The Journal of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children

conventional, conventional and post-conventional. Each level contains two stages (Qashgoosh,
1984).
Study sample
The study sample consisted of 232 female students (117 and 115) from 8 th and 11 th grades
respectively. They were randomly selected from all public schools in the educational directorate of
the Kuwait capital city. For the specific purpose of the current study, the students were classified
into: (1) gifted (who scores 90% and above on Raven Matrices test and within the third quartile on
Torrance creativity test) and (2) average (who scores 70% and below on Raven and below the
second quartile on Torrance test). This ended with 73 gifted and 159 averages as shown in Table 1:
Table 1: Distribution of sample subjects by giftedness and grade level
Gifted Average Total
Grade 8th 26 91 117
11th 47 68 115
Total 73 159 232
It is clear to say that twenty two and forty one percent of the 8th and 11th graders respectively
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were considered gifted. In addition, a chi-square statistics of ( χ = 25.
56 ) has been calculated
between the grade and giftedness which is statistically significant.
Results and Discussion
To know the level of moral judgment of each individual of the study sample, a cross
tabulation of grade level, degree of giftedness, and level of moral judgment (pre conventional,
conventional, post conventional) has been created as shown in Table 2.
Table 2: The distribution of sample subjects by grade level, giftedness, and level of moral judgment.
Level of Moral Judgment
Pre-Conventional Conventional Post-Conventional Total
8th grade Gifted 10 (38%) 13 (50%) 03 (12%) 26
Average 51 (56%) 35 (38%) 05 (1%) 91
11th grade Gifted 02 (4%) 35 (74%) 10 (40%) 47
Average 27 (40%) 37 (54%) 04 (1%) 68
Total 90 (39%) 120 (54%) 22 (1%) 232
This data tells us that the big percentage of the gifted students is located in the conventional
level of moral judgment from both 8th grade (50 %), and 11th grade (74 %). In addition, twelve percent
of the 8th grade and forty percent of the gifted from 11th grade were classified in the post-
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conventional level. In addition, a chi-square statistics of ( χ = 17.
79 ) has been calculated between
the level of moral judgment and giftedness which is statistically significant at (0.01).
As Schweder (1961) points out, in Western society, people tend to become more
conventional and pluralistic in their judgments with age. To investigate whether moral judgment
changes by giftedness and grade, means of the study sample students on moral judgment from both
grades and the level of giftedness were calculated and presented as shown in Table 3.
Table 3: Mean scores of moral judgment in terms of grade and giftedness.
Giftedness Total
Average Gifted
Grade 8 th 2.32 2.93 2.45
11 th 2.76 3.96 3.25
Total 2.51 3.59
Then, a (2x2) Two-Way-Analysis of Variance was run and its results have been displayed as
shown in Table 4.
Gifted and Talented International – 26(1), August, 2011; and 26(2), December, 2011. 27