The Model and the Measure: an appraisal of the Minnesota approach to moral development

This review provides a critical appraisal of two of the more signiŽ cant contributions of the Minnesota approach to moral development. One contribution is the componential model which describes the four psychological components underlying moral behaviour. Evaluation of this model focuses on the adequacy of its synthesis of disparate processes in moral functioning, its instruments for assessing the four components, and its framework for moral education. A second contribution entails the conceptual and methodological reformulations known as the neo-Kohlbergian approach. Evaluation of this approach focuses on its emphasis on macro-morality, redeŽ nition of post-conventional morality, proposal of three moral schemas and six moral types and assessment of moral judgement with the DeŽ ning Issues Test. This review identiŽ es the most valuable contributions of the Minnesota approach, as well as its most telling limitations. After a full generation of scholarship and practice, the Ž elds of moral psychology and moral education are now emerging from a somewhat tumultuous adolescent period into relative maturity where some stock-taking and consideration of future directions would seem to be developmentally appropriate. This prompts the question: what will be the vision that guides conceptual and empirical scholarship and provides the framework for meaningful interventions? Recently, members of the “Minnesota Group” have initiated a number of signiŽ cant theoretical and methodological innovations that have clearly been intended to revitalise and redirect work in this area, and it is now timely to provide a critical evaluation of these contributions to the Ž eld. The Minnesota approach to moral development initially piggy-backed on the rising tide of Kohlberg’s (1969) moral stage model. The viability of Kohlberg’s enterprise was hampered considerably by his labour-intensive and subjective Moral Judgment Interview (MJI) and coding system (Colby & Kohlberg, 1987); and so Rest (Rest et al., 1974) developed the DeŽ ning Issues Test (DIT) as a multiple-choice alternative to the MJI. The accessibility and easy use of the DIT quickly propelled it to the position of measure-of-choice in the moral development Ž eld. Since its introduction in 1974, over 400 published and hundreds of unpublished studies have ISSN 0305-7240 print; ISSN 1465-3877 online/02/030353-15 Ó 2002 Journal of Moral Education Ltd DOI: 10.1080/0305724022000008160