Teaching Values Through The Moral Dilemma Approach in Social Studies Course

The aim of this study is to demonstrate experimentally how to be gained of values which are anticipated to teach in Social Studies curriculum, through the approach of moral dilemma and to reveal the impact of this approach on students' moral thinking processes. In this study, three values “responsibility, helpfulness and sensitivity to the natural environment” were selected that were targeted to teach in six grade social studies course. As a tool of data collection in research, moral dilemma scenarios which were prepared by the researchers, was used. Themes were formed in accordance with Kohlberg's Moral Development Theory while content analysis method that was chosen for analysis of obtained data, was performing. In conclusion, it was observed that moral assessments of participants were in conventional level mostly. Findings showed that moral dilemmas used in the application make students to think about reasons for their decisions and developed their moral reasoning ability