The Effect of SMART Moral Education on Left-Behind Children’s Prosocial Behavior and Filial Piety Among Left-Behind Children

Abstract

The erosion of filial piety and prosocial behavior during China’s economic reforms signals a concerning decline in moral development within society. Insufficient teaching resources in rural areas hinder left-behind children from receiving adequate moral education. The SMART moral education program employs an activity-based approach to address this gap, specifically targeting rural left-behind children. The SMART moral education emphasizes sharing behavior and interpersonal relationships. This study involved the primary three students from two elementary schools in Hunan Province, utilizing a control group (n = 78) and an experimental group (n = 58) to assess the effectiveness of SMART moral education in fostering prosocial attitudes and reciprocal filial piety. Results from factorial ANOVA indicated that SMART moral education significantly enhanced altruistic attitudes and reciprocal filial beliefs among participants. This study offers preliminary evidence supporting SMART moral education as an effective strategy for promoting moral development among left-behind students.

Keywords

moral education left-behind children prosocial reciprocal filial piety rural China

Introduction

The phenomenon of left-behind children has emerged as a significant social concern in China since the implementation of economic reforms and the opening up of the country (Lei et al., 2019). Starting in the late 1970s, China’s open-door policy and economic reforms ushered in an era of rapid urban economic development (Ding & Bao, 2014; Lu, 2012). While urban Chinese regions have experienced dramatic improvements in educational resources, rural areas still face significant shortages (Ying & Hatta, 2025). This disparity has left rural children with limited access to advanced learning tools, particularly information technology, compared to their urban peers (Yang et al., 2018).

The severe wealth gap between urban and rural areas has driven many poorly educated rural parents to migrate to cities in search of better economic opportunities and improved family livelihoods (Biao, 2007; Fu, 2005; Jia & Tian, 2010). However, the hukou household registration system restricts the mobility of these workers’ children, who are often left behind in rural areas (Liu, 2016). Consequently, a large number of rural children grow up in the care of grandparents rather than parents (Ding & Bao, 2014; Duan & Zhou, 2005; Jia & Tian, 2010). Most grandparents, due to limited resources, are unable to assist their grandchildren academically (Han & Phromphitakkul, 2021). Their advanced age and low income often limit their support to fulfilling only the physical needs of left-behind children (Burnette et al., 2013), while the emotional and psychological needs of these children remain largely unmet (Sun et al., 2015).

In many rural schools, moral education remains lecture- and memorization-heavy due to resource constraints, offering few structured opportunities for dialogic reasoning, practice in primary relationships, or autonomy-supportive reflection (Liu, 2014; Song, 2023). To address this pedagogical gap and align instruction with the lived experiences of left-behind children, a structured moral education, SMART moral education (Sharing, Moral Development, Autonomy, Relationship, and Technology), was developed, which adopted an activity-based and relationship-centered approach as well as Kohlberg’s moral development theory as a theoretical framework tailored for low-resource rural classrooms.

Challenges Faced by Left-Behind Children

A growing body of research has documented the various difficulties encountered by left-behind children (Hu et al., 2014; Sun, 2017). In particular, these children are deprived of critical resources for moral development—including prosocial behavior and filial piety—due to insufficient parental care (Yu et al., 2022). Traditionally, parents are central figures in the socialization of children and the transmission of social norms (Lu, 2012), but left-behind children often report weak emotional bonds with their parents (Hu, 2019). Poor parent-child relationships undermine the development of filial piety, a core value in Chinese society (Yeh & Bedford, 2003). While parents are essential for nurturing morality (He, 2013), migrant workers rarely have the time or capacity to support their children’s moral growth. As a result, left-behind children frequently experience emotional problems, loneliness, and even risky behaviors (Pan & Ye, 2017; Sun et al., 2015). Pan and Ye’s (2017) interviews with left-behind girls revealed increased risks of early sexual activity and abortion. The overall moral development of rural left-behind children lags behind that of their urban peers (Liu, 2016).

Pedagogical Gap in Rural Moral Education

The traditional moral education in China focuses on patriotism and nationalism (Yen & Cheng, 2014). According to the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China (2017), there are three main objectives of moral education are (a) to understand the socialist core values ideology of Marxism and Maoism, as well as the ideology of Deng Xiaoping; (b) to understand the Chinese-style socialism implementation; and (c) to become a good citizen. Therefore, moral education emphasizes the macro aspect (political area) over the micro aspect (personal area). The content of traditional moral education should cover five areas: the ideology of Marxism and Maoism; (b) the value of socialism; (c) heritage Chinese culture; (d) environmental education; and (e) mental well-being (Cunningham et al., 2021; Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, 2017).

Moral education in rural China fails to provide the necessary support for left-behind children’s moral development. Moral education plays a crucial role in fostering positive moral growth (Althof & Berkowitz, 2006) and is recognized for its potential to reduce behavioral and psychological risks among left-behind children (Liu, 2016; Pan & Ye, 2017). The Chinese curriculum of moral education, deeply rooted in social and cultural contexts, underwent significant reform in 2003 to adapt to the changing society brought about by globalization and modernization (Qi & Tang, 2004). The reformed curriculum covers three broad domains: personal growth, relationships with others, and the individual’s connection to the collective, state, and society (Muyunda & Yue, 2022; Zhan & Ning, 2004).

The content of moral education teaching materials may not align with the context of the left-behind children. The reformed moral education curriculum is primarily designed around the life experiences of urban children (Lu & Gao, 2004). Left-behind children, unable to migrate due to the hukou system, are required to attend local rural schools where resource allocation is inadequate (Fu, 2005; Li & Liu, 2014). Urban schools receive a disproportionate share of educational resources, while financial allocation policies leave rural schools underfunded and ill-equipped (Shi & Sercombe, 2020). This resource gap hinders rural schools’ ability to foster the positive moral development of left-behind children (He, 2013). Many rural elementary schools lack the teaching resources necessary to adequately deliver moral education, resulting in the continued marginalization of left-behind children’s developmental needs.

Moral education in rural China remains overly dependent on memorization and teacher-centered lecturing. While approaches like home–school cooperation and practical learning have been proposed (Huo et al., 2025; Tian et al., 2025), chronic resource shortages prompt school leaders to channel limited resources toward academic instruction rather than moral development (Su et al., 2021). Consequently, teacher-centered strategies—exemplified by rote learning of classical Confucian doctrines—are employed as a cost-efficient solution, despite evidence that such methods cultivate passive learning and weaken instructional effectiveness (Wang, 2010).

With respect to its theoretical framework, the reformed moral education curriculum does not appear to be grounded in a coherent, well-specified theory. Although it foregrounds Marxism, Mao Zedong Thought, Xi Jinping Thought; socialist core values; exemplary Chinese traditional values; environmental and nature education; and mental health education (Cunningham et al., 2021; Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, 2017), recent literature documents heterogeneous implementation approaches in Chinese elementary schools, such as the character strengths approach (Huo et al., 2025) and the linguistic landscape approach (Xu & Peng, 2024). Regrettably, without a unifying theoretical scaffold, the reformed curriculum remains susceptible to conceptual diffusion and inconsistent practice.

Moral Reasoning Development Theory in Chinese Culture

Kohlberg’s theory was the most influential in developing moral education (Çam et al., 2012). Kohlberg modified Piagetian moral developmental theory to describe moral development among humans (Kohlberg & Hersh, 1977). Kohlbergian theory suggests that moral development occurs in stages (Lotfabadi, 2008), and it emphasizes the cognitive aspect (Weinreich, 1975). Moral development follows an organized sequence (Carpendale, 2000). According to Kohlberg (1975), there are six stages of moral development. Kohlberg believed that moral development is fundamentally universal (Lotfabadi, 2008). However, Cuypers (2020) claimed that moral judgment is not a purely cognitive activity but rather is a combination of cognition and affection. Moral development is affected by individuals’ political, cultural, and religious backgrounds (Balakrishnan & Shoniah, 2014; Qi & Tang, 2004).

Kohlberg’s framework has strongly influenced moral education by proposing that moral reasoning develops through qualitatively distinct stages and follows a broadly universal sequence, with an emphasis on cognitive judgment processes (Kohlberg & Hersh, 1977). Subsequent work, however, underscores that moral judgment integrates cognition and affect and that sociocultural contexts shape the content and priorities of moral concerns (Dien, 1982; Ma, 1989; Ma & Cheung, 1996). Cross-cultural findings show convergence in stage-like development but divergence in the themes children privilege and how they apply principles in daily relationships.

In Confucian-influenced contexts, moral reasoning often foregrounds role obligations, relational harmony, and filial responsibilities alongside autonomy. Building on this, Ma (2013) advanced a culturally attuned account of Chinese children’s moral development, identifying three salient stages for young learners: (1) survival/self-interest and obedience; (2) love needs and reciprocal altruism with instrumental orientations centered on parents and significant others; and (3) belongingness, primary-group altruism, and mutual interpersonal expectations, where norms in close groups (e.g., family, classmates) guide decisions. This relationally anchored progression implies that developmentally appropriate moral education for Chinese primary students—especially left-behind children—should target primary relationships (parent–child, peers), cultivate empathy and gratitude, and translate moral reasoning into everyday caring and helping. These implications directly inform the design of SMART and the study’s outcomes: prosocial attitudes (sharing, caring, and helping) and reciprocal filial piety.

SMART Moral Education

SMART was developed to translate stage-based moral reasoning and culturally salient relational ethics into feasible, activity-based instruction for left-behind children in rural schools. It comprises five mutually reinforcing elements—Sharing (S), Moral Development (M), Autonomy (A), Relationship (R), and Technology (T)—grounded in moral discussion methods (Kohlberg & Hersh, 1977), social and emotional learning (Durlak et al., 2011), and Chinese filial piety research emphasizing the reciprocity-based dimension of parent–child relations (Bedford & Yeh, 2019; Yeh & Bedford, 2003). The program targets prosocial attitudes (caring, helping) and reciprocal filial piety by engaging children’s primary groups (parents and peers), aligning with developmental work showing that young Chinese learners reason within close relational contexts (Ma, 2013) and that prosocial development is facilitated by structured opportunities to practice sharing, gratitude, and helping (Eisenberg et al., 2015).

SMART’s theory of change integrates cognitive-developmental, socio-relational, and affective mechanisms to promote prosocial caring/helping and reciprocal filial piety. First, structured moral discussions and dilemma-based activities are used to exercise stage-appropriate moral reasoning and perspective-taking, which are linked to gains in moral judgment and behavior when embedded in guided, dialogic pedagogy (Blatt & Kohlberg, 1975; Kohlberg & Hersh, 1977; Nucci, 2016). Second, activities are situated in children’s primary relationships—especially parent–child and peer interactions—because Chinese moral reasoning in the early school years is anchored in role obligations and primary-group expectations (Ma, 2013), and because relationship-centered learning environments enhance prosocial norms and cooperative behavior (Wentzel, 2014, 2017). Third, autonomy-supportive practices—such as student goal setting, reflection on consequences, and choice within tasks—promote internalization of values and self-regulation, increasing the likelihood that children will translate moral judgments into self-initiated helping and caring (Jang et al., 2010). Fourth, routines that cultivate sharing, gratitude, and empathic communication strengthen prosocial orientations and filial reciprocity, which predict supportive behaviors and positive parent–child relationship quality (Bedford & Yeh, 2019; Eisenberg et al., 2015; Ongley & Malti, 2014). Finally, emotionally salient narratives delivered through low-cost multimedia and student dramatizations scaffold empathic arousal and perspective-taking, facilitating the integration of affect with cognition and enhancing moral internalization (Schuitema et al., 2008; Yang et al., 2018). In combination, these mechanisms are expected to produce larger gains than lecture-based instruction in caring, helping, and reciprocal filial piety, particularly for left-behind children whose daily experiences involve migration-related relational challenges.

Sharing (S)

Sharing functions as both moral content and pedagogical context in SMART. As content, it targets the voluntary allocation of personal time and resources to others, which is a central facet of prosocial development and emerges reliably in middle childhood (Eisenberg et al., 2015; Ongley & Malti, 2014). As context, structured routines—such as rotating roles, pooled materials, and “mutual aid” tasks—normalize generosity and inclusion, which predict peer acceptance and cooperative classroom climates (Caprara et al., 2000; Wentzel, 2014). For left-behind children, sharing also buffers material constraints and fosters belonging, which is associated with increased helping and reduced aggression (Caprara et al., 2000; Wentzel, 2017).

Moral Development (M)

The moral development element implements age-appropriate, discussion-based lessons that connect principles to action within the parent–child and peer domains. Following evidence that guided moral discourse can promote advances in moral reasoning and related behaviors (Blatt & Kohlberg, 1975; Power et al., 1989), SMART presents short dilemmas about comforting classmates, resolving conflicts, or expressing gratitude to migrant parents, followed by perspective-taking prompts and action planning. Content selection aligns with research showing that Chinese primary students’ moral judgments are anchored in primary relationships and mutual expectations (Ma, 2013), while prosocial skills training enhances caring and helping across home and school contexts (Durlak et al., 2011; Eisenberg et al., 2015).

Autonomy (A)

SMART cultivates autonomy through goal setting, self-monitoring, and reflective dialogue, which support internalization of moral norms and self-regulated behavior (Deci & Ryan, 2000). Each week, students identify a specific prosocial or filial goal, for example, helping a peer with homework, expressing thanks during a scheduled call with a parent, enact it, and reflect on outcomes. Autonomy-supportive instruction—providing rationale, acknowledging feelings, and offering meaningful choice—has been shown to enhance engagement and prosocial behavior while reducing reliance on external control (Cheon et al., 2012; Jang et al., 2010). This is particularly relevant for left-behind children, who often must navigate moral choices with limited immediate parental guidance.

Relationship (R)

The relationship element explicitly strengthens parent–child and peer bonds through gratitude expression, empathic communication, and conflict resolution. Reciprocal filial piety—grounded in mutual care and emotional relatedness rather than authoritarian obligation—predicts better parent–child relationship quality and adolescent well-being (Bedford & Yeh, 2019; Chen et al., 2016; Yeh & Bedford, 2003). SMART includes scripted gratitude messages, role-plays of supportive conversations with migrant parents or caregivers, and cooperative peer tasks that build trust and shared responsibility. Such relationship-centered practices are associated with increased prosocial behavior, classroom cooperation, and social competence (Durlak et al., 2011; McDonald et al., 2013; Wentzel, 2014).

Technology (T)

Technology in SMART is deliberately low-bandwidth and context-sensitive, using brief offline videos, audio stories, printed storyboards, and student-created dramatizations to present moral dilemmas. Multimedia narratives enhance engagement, empathy, and transfer of moral understanding when coupled with guided discussion (Park, 2015; Schuitema et al., 2008; Yang et al., 2018). By eliciting emotion and perspective-taking, these tools help integrate affect with cognition and support moral internalization (Immordino-Yang, 2011). The emphasis on simple, locally stored media and student performance ensures feasibility in rural schools with intermittent ICT access while preserving the socio-emotional benefits of narrative learning.

The Erosion of Prosocial Attitudes and Filial Piety

Prosocial attitudes and reciprocal filial piety are virtues highly valued in Chinese culture (Yablo & Field, 2007). Parents are regarded as primary agents for the transmission of moral values (Battistella & Conaco, 1998). However, due to limited parent-child interaction, left-behind children’s moral development is often interrupted (Ding & Bao, 2014). According to Liu (2016), these children are less able to make independent moral judgments and instead tend to follow established customs. The rapid shift from collectivist to individualist values in modern China—driven by economic growth—has further undermined traditional social norms, such as filial piety and prosocial behavior, in rural communities (Cao, 2009; Pan & Ye, 2017).

Reciprocal filial piety and prosociality have long been central to Chinese cultural identity. Reciprocal filial piety, in particular, underscores the emotional bond between parents and children (Bedford & Yeh, 2019). However, shifts in family structure and a decline in traditional values have weakened the socialization of left-behind children into collectivist values (Pan & Ye, 2017; Zhang & Liu, 2012). The transition from nuclear to extended family structures, with grandparents as primary caregivers, has negatively impacted the cultivation of these values (Xu & Xia, 2014). Grandparents, who may indulge their grandchildren, often struggle to enforce the importance of filial piety (Liu, 2016). Biao (2007) reported that many left-behind children lack appreciation for their parents’ sacrifices, and some even reject parental authority. Due to compromised moral development, left-behind children exhibit lower levels of prosocial behavior, reduced tolerance, and are more likely to resolve conflicts through retaliation (Hu et al., 2014; Liu, 2016). These developments underscore the urgent need for effective moral education interventions in rural areas.

To ensure the effective delivery of SMART moral education, teachers received specialized training on the use of teaching materials and strategies. The implementation of the SMART curriculum aimed to standardize instructional methods and maximize the impact on left-behind children’s moral development. The present study evaluates the effectiveness of the SMART approach in fostering filial piety and prosocial attitudes among left-behind elementary school children in rural China.

Building on previous discussions, SMART moral education aims to cultivate prosocial attitudes and filial piety among left-behind children through an interactive delivery mode. This initiative employs an activity-based approach specifically tailored to the daily experiences of rural children. The activity-based method is an interactive teaching strategy that has been shown to effectively enhance students’ moral judgment (Bahri, 2016). Previous research documented the significant effectiveness of this approach in teaching moral education at both preschool and junior secondary levels (Bahri, 2016; Uslu & Özgün, 2024). In terms of educational resources necessary for implementing the activity-based approach in rural contexts, SMART moral education promotes sharing behaviors among elementary students. Participants are encouraged to share both tangible resources—such as books, stationery, and other materials—and intangible resources, including experiences, stories, and ideas, to optimize the availability of teaching materials.

Methodology

Participants

A total of 136 primary three students from two rural elementary schools in the northwestern region of Hunan Province. These two elementary schools primarily serve children left behind. The teaching facilities of the two schools are insufficient for students’ academic and moral development. Two schools joined the SMART moral education program provided by the Hong Kong Institute for Integrated Rural Development. The organization provided SMART moral education program training workshops to teachers and upgraded the teaching facilities of both schools. One school was assigned to be an experimental group (n = 58), and the other school was assigned to be a control group (n = 78). The age of the participants ranged from eight years old to eleven years old. The average age in the experimental group was M = 9.26, SD = .61, and the average age in the control group was M = 9.10, SD = .62.

Procedures

A mixed-effects design experiment was conducted with two groups: an experimental group and a control group, in a natural classroom setting. Pretests and posttests were administered. The experimental design utilized a 2 x 2 factorial framework, comprising one between-subject factor (the experimental and control groups) along with the pretest and posttest. The procedures received approval from the institutional ethics committee. The SMART moral education delivery and data collection processes obtained informed consent from the school principal, students, and their caregivers.

All participants were students in rural elementary schools. The experimental group adopted the SMART moral educational toolkit that was developed by The Hong Kong Institute for Integrated Rural Development to teach moral education. Teachers received a structured training program to learn the teaching method to implement the SMART moral education toolkit. The teachers taught SMART moral education to primary three students for 40 minutes (one lesson) per week. The control group students received moral education that covered the same topic with the alternative approach. Teachers taught moral education by using school-based teaching materials. The control students received 40 minutes per week of moral education.

Both groups of left-behind students completed an initial test (pretest) before the program launch in September. The students were asked to spend approximately 40 minutes completing the questionnaire in the classroom. After the end of the academic year, the students were invited to complete a posttest in May. The students completed the same questionnaire in the same venue.

Instruments

Elementary Student Character Scale (ESCS)

The scale was adopted to measure students’ prosocial attitudes (Kwok, 2011). The scale included 21 items with two subscales: caring and helping others. The participants were asked to complete all items on a five-point Likert scale. The caring subscale was adopted to measure the students’ intention to show caring attitudes toward others; an example item is “When someone is sad, I will comfort him or her.” A higher score on the caring subscale indicated that students had a high level of caring attitude. The helping others subscale measured the students’ performance of helpful behavior; an example item is “I found myself able to help others.” The reliability of the scale was α = .92-.93 (Kwok, 2011).

Reciprocal Filial Piety Scale

The present study employed the filial piety belief scale to measure the students’ filial piety attitudes (Yeh & Bedford, 2003). The participants responded to the scale on a six-point Likert scale. The scale contained four items to measure the participants’ perception of reciprocal filial piety. A high score indicated that the participants perceived high quality of the parent-child relationship (Bedford & Yeh, 2019). The reliability of the reciprocal filial piety scale was α = .85 (Yeh & Bedford, 2003).

Results

The experiment and control group students received SMART moral education and traditional moral education, respectively, for one academic year. Their caring attitudes, intention to help others, and filial piety were measured at the beginning of the academic year and the end of the academic year. A mixed factorial ANOVA was conducted to examine the effectiveness of the implementation of SMART moral education in increasing the participants’ caring attitudes, intention to help others, and filial piety beliefs from pretest to posttest. Table 1 showed the between-subject effects. As shown in Table 1, the results showed no significant differences in caring (MS = .00, F (1, 132) = .00, p > .05, partial η² = .00), helping others (MS = .03, F (1, 132) = .03, p > .05, partial η² = .00), or reciprocal filial piety (MS = .00, F (1, 132) = .00, p > .05, partial η² = .00) between the experimental group (n = 58) and the control group (n = 78) from pretest to posttest.

Table 1.

Factorial ANOVA Results on Between-Subject Effects

Source	Variables	df	MS	F	η ²
Intercept	Caring	1	3531.81	3801.43^a	.97
	Helping others	1	3096.47	3120.29^a	.96
	Reciprocal filial piety	1	2978.44	4564.71^a	.97
School	Caring	1	.00	.00	.00
	Helping others	1	.03	.03	.00
	Reciprocal filial piety	1	.09	.13	.00
Error	Caring	132	.93
	Helping others	132	.99
	Reciprocal filial piety	132	.65

^ap < .001.

Table 2 shows the within-subject results of the factorial ANOVA. The main effect of time on caring was significant, MS = 11.23, F (1, 132) = 51.92, p < .001, partial η² = .28. Pairwise comparisons using Bonferroni adjustment indicated that the caring score on the pretest (M = 3.46, SE = .07) was significantly lower than that on the posttest (M = 3.87, SE = .06). There was a significant interaction between the experimental group (n = 58) and the control group (n = 78) over time, MS = 3.96, F (1,132) = 18.32, p < .001, partial η² = .12.

Table 2.

Factorial ANOVA Results in Within-Subject Effects

Source	Variables	df	MS	F	η ²
	Caring	1	11.23	51.92***	.28
	Helping others	1	15.28	77.47***	.37
	Reciprocal filial piety	1	4.46	32.18***	.20
Variable * school	Caring	1	3.96	18.32***	.12
	Helping others	1	2.03	10.30**	.07
	Reciprocal filial piety	1	.53	3.88*	.03
Error	Caring	132	.22
	Helping others	132	.20
	Reciprocal filial piety	132	.14

***p < .001; **p < .01; *p < .05

The main effect of time on helping others was significant, MS = 15.28, F (1, 132) = 77.47, p < .001, partial η² = .37. Pairwise comparisons analysis with Bonferroni adjustment was adopted to examine the difference between pretest and posttest. The results indicated that the score of helping others on the pretest (M = 3.19, SE = .07) was significantly lower than that on the posttest (M = 3.67, SE = .67). There was a significant interaction between the experimental group (n = 58) and the control group (n = 78) over time, MS = 2.03, F (1,132) = 10.30, p < .01, partial η² = .07.

As shown in Table 2, the main effect of time on reciprocal filial piety was significant, MS = 4.46, F (1, 132) = 32.18, p < .001, partial η² = .20. Pairwise comparisons using Bonferroni adjustment indicated that the prosocial attitude score on the pretest (M = 3.24, SE = .06) was significantly lower than that on the posttest (M = 3.49, SE = .05). The results showed an interaction effect between the experimental group (n = 58) and the control group (n = 78) over time, MS = .53, F (1,132) = 3.88, p < .05, partial η² = .03.

Discussions

Results on the Between-Subject Effects

The present study indicated that there were no significant differences between the experimental group and the control group in students’ development of prosocial attitudes or filial piety. The results showed that both SMART moral education and traditional moral education were able to support left-behind students in their moral development. However, the recently reformed moral education curriculum was shown to be effective in promoting moral development (Zhan & Ning, 2004). The reformed moral education curriculum was developed based on children’s moral judgment performances in urban cities (Lu & Gao, 2004). The present study results indicated that the students who received SMART moral education had more effective moral development than the students who received traditional moral education. This finding is not surprising, as the SMART moral education curriculum was based on rural left-behind children’s psychological needs. Ma (2013) claimed that an effective moral education curriculum should fulfill students’ moral developmental needs and psychological needs. As a result, the present study results confirmed that SMART moral education was suitable for rural left-behind students’ moral development.

Significant Results on the Within-Subject Effect on Prosocial Attitude

SMART moral education promoted the students’ significant development of prosocial attitudes. According to the present study results, the pretest caring score in the experimental group (M = 3.34, SD = .87) was lower than that in the control group (M = 3.58, SD = .76). After a whole academic year, the caring score in the experimental group (M = 4.00, SD = .66) was higher than that of the control group (M = 3.74, SD = .73). The students in the experimental group (M = 3.09, SD = .83) also scored lower on helping others than students in the control group on the pretest (M = 3.29, SD = .75). However, on the posttest, the score for helping others of the experimental group students (M = 3.75, SD = .75) was higher than that of the control group students (M = 3.59, SD = .76). The present study also suggested that SMART moral education was more effective than traditional moral education in helping students in their prosocial development. There is agreement in the literature on the effectiveness of using activity-based approaches to deliver moral education for left-behind students’ development of prosocial attitudes (Villardón-Gallego et al., 2018). Schonert-Reichl and O'Brien (2012) claimed that effective moral education for prosocial attitude development allowed students to apply their moral understanding to daily life. Left-behind students are required to take the initiative to help and care for their classmates following SMART moral education. Previous research reported that teaching empathy and emotional management to students enhanced students’ prosocial attitudes (Schonert-Reichl et al., 2012). SMART moral education taught students’ prosocial attitudes by teaching them friendship and love, empathy, and emotion management. These topics were related to left-behind students’ prosocial attitude development (Stiff et al., 1988).

Significant Results on the Within-Subject Effect on Reciprocal Filial Piety

The present study confirmed that the SMART moral education curriculum more effectively promoted the left-behind students’ development of reciprocal filial piety than the traditional curriculum. The experimental group students (M = 3.17, SD = .77) scored lower on reciprocal filial piety than the control group students on the pretest (M = 3.29, SD = .62). However, on the posttest, the score for reciprocal filial piety in the experimental group (M = 3.52, SD = .53) was higher than that in the control group (M = 3.46, SD = .58). The literature has shown that it is effective to support left-behind students’ development of reciprocal filial piety by teaching them to appreciate their parents’ efforts (Li & Sims, 2018). Left-behind students can recognize their parents’ efforts through various methods, such as role play, reflection, and sending thank-you cards. Role-play activities and reflection in SMART moral education allow students to understand how their parents contribute to their families. Left-behind students can engage in empathetical thinking about their parents to improve the parent-child relationships. In addition, SMART moral education provides various ways for left-behind students to communicate with their parents to improve the quality of the parent-child relationship. Left-behind students can significantly develop their reciprocal filial piety by improving the parent-child relationship (Bedford & Yeh, 2019).

Suggestions and Limitations

The present study results suggested that using an activity-based approach to teaching moral education is more effective in helping left-behind students in their moral development. For an activity-based teaching approach, a large number of teaching materials need to be prepared for every lesson. The literature has shown the imbalanced resource allocation between urban areas and rural areas in China (Wu et al., 2008). The present empirical results showed that it is better to employ an activity-based approach in teaching moral education to rural left-behind children. Therefore, the present research suggests that the government should allocate more resources to develop a moral education curriculum that adopts an activity-based approach.

As a preliminary study, there were two limitations of the present study. First, the results cannot be generalized to all rural left-behind students. The research did not adopt a probability sampling strategy, and the convenience sampling strategy affected the external validity of the present study. Second, the study examined the difference in moral performance between the beginning and the end of an academic year. The time period was too short to investigate left-behind students’ moral development. Future research should adopt a probability sampling strategy to enhance external validity to address the limitations of the present research. In the future, a longer study period should be used to conduct longitudinal studies to investigate moral development among left-behind students using the SMART moral education curriculum. A teacher training workshop is suggested to introduce SMART moral education and align the teaching strategy to deliver SMART moral education for examining the effectiveness of the curriculum in developing teaching efficacy in moral education.

Conclusion

The present study examined the issue of rural areas in China receiving insufficient resources for moral education. The unequal resource allocation in China has led to left-behind students receiving inadequate moral education. The existing moral education curriculum may not facilitate left-behind students in developing moral reasoning effectively. The present study demonstrated that using SMART moral education is effective in teaching moral education among rural left-behind students. The activity-based approach, which emphasizes sharing behavior and interpersonal relationships, is suitable for teaching moral education. Teachers can use various learning activities, such as role play, reflection, and discussion, to allow left-behind students to develop an altruistic attitude and reciprocal filial piety. The present study provided an alternative teaching approach to help left-behind students achieve moral development.

Footnotes

ORCID iDs

Hing Kwan To

Kwok Kuen Tsang

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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