Teaching Adolescents to Think and Act Responsibly Through Narrative Film-making: A Qualitative Study Christina Garchinski, Dipl. A. A., B.A. (Hons.), B.Ed. Department of Graduate and Undergraduate Studies in Education Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Education Faculty of Education, Brock University St. Catharines, Ontario © Christina Garchinski, 2015 Abstract The current qualitative study examined an adapted version of the psychoeducational program, Teaching Adolescents to Think and Act Responsibly: The EQUIP Approach (DiBiase, Gibbs, Potter, & Blount, 2012). The adapted version, referred to as the EQUIP – Narrative Film- making Program, was implemented as a means of character education. The purpose of this study was three-fold: 1) to examine how the EQUIP – Narrative Film-making Program influenced student’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviours; 2) to explore the students’ and the teacher’s perception of their experience with the program; and 3) to assess whether or not the integrated EQUIP – Narrative Film-making Program addressed the goals of Ontario’s character education initiative. Purposive sampling was used to select one typical Grade 9 Exploring Technologies class, consisting of 15 boys from a Catholic board of education in the southern Ontario region. The EQUIP – Narrative Film-making Program required students to create moral narrative films that first portrayed a set of self-centered cognitive distortions, with follow-up portrayals of behavioural modifications. Before, during, and after intervention questionnaires were administered to the students and teacher. The student questionnaires invited responses to a set of cognitive distortion vignettes. In addition, data was collected through student and teacher interviews, and researcher observation protocol reports. Initially the data was coded according to an a priori set of themes that were further analyzed according to emotion and values coding methods. The results indicated that while each student was unique in his thoughts, feelings, and behavioural responses to the cognitive distortion vignettes after completing the EQUIP program, the overall trends showed students had a more positive attitude, with a decreased proclivity for antisocial behaviour and self-serving cognitive distortion portrayed in the vignettes. Overall, the teacher and students’ learning experiences were mainly positive and the program met the ii learning expectations of Ontario’s character education initiative. Based on these results of the present study, it is recommended that the EQUIP – Narrative Film-making Program be further evaluated through quantitative research and longitudinal study. iii Acknowledgements It is my pleasure to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to a number of people who deserve acknowledgment for their support during the completion of my master of education thesis. First, I would like to convey my heartfelt gratitude to my research advisor, Dr. Ann- Marie DiBiase, for her expertise, wise guidance, and ongoing assistance throughout the thesis process. Her mentorship, patience, and kindness made my graduate experience an extremely positive one. I would also like to sincerely thank the other members of my committee, Dr. John Novak, and Dr. Michael Savage for their valuable comments, insights and academic support. My gratitude is also extended to the teacher and students who took part in this research study. I appreciate their hard work on the character education project and the effort they put into completing the research questionnaires. Without these participants this research would not have been possible. I would also like to recognize and express my sincere appreciation for the financial assistance from the Department of Graduate and Undergraduate Studies in Education at Brock University through the DGS entrance scholarship, the graduate fellowships, the Bluma Appel - Education entrance scholarship, and the Dr. and Mrs. R. Moriyama graduate fellowship award. These acknowledgements would not be complete without giving thanks to my parents and family for their support and encouragement during the completion of this research. In particular, I wish to thank my husband, Stephen Sagar. His staunch and loving support gave me the confidence to believe I was capable of accomplishing my academic goals. iv Table of Contents Page Abstract ................................................................................................................................ ii Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................. iv List of Tables ....................................................................................................................... viii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY ..................................................... 1 Background to the Problem ...................................................................................... 2 Statement of the Problem Context ............................................................................ 6 Purpose of the Study ................................................................................................. 7 Research Questions ................................................................................................... 9 Rationale for the Study ............................................................................................. 10 Theoretical Framework ............................................................................................. 12 Importance of the Study ............................................................................................ 14 Participants ................................................................................................................ 15 Scope and Limitations of the Study .......................................................................... 15 Outline of the Remainder of the Document .............................................................. 16 Definition of Terms ................................................................................................... 17 Summary of Chapter One ......................................................................................... 24 CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ........................................................ 25 Literature Establishing the Theoretical Framework ................................................. 26 The Co-primacy Approach to Moral Development ...................................... 27 The Narrative Approach to Moral Development .......................................... 32 Psychocinematics: Editing Film and Moral Development ........................... 36 Theory of Mind and Moral Development ..................................................... 38 Historical Theoretical Origins of Moral Education .................................................. 39 Socrates’ Moral Theory ................................................................................ 40 Plato’s Moral Theory .................................................................................... 41 Aristotle’s Moral Theory .............................................................................. 44 Hume’s Moral Theory ................................................................................... 45 Kant’s Moral Theory ..................................................................................... 47 Moral Education Theory in the 21st Century ............................................................ 49 The Traditional Character Education Approach ........................................... 51 The Behavioural Approach to Moral Education ........................................... 53 The Social-Cognitive Domain Approach to Moral Development ................ 54 The Cognitive-Development Approach to Moral Development .................. 56 The Interpersonal Caring Approach to Moral Development ........................ 63 The Emotion and Empathy Approach to Moral Development ..................... 66 The Neuroscience / Evolutionary Approach to Moral Development ........... 70 The Social Intuition Approach to Moral Development ................................ 74 Empirical Intervention Studies Regarding Moral Growth Curricula ........................ 76 The Character Education Approach .............................................................. 76 The Social and Cognitive-Behavioural Approaches ..................................... 81 Summary of Chapter Two ......................................................................................... 87 v Page CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY AND RESEARCH DESIGN .............................. 89 Purpose of the Study ................................................................................................. 89 Research Questions ................................................................................................... 89 Qualitative Research Approach ................................................................................ 90 Research Methodology ............................................................................................. 92 Research Design ........................................................................................................ 95 Justification of Research Methods Implemented .......................................... 96 Procedure ...................................................................................................... 96 Data