Abstract:
Violation of disciplinary codes, which is an inappropriate behaviour or
immoral act, has become the order of the day among the youth in today’s
century, and such behaviour is destroying the moral fibres of society and the
country as a whole. Hence, the purpose of this study was to determine moral
reasoning and moral judgement among junior high school students violating
disciplinary codes within Cape Coast metropolis. The study employed the ex post facto design and also used the quantitative approach for the study. Also,
400 students from ten (10) public junior high schools within the Cape Coast
Metropolis were selected to respond to the self-administered questionnaire
which was the measuring tool for the study. The data were analysed using the
descriptive statistical tools (frequency and percentages) and the independent t test was used with the help of SPSS version 26.0. In the findings, the
researcher found out that students who tend to violate disciplinary codes in
schools within the Cape Coast Metropolis were said to have moderate levels of
moral reasoning and moral judgement. Thus, they were identified to be within
the category of the heteronomous stage of moral reasoning and the
conventional stage of moral development. Therefore, the study recommends
that teachers should help students better learn and understand that to be able to
arrive at a well-informed decision, it would be very important to consider The
Four Component Model developed by Rest in moral decision-making to avoid
violating laid down disciplinary codes of an institution.
