Research on moral reasoning applicable to the education of pre-service teachers: a systematic literature review

Abstract

There is little data on the effectiveness of educational interventions in enhancing the moral reasoning of pre-service teachers. Pre-service teachers’ moral reasoning is being called upon to address these challenges in future teaching positions due to the current concerns about school violence, high-risk behaviors, student personalization, and rising moral dilemmas. To promote moral thinking and personal growth in higher education, pre-service teachers need a better quality moral education. To that purpose, this study conducts a systematic literature review (SLR) on 60 articles to investigate the research trends of teachers’ moral reasoning by looking for relevant publications from 2012 to 2022 in reputable journals listed by the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and Science Citation Index Expanded from the Web of Science (WOS) database, Scopus as well as ERIC databases. Accordingly, moral reasoning education theories bases and strategies are reported, and possible research subjects for further study are suggested.