Covariance Structure Analysis of a Test of Moral Orientation and Moral Judgment

Abstract

Covariance structure analysis was used to confirm that the moral orientation and moral judgment subtests of the Moral Development Test (MDT) (Ma, 1987) captured the hierarchical stage structure of moral development predicted by Kohlberg's stage theory of moral development. Furthermore, the simplex ordering between the stage scores of the MDT subtests was shown to be invariant in adolescents and adults across two cultures-British and Hong Kong Chinese. In addition, the structural part of the simplex model for the moral judgment subtest was shown to be invariant across the two cultures. However, the hypothesis of invariance of the structural part of the simplex model across the two cultures for the moral orientation was rejected.

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