Gasser, Luciano; Preisig, David; Dammert, Yvonne; Frei, Anna; Egger, Sara; Murphy, P. Karen (2026). Improving children's collective and individual moral reasoning through small-group discussions about narrative fiction. Child Development, pp. 1-16 Oxford University Press. 10.1093/chidev/aacag089
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This randomized trial tested whether small-group discussions about narrative fiction improve children's collective and individual moral reasoning. The sample consisted of 704 Swiss children (Mage = 10.32, 49.3% girls, 29.8% with a non-Swiss German home language), 159 discussion groups, and 51 teachers across 3 waves in 2022–2023. Data included coded discussions and essays on conflicts between fairness and group loyalty. The intervention enhanced collective reasoning, indicated by increases in student talk, questions, reasons, challenges, and build-ons (RRs = 1.37–8.62) and decreases in unreasoned claims (RR = 0.49). For individual reasoning, children in the intervention group provided more moral justifications (RR = 1.67) but not more group-based justifications and shifted to higher justification levels, including more dual-domain responses (OR = 2.05).
Item Type: |
Journal Article (Original Article) |
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ISSN: |
1467-8624 |
Publisher: |
Oxford University Press |
Projects: |
[21 s 0011 01] Soziale und sprachliche Kompetenzen über Kinderliteratur fördern (SKILL) |
Language: |
English |
Submitter: |
Luciano Gasser |
Date Deposited: |
24 Jun 2026 16:52 |
Last Modified: |
24 Jun 2026 16:52 |
Publisher DOI: |
10.1093/chidev/aacag089 |
Related URLs: |
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Uncontrolled Keywords: |
narrative fiction, dialogue, moral development |
PHBern DOI: |
10.57694/8086 |
URI: |
https://phrepo.phbern.ch/id/eprint/8086 |
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