Resumen

DONADO TOLOSA, Antonio  y  ZERPA, Carlos Enrique. Effect of a program of compehension of texts with moral content on the structures of moral reasoning of students of the first year of the diversified cycle. Rev. Ped [online]. 2009, vol.30, n.87, pp.247-280. ISSN 0798-9792.

The work studied the effect of a program of comprehension of texts with a moral content in the structures of moral reasoning of students of the first year of the Diversified Cycle at a private school in Caracas. The working hypothesis arose from a reading of Kohlberg’s model of moral development (1992) and sought relationships between this and the models of development of the structures of thought through the analysis of text structure, presupposed in the findings following Narvaez (1999) on the conditional relation between the levels of cognitive development and the structures of moral reasoning that are activated by a reading of a text high on moral content. A quasi-experimental design of a non-equivalent control group was applied that included an experimental group and a control group selected non-randomly. The sample was made up of 86 participants of both sexes with an average age of 16.5 years. The program that the experimental group received was structured on the basis of cognitive and metacognitive strategies of identification of the macro-structure of the text, the recognition of main ideas, the following of thematic progression, the graphic representation of the text and the reading plan, taught through direct methods of instruction. This set of strategies was used not only to enhance comprehension but also to create a climate of analysis and discussion of the most important aspects of text content. A pre-test and post-test on reading comprehension were carried out using non-standardized instruments and the development of moral judgment was made applying the DIT (Defining Issues Test). The results of the post-test showed significant differences in text comprehension in favor of the experimental group but the levels of moral judgment showed minimal differences between the pre- and the post-text, both for the experimental and the control group. Such findings suggest that the aims of improving text comprehension are pertinent also for moral education but to enhance the development of a hierarchy of levels of moral judgment as described by Kohlberg, cognitive and metacognitive strategies of reading comprehension are not sufficient

Palabras clave : Moral development; reading comprehension strategies; direct instruction; moral texts.

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