Abstract
The purpose of this study was to evaluate a student-led valuing dilemma technique developed for use in upper secondary classrooms and to determine if variations in required verbal commitment within the technique would produce significant differences in the meanings of the values at issue. The technique was such that the students were placed in modified role-playing positions as members of juries, panels-of-review, judges or close relatives. Each dilemma was a narrative in three parts in which two or more human values were placed in potential conflict, the resolution of which should have dealt with points of moral principle. The topics addressed in the directed, small group discussions involved recent or projected developments in science and technology. Variations in the technique required different degrees of verbal commitment to the explanations of decisions made before the discussions. Commitment ranged from none required to oral presentation of a written explanation. The students selected for the study attended a senior high school in a large suburb of Houston, Texas. The sample was taken from the population of the junior class, 1037 students. A fully randomized control-group posttest only design was used. There were three treatment groups, one group for each variation in required verbal commitment, and one control group. The null hypothesis was that there would be no significant differences among the groups as measured by factor scores obtained from the use of a semantic differential questionnaire. Using stepwise discriminant function analysis, group membership was considered to be the dependent variable and the factor scores derived for each student were considered to be independent variables. Additional analyses were performed to assist in the interpretation of the results. The findings were that the technique produced significant results in terms of difference in concept meanings of the values at issue. The null hypothesis was rejected at the 0.01 level...
Brandt, Terry Alan (1981). Evaluation of a valuing dilemma technique for upper secondary students with variations in required verbal commitment. Doctoral dissertation, Texas A&M University. Texas A&M University. Libraries. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /DISSERTATIONS -147521.