Investigating the Validation of Community of Ethical Inquiry in Moral Education of University Students and its Effect on Prosocial Behaviors

The The objectives of this study were to investigate the validation of the community of ethical inquiry in moral education of university students and the effect of this educational approach on their tendency towards prosocial behaviors. This quasi-experimental study was based on a pretest-posttest control group design. The research population comprised of all undergraduate students at Shiraz universities. Of the study population, 32 ones voluntarily chose to take part in this study. The experimental group consisted of 14 students who were taught based on the community of ethical inquiry and the control group consisted of 18 students who were taught based on the conventional method of teaching. Then, the Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (Ricketts & Rood, 2005), the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1980), and the Multidimensional Measure of Prosocial Behavior (Nelson et al., 2017) and the Prosocial Tendencies Measure, Revised (Carol Et al., 2010) were used as the research instruments of this study and for collecting data in both pretesting and posttesting stages. Based on the results of multivariate analysis of covariance, a statistically significant difference was observed between the two groups in their critical thinking, creative thinking, caring thinking and prosocial behaviors after intervention. Accordingly, the community of ethical inquiry approach was revealed as effective in promoting students' critical thinking, creative thinking, and caring thinking. The Community of Ethical Inquiry Approach, focuses on all existential dimensions, such as cognitive, emotional, aesthetic, and behaviorial dimensions, in moral education and is based on dialogue and collective understanding; therefore, it can have a great influence on students’ prosocial behavior.