etc.)’, and ‘Achievementand self development(active and spontaneous, love of learning, specific goals and vision, etc.)’. Lastly, thecategory of ‘Fulfillment and the will to act(curiosity, strong will, power of execution, etc.)’ revealed aconcomitant feature of both domains. The results of the importance level test indicated that college studentsperceived the category of ‘Pursuing Universal values and general good’ as the most important in terms of moralcompetence. Office workers\'(M=5.21) perceptions of the importance level regarding 80 moral competences weresignificantly higher(t=-5.21, p<.001) than college students\'(M=5.07). However there were no significantdifferences between office workers and college students\' perceptions of the performance level(M=4.71).

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