Studying the Effectiveness of Real Life Dilemmas and Morals and Values Clarification Methods on Emotional Expectations and Moral Decision Making of Teenage Girls

The current study aimed to examine the effect of real life dilemmas and the morals and values clarification methods on emotional expectations and moral decision making of teenage girls. The statistical population consisted of all high school first-grade girls in the academic year of 2013-2014 in Yasouj city. The sample consisted of 90 female students selected by multistage cluster sampling method and randomly divided into three (30 people) groups. All groups completed a set of emotional expectations and moral decision making scenarios (Malti &Killer، 2011) as a pre-test and post-test. Two groups received training methods and one group was considered as the control group. One of the experimental groups was instructed by values clarification methods and the other one was instructed by real life dilemma in eight instructional sessions of 70 minutes، while the control group received no intervention. The data were analyzed by ANCOVA and MONOVA tests. The results showed that teaching methods improve students'' moral decision – making and emotional expectations. Regarding the mean differences، it can be claimed that instruction by real life dilemma improves the emotional expectations and moral decision making more than the morals and values clarification. The comparison of the two methods suggested that both of them were effective in enhancing moral decision making and emotional expectations. However the differences in the means confirmed that real life dilemma was more successful in improving them.