Moral reasoning courseware for problem-solving in Values Education: Grade 8 students’ performances

A prototype Values Education courseware was developed in this study to use it as supplementary learning material to sharpen the moral reasoning skills of grade 8 students. The prototype courseware was designed according to the higher-order thinking skills of Bloom’s Taxonomy of educational objectives, which are barely reflected in the existing Values Education curriculum of the Philippines public schools. After having subjected the courseware to formative and summative evaluation by content and instructional design experts in Values Education, philosophy of education, educational psychology, curriculum studies, and educational technology and by target end users, a quasi-experimental analysis revealed that the use of the courseware resulted in significant improvement of student-participants’ moral reasoning skills. Thus, problem solvers who want critical thinking skills for problem-solving could significantly increase their abilities for the said task given the suitable assistive methods, tools, and training.