Moral thinking and communication competencies of college students and graduates in Taiwan, the UK, and the US: a mixed-methods study

ABSTRACTMoral thinking and communication are critical competencies for confronting social dilemmas in a challenging world. We examined these moral competencies in 70 college students and graduates from Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Participants were assessed through semi-structured written interviews, Facebook group discussions, and a questionnaire. In this paper, we describe the similarities and differences across cultural groupings in (1) the social issues of greatest importance to the participants; (2) the factors influencing their approaches to thinking about social issues and communicating with others; and (3) the characteristics of their moral functioning in terms of moral awareness, moral judgment, moral discourse, and moral decision-making.KEYWORDS: College students and graduatescomparative researchmoral dilemmamoral thinkingmoral thinking and communication competencies ACKNOWLEGMENTSWe would like to thank the participants for taking part in the research study and colleagues for their help with recruitment. We are also grateful to our research assistants for their contributions to data organization and coding. Moreover, we thank the Editor-in-Chief and anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on an earlier draft.DISCLOSURE STATEMENTNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the National Science and Technology Council, Taiwan [MOST107-2410-H-003-032-SS3].