Investigating Ethical Decision-Making Of Primary School Teachers Through The Critical Incidents

In daily professional practice,teachers are often faced with complicated educational matters,which need them to make various decisions.And some decisions involve the rights or interests of others(especially students),with obvious moral meaning and ethical characteristics,thus making them be ethical.Although many studies have explored the theoretical framework,practical predicament and factors of teachers' ethical decision-making under the western context,fewer examined the actual process and thinking tendency of teachers' ethical decision-making.In view of this,this research mainly focuses on the Chinese primary school teachers' actual process,thinking tendency of ethical decision-making and the factors,then trying to explore the characteristics of teachers' ethical decision-making and the strategies to improve teachers' ethical decision-making.Based on integrating the existing related research,this study defines the teachers' ethical decision-making as follows: It refers to a process in which teachers make decisions by reasoning and judgement according to certain ethical norms,when faced with some specific issues or problems in schools.This process includes ethical perception,ethical reasoning and ethical judgment.The study chooses 20 primary school teachers from 3 primary school in Henan province as participants.55 critical incidents are screened from the in-depth interviews with them,then being coded and classified.This study found that(1)The actual ethical decision-making process of primary school teachers always involve ethical judgment and specific actions,but not necessarily clear ethical perception or reasoning;(2)Although considering consequentialist theories and non consequentialist theories,and integrate justice and caring in the ethical decision-making,the primary school teachers prefer to non consequentialist theories;(3)The personal knowledge held by the primary school teachers,the education policy and the school rules,especially the nature of events and the social consequences of the decision have important influence on teachers' ethical decision-making;(4)Different from ethical decision-making in other fields,the decision-makers of ethical decision-making in primary schools always have moral attributes,the people concerned with decision-making is not yet mature.and the aim of making people good,the diversity of ethical positions in the decision-making process and the educational decision-making environment are all taken in to account.In addition,the study finds that the primary school teachers still are faced with some difficulties in the awareness,thinking,language,and philosophy of decision-making.In order to overcome these problems and improve teachers' ability to make ethical decision,this study proposes some suggestions.The primary school teachers should pay attention to the moral details and cultivate moral sensitivity,cultivate diversified thinking of decision-making,focus on moral language and build a dialogue mechanism with students,adhere to the student-oriented idea and make educational decision.