Volunteer Service Activities And High School Students' Moral Development

Compared with other countries, our country has less organized voluntary activities. However, voluntary actions can greatly contribute to more healthy development of the society, while volunteers can benefit themselves in improving their moral standards as participating. The dissertation discusses in detail the significance of voluntary actions to the harmony and development of society and also the influences on the volunteers themselves.In order to fully understand why voluntary actions enhance moral development, this dissertation sums up the different theories from other countries on moral development. In addition, these theories can be of support and help to the conduction of the educational experiment, the analysis of the collected data and comprehension of the measurement instruments.The measurement instruments used include the self-made questionnaire of Voluntary Activities Survey and the translated scales of Social Responsibility Test and Moral Judgment Test. Professor Geog Lind who is the original author of the Moral Judgment Test (MJT) certified and copyrighted the Chinese version translated by the author of this dissertation.After processing the collected data, the results are reached as follows: Most students except those from No. 30 Middle School which is interfered by the educational experiment seldom participate in voluntary activities. Students who often participate have significant difference with those who seldom participate in the aspects of social responsibility, self-efficacy, altruistic attitude, and moral behaviors. The difference in the moral judgment is not significant. Different activities such as helping disabled people, protecting the environment, propaganda and donating positively correlate in various degrees with social responsibility, altruistic attitude, self-efficacy, and moral behaviors.For the purpose of enhancing students" moral development by participating in voluntary activities, the following suggestions are proposed: Schools shouldput more emphasis on moral education through completely actualizing government-sponsored quality education. Schools should do well the work of organizing, associating, training and evaluating when they develop voluntary activities. The government and educational executive organizations should make corresponding laws or regulations so that students will take more systematic and regular voluntary activities. The ways of participating should be gradually changed so as for every volunteer to participate completely out of his own deliberate intention.