research paper on values education

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The Role of Personal Values in Learning Approaches and Student Achievements

Kelum a. a. gamage.

1 James Watt School of Engineering, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK

D. M. S. C. P. K. Dehideniya

2 Department of Education, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya 20400, Sri Lanka; moc.liamg@ayinedihedkpcs (D.M.S.C.P.K.D.); moc.liamg@anammagitayukas (S.Y.E.)

Sakunthala Y. Ekanayake

Associated data.

The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy.

Personal values play a significant role when adopting learning approaches by individuals during their studies. Particularly in higher education, these values significantly influence the character that individuals play within their learning community and ultimately influence their academic achievements. The purpose of this paper is to investigate personal values in their choice of learning approaches and, subsequently, how it impacts one’s academic achievements. It also investigates the importance of developing an individual’s personal values as a part of their wider studies, while aligning these with graduate attributes and balancing them with knowledge and skills, to produce successful graduates in a society.

1. Introduction

Values are the fundamental beliefs, behaviours and attitudes that have been approved and accepted as what is good by society for a long time. In the most general sense, they are considered as the virtues that a person holds in his or her life. However, philosophers, researchers, practitioners and many others have defined and addressed values from different perspectives concerning the respective discipline or contexts. Generally, values are viewed as inner realities of an individual that are reflected through habits, behaviours, beliefs, expectations and relationships. Values lay the foundation for an individual’s pattern of thinking and way of acting. They play a vital role in how one makes decisions, choices and builds perceptions and attitudes. Additionally, various studies on personal values have shown that they often guide decision making in all aspects of life such as career, religion, social circles and self-identity [ 1 ]. Another aspect of personal values is that they can be viewed as desirable motivational goals and interests of an individual or the guiding principles in life. In addition, they have been seen as the non-existent mental entities and as the outcomes of mental development. Consequently, values can be seen as the perceptions of psychological expressions or frame of mind. Moreover, they are consequential issues that manifest the personality of an individual. Hence, the realisation of personal values by the self is crucial and determines the growth and the existence of the self in any situation. Conversely, understanding another person’s respected values is also important.

As a consequence of the constant transformation of society in terms of culture, economics and politics, value and value systems have been unusually changed and distorted. In favour of the same idea, Daniela et al. [ 2 ] justify this by arguing, “with modernity it is normal that personal value systems support changes to harmonize itself to current requirements”. Initially, some of the personal values may be determined by birth and later greatly influenced and molded by education, experiences, society, culture and many other factors. According to Matthews et al. [ 3 ], an alteration in lifestyle, cultural environment and economic circumstances, individually or a combination of these factors, can cause values to change. Personal value systems can be viewed as a relatively permanent framework that exists within an individual which decides what is good or bad for himself or herself and his or her companions. In addition, it shapes and influences the general nature of an individual’s behaviour. Researchers have found that personal values developed early in life may be resistant to change and may be derived from those of particular groups or systems, such as culture, religion and political party. However, personal values are not universal. Genetically inherited features and external factors including education may determine one’s personal values. Essentially, the antecedents of values are culturally embedded in society and its institutions [ 3 ] and are socially determined [ 2 ]. Although a personal value is an internal phenomenon, the motivating force to adopt the value is seen as emanating from a diverse range of external sources [ 4 ]. As values directly influence one’s entire lifestyle, a discussion of values and value systems, their place within changing socioeconomic contexts and how they affect individuals and society has universal relevance.

The value systems of a society always determine human activity in social life, education and professional life. Values are seen as a key component of organisational culture and are repeatedly defined as the principles accountable for the successful management of the organization [ 5 ]. Arambewela and Hall [ 6 ] support the same issue, stating [ 7 ]: personal values have long been considered an important variable in understanding consumer behaviour and decision making. As a result, the interest in knowing the drivers behind consumer attitudes and behaviour has encouraged marketing researchers to investigate human values [ 8 ] (Anana and Nique, 2014). Hence, many researchers have emphasised the need and advantage of studying the impact of personal values on the sustainable existence of an organisation.

Investigating the influence of values on assessments made by people on their career choices is another trending research area. In general, professions such as teaching, medicine and nursing are strongly attached and influenced by values. The results of a research study by Anana and Nique [ 8 ] has concluded that students choosing some careers are more typical, based on their values than others, and that some values are more typical of some careers than others. Thus, personal values have been taken as the main focus in the research in a variety of fields and academic disciplines ([ 3 ] cites Feather, 1975). In this regard, the need for identifying different scopes of human values is a timely requirement. Since professional values are also shaped and influenced by personal values, indeed a discussion on personal values can be regarded as an issue that unchanged over time.

There has been a growing concern over the erosion of values among youth during the past few years, and it is continually progressing. At the same time, the need for facilitating value development has become the greatest challenge ahead in the field of education. The effects of the value given to material comforts, money, fame and success are prominently reflected through the present younger generation. Hence, there is a considerable emphasis in this new century on the development of values: tolerance, social justice, open-mindedness, empathy and deep respect for others. Since realizing values and adopting and displaying them as one’s personality is closely associated with education, values education is given a greater emphasis today to ensure the continuity of societies. The functions of education in molding student’s moral, spiritual and sociocultural life are some of the areas that have received renewed attention in the recent past. In addition, they have long been considered important variables in understanding student behaviours, attitudes and achievements. Consequently, the outcomes of Branson [ 4 ] provide an insight into the benefits of value-based studies in educational management and administration. The realization of value can offer assistance in organizing the learning process by explaining and understanding students’ reactions to various situations and tailoring and evaluating the learning experience. Though students’ learning takes place within the self, it is not an isolated process. Research has confirmed that learning is affected by a variety of internal and external factors. Researchers have observed variations in students’ learning approaches, and furthermore, they have found qualitative differences in learning outcomes that were related to the approaches taken (Matthews et al. [ 3 ] refer Marton and Saljo [ 9 ]). Accordingly, if the personal values deal with the behaviour of a person, learning may also have influenced by personal values. Based on that assumption, a number of researchers study the composition and structure of students’ learning approaches and personal values [ 10 ] and their interconnections have been observed in various contexts. Research in this area confirms that values are related to different approaches to learning and they may change according to the circumstances. Considering the students’ behaviour in different academic situations, researchers have categorized the learning approaches into different groups. Furthermore, researchers have attempted to build up the connections between learning approaches and specific personal values. For example, as referred by Matthews et al. [ 3 ] and Tarabashkina [ 10 ], personal values such as achievement and power were related to the achieving approach, security and tradition values to the surface approach, and self-direction and universalism to the deep learning approach. In addition, this relationship was confirmed by a number of studies with some variations.

The values occupy a pre-eminent position on the agenda of researchers in education and many other domains as they impact behaviour, attitudes, expectations and all the other personal characteristics and constructs. Hence, this paper seeks to contribute by reviewing the available literature on the role of personal values concerning learning approaches and student achievements. The review centres on the following given objectives.

• To investigate the role of students’’ personal values in their choice of learning approaches;
• To investigate the impact of personal values on one’s academic achievement;
• To investigate the importance of developing individual’s personal values as a part of their academic life;
• To investigate how one’s personal values shape the learning community around that person and vice versa.

2. Background Literature

The background literature aims to synthesise the most relevant research outcomes for the main topic of study under the four main areas: personal values, personal value theories, value education and learning approaches. The concept of personal values is quite closely connected with value theories and value education. In reality, they are inseparable and cannot be treated separately since they are branches of the same root. About the very same idea, to define, describe and to understand personal values, several frameworks have been used by the researchers. Thus, the historical evolution of personal values can be identified through the presented frameworks. Moreover, as the literature suggests, through empirical evidence, there exists a relationship between personal values and students’ learning. Hence, uncovering the background literature through the above four areas are important for the total comprehension of the reader.

2.1. Personal Values

As a whole, personal values significantly influence all aspects of one’s life. It is also obvious that values contribute to the building of one’s personal and social identity. Understanding the concept of personal values is indeed a complex process. Over the past years, it has been viewed diversely analysing from the individual level and up to organisational, institutional, social and cultural levels [ 2 , 11 , 12 ], resulting in several definitions addressing different scopes.

Personal values or individual values are the values to which an individual is committed and which influences his behaviour [ 13 ]. As Ledden et al. [ 14 ] view, value perceptions are the result of a cognitive trade-off between benefits and sacrifices. According to Rokeach [ 7 ], a value is a long term belief that a certain path or purpose of existence is preferable from the social and personal point of view over another one in the opposite [ 2 ]. Furthermore, values can be referred to as interests, desires, goals, needs and standards of preference [ 3 ]. (Ros [ 15 ] supports the same concept and states, “a value is a desirable state, object, goal or behaviour transcending specific situations and applied as normative standard to judge and to choose among alternative modes of behaviour” [ 2 , 15 ].

Moving a little from the basic components mentioned in the previous definitions, Anana and Nique [ 8 ] say that a value is a reference people use to judge themselves and others or to influence the values, attitudes and actions of other people, such as children. People who use the features obtained through the sense organs in defining other beings can benefit from the impressions they have emotionally in attributing importance to that being and appraising it [ 16 ]. These emotion-based impressions are generally called “values”. Another definition suggests that values are systematic and, to some extent, precise ideas that ensure the interaction of an individual with the environment [ 17 ]). Regarding the concept of personal values, Mashlah [ 5 ] and Daniela et al. (2013) [ 2 ] refer to Schwartz and Bilsky’s [ 18 ] and Schwartz’s [ 19 ] definition of values as a combination of five main features: values are (a) concepts or beliefs (b) about desirable end states or behaviours (c) that transcend specific situations, (d) guide the selection or evaluation of behaviour and events and (e) are ordered by relative importance. Analytical observation on the definitions of values shows that they are more or less diverse in meanings. Basically, terms such as interests, beliefs, desires and behaviour have been used in common in definitions. However, when focused, it is evident that values have been defined as concerning the cognitive, affective and behavioural aspects of an individual.

In contrast to the above, Ledden [ 14 ] calls attention to another two important points referring to the relevant literature. Firstly, based on the literary evidence, researchers state that value’s loose definition and the diverse nomenclature used by authors have collectively led to some authors using the term value interchangeably with concepts such as satisfaction, quality and values, particularly with the personal values that guide human behaviour such as beliefs of right and wrong. Secondly, as Ledden states [ 14 ], despite the consensus on terms and definition of values, the literature evidences some confusion in differentiating between the concept of the value and the notion of values. The argument is supported with an important distinction between value (singular) and values (plural) marked by Holbrook [ 20 ], defining the former as a preference judgment and the latter as the criteria by which people make such preference judgments; thus, value is related to, but distinct from, the concept of values. In a general sense, this diversity possibly emerges through the variations in values referred to in different research domains.

Adhering to the research outcomes, Branson et al. [ 4 ] discusses the adoption of values by a person. As explained by values theory, a person’s values are dependent upon his or her consciousness and those values are unique to the person. Research shows that people do not learn values, but rather, they unconsciously adopt values. For example, values are adopted subliminally rather than being consciously selected and deliberately adopted by the individual [ 4 ]. Each person sees a unique and specific view of their world due to the influence of his or her conscious perceptions.

Turning to the historical traces of debates and discussions on personal values, values are abstract concepts that have been studied since ancient times [ 21 ] and can be traced back to the lessons from Aristotle, Plato and Socrates [ 15 ]. Evidently, research into value education has been carried out for almost centuries [ 3 ] and continues today. As a result, several definitions and models have been suggested and empirically studied over the past years. Despite the key components and focuses, several models are found frequently cited in the research literature. As Hanel, Litzellachner and Maio [ 11 ] suggested, the following are at the forefront of all the other individual value models.

• Spranger’s (1921)—Model of types of people;
• Rokeach’s (1973)—Instrumental and terminal values;
• Schwartz’s—The Schwartz (1992) theory of basic human values;
• Gouvela’s (2013)—Functional theory of values.

Value theories focused on values at the individual level as well values can also be described on a cultural level. As Hanel, Litzellachner and Maio [ 11 ] refer, three prominent approaches of this type were proposed by Inglehart, Hofstede and Schwartz [ 19 ].

Particularly for this article, Schwartz’s model of human values is adopted as the fundamental theory to discuss the issues highlighted in the objectives since it has been referred to as the theoretical ground of a number of recent research studies on personal values in a variety of contexts. Specifically in the studies which examined how the basic values relate to various attitudes, opinions, behaviours, personalities and background characteristics. In addition, it has been used in hundreds of studies that assessed value transmission and development in an individual from childhood to adolescence and value change over time. Moreover, the theory itself concerns the basic values that people in all cultures recognize [ 19 ]. Thus, it can be accepted as universally applicable without any bias. Additionally, considering the very diversity of meanings of the construct of values, the sociopsychological aspects of values are focused on throughout this article.

2.2. Personal Value Theories—Schwartz Theory of Human Values

Values can range from the simplest forms, such as punctuality and kindness, to pretentious forms such as self-direction, universalism and conformity. Over the past years, various value models have been proposed and empirically supported [ 11 ]. All of them have often defined human values as abstract ideals that guide people’s behaviour and are crucial for explaining social and personal organizations and tracing their changes due to various factors. Among the different value models that have been suggested, the Schwartz [ 18 ] theory of basic human values is found frequently cited in the literature.

As Schwartz described, there are six main features of values according to the theory [ 18 , 19 ]: values are beliefs linked inextricably to affect, values refer to desirable goals that motivate action, values transcend specific actions and situations, values serve as standards, values are ordered by importance relative to one another and the relative importance of multiple values are guides to action. These six features apply to all values. Furthermore, theory distinguishes ten basic values (value types) which encompass the range of motivationally distinct values recognized across cultures. These values are likely to be universal because they are grounded in universal requirements of human existence. However, they differ in their motivational content. The definitions of the ten values in terms of the broad goals they express in Table 1 .

Values and the motivational goals—the Schwartz theory of personal values.

He presented the structural model of basic values which takes the form of a circle. Complementary values, i.e., values that are similar to motivational content, are located side by side on this circle while competing values are located at opposing sides [ 18 , 19 ]. The closer any two values in either direction around the circle, the more similar their underlying motivations; the more distant, the more antagonistic their motivations [ 19 ]. It seems that the whole set of ten values relates to each other closely or distantly and by that mean they may interrelate with any other variable such as behaviour, attitude, age, etc. ( Figure 1 ).

Theoretical model of relations among ten motivational types of values.

2.3. Value Education

The concept of values has been defined differently in the literature depending on the contexts and the situations. However, along with the rapid changes in the world, the concepts of values and value education have gained renewed attention due to the increased social immorality [ 21 ]. Value education can address different forms and definitions. In religious senses, it is most possibly defined as moral and spiritual development. To sociological concepts, it can be termed as the part of socialisation and personality development or the transmission of cultural elements. In the dimension of education, it is addressed through citizenship education. However, in the most general sense, value education stresses the process by which people develop moral values and transfer them through factors such as social relationships, religion and education.

The values, attitudes and personal qualities of young people and the role of the school in spiritual, moral, social and cultural development have received renewed attention in recent years [ 21 , 22 , 23 ]. As education is a personality-building process [ 24 ], school education is challenged by preparing students to face the complexities of future life. Rapidly changing socioeconomic structures and their consequences in terms of patterns of work, family life and social relationships requires an educational response. In that context, experts have recognised the 21st century school curriculum as the most influential mode of transferring values to the younger generation other than the family and other immediate social units. Sahin [ 16 ] suggests that implicit or planned values education in schools plays an active role in transferring values from society to society. By its definition, value education refers to those pedagogies that educators use to create enriching learning experiences for students and addresses issues related to character formation [ 25 ] and moral development. Moral values are the values that make individuals distinguish between what is good or bad and right or wrong and simply it gives the ideas about the good personal and social life. Halstead and Tylor [ 21 ] refer to a discussion document on Spiritual and Moral Development and highlight that the moral values that school should promote are telling the truth, keeping promises, respecting the rights and property of others, acting considerately towards others, helping those less fortunate and weaker than ourselves, taking personal responsibility for one’s actions and self-discipline. Moreover, schools reject bullying, cheating, deceit, cruelty, irresponsibility and dishonesty.

Sahin [ 16 ] has identified the four main characteristics of values education as:

• To raise individuals’ awareness of universal (ethical), cultural values, and their importance;
• To relate democratic attitudes and tolerance to multiculturalism;
• To evaluate all values with the criteria of improving people’s living conditions and facilities;
• To turn life into knowledge and/or knowledge into life considering concrete problems related to ethical values.

Sahin [ 16 ] views the main purpose of values education as to make values permanent behaviours in students. Providing students with the knowledge and insight into values and beliefs that enables them to reflect on their experience in a way that develop their spiritual awareness and self-knowledge, teaches them the principles which distinguish right from wrong and teaches students to appreciate their cultural traditions and the diversity and richness of other cultures are among the basic functional aspects of value education provided through the school education [ 21 ]. Accordingly, the particular theme of value education is directly related to inculcating moral values in students, and it can be identified as another phase of personal value development since the same aspects are named and described in personal value models and frameworks in more or less similar terms. For example, the features that institutions wish to promote through moral or value education are discussed in the ten basic values in Schwartz theory of basic values under the themes of conformity, benevolence, tradition, security and universalism. As Schwartz [ 19 ] views, benevolence and conformity values both promote cooperative and supportive social relations and both values may motivate the same helpful act, separately or together. Traditional values imply one’s affection towards religious beliefs and respect for tradition and customs while security values inspire one’s need for safety and harmony. Hence, through value education, it develops values such as conformity, security, universalism and benevolence.

In developing values in individuals, it is widely recognised that schools are not the only nor are they the greatest influence on the values, attitudes and personal qualities of young people, but parents, communities and other agencies are also influential [ 21 ]. The early-stage value development through the family, neighbours, practice of religion, culture and nursery forms the foundation for the personal values system that one holds. It can be further sharpened through the formal and informal educational and cultural practices in the school or any other institution.

2.4. Learning Approaches

Approaches to learning mainly focus on how children engage in learning referring to the use of skills and behaviours. In addition, they are discussed incorporating emotional, behavioural and cognitive domains. Learning is a process of changing behaviour through experiences and is relatively a permanent product. Hence, it is important to understand student learning approaches to improve and maintain the quality of the learning experience. Beyaztas and Senemoglu [ 26 ] define learning approaches in terms of how a learner’s intentions, behaviours and study habits change according to their perception of a learning task to the context which the learner regards.

According to Lietz and Matthews [ 27 ] two major perspectives have guided theory and research into student learning: The first is The Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) rooted in North America, and the second is The Students’ Approaches to Learning (SAL) that is prominent in Europe and Australia/Southeast Asia. In parallel to that, Matthews et al. (2007) [ 3 ] cite Biggs’ [ 28 ] findings on Asian student learning approaches, and according to it, learning is based on two types: the Information Processing Approach and the Contextually and Experientially Based Learning Approach. The above findings specifically refer to the geographical region and it is reasonable to pose the argument that the variation patterns in learning approaches are existing to the sociogeographical factors such as country, region and culture.

Biggs [ 29 , 30 ] specified three distinct approaches (see Table 2 ) to learning namely, The Surface, The Deep and The Achieving approaches to learning [ 3 , 27 ]. In addition, each approach is composed of a motivation that directed learning and a strategy for the implementation of the learning approach [ 3 ].

Motivations and strategies in student approaches to learning.

Note. MNNote. Matthews et al. (2007) [ 3 ] following Biggs [ 29 ] and Murray-Harvey [ 31 ].

Li’s [ 32 ] perspective on student learning approaches is quite different from the above and states that students are smart in different ways and have different learning approaches. According to Na Li, the two major perspectives of learning are the constructivist and student-centred learning approaches: Inquiry-based learning, Problem-based learning, the Situated and embodied cognition model, Self-regulated learning and Cognitive apprenticeship model and Technology-enhanced learning approaches.

Research into learning approaches has focused on studying the impact of background factors such as gender, sociocultural backgrounds, discipline area, personal values and the learning culture of students. As highlighted by Lietz and Matthews [ 27 ], Cano-Garcia [ 33 ] has shown that older female students tended to score higher on the deep and achieving approaches to learning than younger male students. In addition, studies of Jones et al. [ 34 ] and Smith and Miller [ 35 ] reflected strong relationships between learning approaches and academic disciplines. Beyaztas and Senemoglu [ 26 ] reveal another dimension of research on learning approaches in relation to the examination on students’ learning and studying behaviour towards exams and exam types. Results of these interventions revealed that students’ learning approaches change according to the examination type they were preparing for and Ramsden [ 36 ] has proposed strategic learning approaches for students who have more exam-oriented study behaviours.

Another major area that researchers concentrated is changes in the learning approach over time. A number of cross-sectional and longitudinal studies have investigated changes in learning approaches over time [ 3 , 10 , 37 ]. Both Lietz and Matthews [ 27 ] and Tarabashkina and Lietz [ 10 ] refer to the same group of studies that investigated changes in learning approaches over time. As they arranged into the chronological order the earliest, Watkins and Hattie’s [ 38 ] study on a sample of undergraduate students found that the longer students had studied, the more they displayed characteristics of the deep approach to learning. Contrary to the results of their first study, Watkins and Hattie’s longitudinal study [ 39 ] showed no evidence of students’ deep learning approaches intensifying over time. However, Biggs [ 29 ] reported a general decline in the deep approach from the first to final year of study in a sample of undergraduate students in Australia. However, no significant changes were observed for other learning approaches. In the study by Gow and Kember [ 40 ], results showed that older students used the deep approach significantly more often than younger students. In addition, students at the beginning of their studies appeared to prefer an achieving approach compared to students who were further advanced in their studies. In addition, the more time that had elapsed since leaving school, the fewer the number of students who displayed characteristics of the surface approach. In another study by Kember [ 41 ], it was uncovered that younger students showed a preference for a more superficial approach in a comparison of first, second and third-year students. In contrast to the results of his study in 1990 [ 40 ], he found that first-year students showed significantly higher scores on the deep approach to learning than second and third-year students. Zeegers’s [ 42 ] study on a class of chemistry students over 30 months has shown a significant decline in the achieving strategy and a significant increase in the surface strategy over the time of the study. For the deep approach, no statistically significant changes emerged over time. Another study carried out by Matthews [ 3 ] on the same issue discovered that students’ approaches to learning generally became deeper over time. In contrast, Cano’s [ 33 ] study observed a significant decline from junior to senior high school with regards to the deep and surface learning approaches both in boys and girls.

In general, preference for a deep learning approach has emerged as the major concern of all studies, and there is no specific pattern of applying a particular approach for learning among the students. Hence, there may be some other background factors influencing the selection and application as well as the changing of a specific approach to learning. In the point of factors affecting students’ learning approaches, Beyaztas and Senemoglu [ 26 ] summarize the 3P model (Presage, Process and Product), and according to it, prior knowledge, abilities, preferred ways of learning, values and expectations, teaching context (including the curriculum) and teaching methods affect the student’s selection.

As revealed through the research studies, approaches to learning are probable to change in response to gender, ability, formal teaching authority, time, personal values [ 3 , 27 ], the requirements of and as an adaptation to new environments, the learning culture and the academic discipline and its nature [ 10 , 27 ]. Additionally, as Beyaztas and Senemoglu [ 26 ] state, referring to an early study of Ramsden [ 36 ], students’ perception of their teachers and departments also have important effects on their learning approaches. In addition, the curriculum and sociocultural environment also may have an effect on selecting the learning approach. Thus, it can be concluded that students’ preference for learning approach is influenced by several factors and they may be inborn or situational. In other words, learning approached may be a result of a combination of several internal and external factors including personal value traits.

3. Methodological Design

This research is based on a systematic review of the literature with a narrative summary that exclusively depended on online databases. The predetermined selection criteria, which are given in Table 3 , were applied during the database search screening of the text titles, abstracts and whole texts.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Following the above-mentioned criteria, full texts that were reported within 20 years were purposely selected due to the availability of a limited number of accessible resources to retrieve the literature. In relation to the year of publication, the search action was conducted with the use of online databases. As the main sources of data, Google Scholar, JSTOR and Elsevier were used. The ResearchGate database was also used for the search of resources.

The comprehensive search resources were completed based on a wide range of key terms and phrases including “values”, “personal values”, “learning approaches”, “learning communities” and “learning approaches—academic achievement and value education”. However, similar terms that are often used interchangeably in the literature were also used. In particular, with regards to the concepts of personal values and value education, they have also been searched through the terms “humanistic values”, “soft skills”, “social skills” and “moral education”.

As the search action resulted in a limited number of appropriate and accessible sources, the reference section of the found texts were studied in the search for more relevant texts. After the exclusion of sources that did not satisfy the criteria in Table 3 , 38 texts were selected for analysis. The content of the selected resources was studied and analysed in detail. Then, the required data were organized under four main themes following the study objectives.

4.1. Objective 1: To Investigate the Role of Students’ Personal Values in Their Choice of Learning Approaches

In the most general sense, approaches to learning describe what a student does when he/she is learning and why he/she should do it. In other words, it is the way that students perceive and value the learning process and how they behave during the process. As suggested by the aforementioned facts and information, education correlates with personal values. Hence, a considerable number of educational studies have been carried out to examine the composition and structure of personal values and their relationships with learning approaches. Values are considered to be precursors as well as predictors of behaviour [ 3 ]. In the same way, studies have proven that a tendency towards certain types of behaviours depends strongly on the structure of one’s values. Conversely, learning can be seen as a type of individual-specific behavioural pattern. In that respect, it is justifiable to accept that there is a relationship between personal values and the learning approaches of students. In addition, the values are believed to be influenced by background factors such as religion, culture, political factors, age and many others. Assuming that they also definitely influence in preference of a student’s learning approach, research into learning approaches has focused on a variety of backgrounds. According to Lietz and Matthews [ 27 ], research studies have focused on studying the differences in choice of learning approach and personal values relationships depending on gender, discipline area of study, prior performance and the experiences of students, especially the students who undertake higher education in another country. With regards to personal values, researchers in this context have confirmed that values are correlated with different learning approaches.

The influence of personal values on life goals are better described as follows: “values refer to desirable goals that motivate action” [ 19 ]. Wilding and Andrew’s [ 43 ] study results of “Life goals, approaches to study and performance in an undergraduate cohort” can be discussed taking that as the ground. According to them, the deep approach and the surface approach are the two main approaches to studying that have been distinguished by several researchers. In addition, an achieving or strategic approach employs either deep or surface strategies, depending on the demands of the task. The research aimed to investigate factors contributing to the choice of the preferred study approach at university and relations between these factors and academic performance. Based on the results, as the researchers state, this study has shown that approaches to study are related to wider attitudes to life or the general life goals and relations were found to be consistent with the deep approach being associated with altruistic life goals and the surface approach being associated with wealth and status life goals. The achieving approach was related to both types of life goal, but more strongly to wealth and status life goals.

The most frequently referred research of Matthews [ 3 ] on sojourner students in Australia has found interesting relationships between values and learning approaches. From the three pairs of canonical variables that emerged out of the analysis the first pair of variables illustrated that students with clearly defined value structure had equally well-defined learning motivations and strategies. The second pair of variables showed that students who had low integrity values showed a higher preference for surface or superficial learning. In contrast, the third pair of variables indicated that students who had a lesser emphasis on values associated with the Confucian ethos showed a strong preference for the deep strategy [ 3 ].

In the study of “Values and Learning approaches of students at an international University”, Matthews, Lietz and Darmawan [ 3 ] relate the ten values postulated by Schwartz et al. [ 18 ] to Biggs’ [ 29 ] six subscales and the relationships between values and approaches to learning has been estimated by canonical correlation analysis. It has revealed that values can be linked to learning approaches even in a situation where students have left their home countries to undertake tertiary studies in a new social, cultural and educational environment. There, the results have been interpreted to the higher-order values: self-aggrandisement, conservatism, self-directedness and benevolent change, which were initially termed as self-enhancement, self-transcendence, openness to change and conservation, respectively, as proposed by Schwartz [ 18 ]. Four distinct pairings between values and learning approaches were established: (a) self-aggrandisement (Achievement and power values) is linked to the achievement learning approach, (b) conservatism (universalism and benevolence values) relates to the surface learning approach, (c) self-directedness (self-direction and stimulation values) is linked to the deep learning approach and (d) benevolent change (conformity, tradition and security values) is related to the learning strategies variables were emerged as the results.

In terms of the main research question, the impact of students’ personal values on learning approaches and changes in them over time of Lietz and Matthews [ 27 ] longitudinal study on “The Effects of College Students’ Personal Values on Changes in Learning Approaches” has given mixed results. The three-year study results have shown no changes within students in the deep and surface approaches to learning but a significant decline for the achieving approach, particularly for students who previously experienced a more formal teaching authority. As they described, the students who identified to a greater extent with the achievement, hedonism and security values have demonstrated a higher achieving approach to learning at the start of their higher education. Conversely, but in line with expectations, students who valued having fun and a good time more than other students have displayed fewer characteristics of the achieving approach to learning. However, none of the personal values were found to influence how the achieving approach to learning changed over time. Based on the research outcome they have concluded that, while personal values appear to explain differences in learning approaches at one point in time they do not seem to contribute to explaining changes in learning approaches over time. In that case, as explained in a similar study by Matthews (2007) [ 3 ] students are likely to change both their personal values and learning approaches due to the influence of the new environment or it may result to pursue their education.

Parallel to the theme of the above studies, Tarabashkina and Lietz [ 10 ] carried out a longitudinal research study on “The impact of values and learning approaches on student achievement: Gender and academic discipline influences” using a cohort of international students who started their three-year Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degrees in September 2004 at a university in Germany. According to the results, hedonism and achievement were consistently related to the achieving approach over three years, whereas the achievement value probably had a large positive effect on the achieving approach, and hedonism (that is, the tendency to have fun) was negatively related to this approach across all occasions. Hedonism was also consistently and negatively linked to the deep approach throughout all years, whereas self-direction had a positive impact on this approach over a two-year period. Self-direction emerged as a constant predictor of the surface approach, although in the opposite direction to this effect for the deep approach.

Accordingly, the reported literature provides insights that the personal values and learning approaches are two components that occur at the same time with parallel construction. In addition, it establishes the relationship regarding how personal values are linked with different learning approaches and how these interrelationships change over time.

4.2. Objective 2: To Investigate the Impact of Personal Values on One’s Academic Achievement

Personal characteristics such as skills, abilities and values, academic adaptability, concern on learning objectives, decision making, innovation and communication are some of the main features of any valid evaluation criteria. When elaborating on the state of personal values in line with its impact on one’s academic achievement, knowledge as a human-specific activity is in direct relation with the way a person through his values perceives the world, the phenomena and events Daniela et al. [ 2 ]. The values favoured by different individuals can be more or less equal or different. Similarly, within each unique and specific view of the world, each person attributes different values to the same experience or the same value to different experiences [ 4 ]. Accordingly, the existing similarities and differences in values cause much diversity in behaviour. Typically, human beings tend to adapt their values according to the circumstances. In addition, it can be assumed that the values do reflect themselves through all the activities of individuals. Identifying the worth of studying these variations, in addition to exploring the link between values and learning approaches, the relationships between personal values and academic achievement, including the effect of factors such as gender and academic discipline, has been carried out by scholars. As the literature notes, the achievement motive and achievement goal are different in their nature, but they both share a commonality in terms of the role that individuals’ values may play as their underlying antecedents [ 44 ]. The argument is further confirmed citing Kaplan and Maehr [ 45 ], and they contend that individuals’ achievement goals are associated with their values. Similarly, values are considered desirable goals and individuals work hard to pursue them. Hence it is justifiable to say that in the academic setting students personal values or their personal goals substantially influence the academic achievement of the students.

Among the several research studies made to study the impact of values on academic achievements, Bala [ 46 ] discusses the values and adjustment problem of high achievers and low achievers based on a sample of 100 students from two senior secondary schools. There, the researcher has considered values in terms of theoretical, economic, aesthetic, social, political and religious values and adjustments related to social, health and emotional, school and home values. Achieving one of the specific objectives to determine the nature of the values of High and Low achievers, it arrives at several conclusions: (a) Higher achievers are more theoretical and social in comparison to low achievers and they have a dominant interest in knowledge, learning and believe more in kindness, charity and love; (b) High achievers and low achievers are similar as far as religious value is concerned; (c) Low achievers are more economic in comparison to high achievers. They believe more in materialistic life than high achievers; (d) High achievers are more political in their approach in comparison to low achievers; (e) Low achievers are superior on the aesthetic value in comparison to high achievers.

There has been little research to study the effect of a school’s disciplinary climate on improving students’ learning and academic achievement. However, the available past and present research support the view that student learning is immediately affected by the nature of the school’s disciplinary climate [ 4 ] as it controls students’ conduct by restricting the engagement in misbehaviour during school time and, thus, enhance student learning.

According to Ma and Willms [ 47 ], research findings based on a sample of grade 8 students in the US, the two most important disciplinary factors that affect academic achievement pertain to whether students were concerned about class disruptions, the proportion of students who talked to a school counsellor or teacher about disciplinary matters and the effect of the teacher–student relationship. As they revealed, with respect to the effects of indiscipline on academic achievement, the disciplinary measure that had the strongest relationship to academic achievement pertains mainly to classroom disruption. Additionally, they say that the effect of behaviour concern, which is a more traditional indicator of disciplinary climate, was negatively related to academic success. As they have found that students’ indiscipline has a significant detrimental effect on their academic achievement, to improve academic achievement from the perspective of a disciplinary climate, providing an orderly classroom environment has been suggested as a remedy.

Research conducted at the individual level has consistently shown a correlation between low cognitive ability, poor academic performances, learning disabilities, delinquency and particularly the relationship between academic performances and discipline [ 47 ]. In schools where advantaged students are concentrated, there will be fewer discipline problems and higher achievement levels as they completely target academic success rather than other issues, whereas schools serving disadvantaged students will have even worse discipline problems and lower levels of academic achievement. Ma and Willms [ 47 ] support that claim with Hawkins and Lishner [ 48 ], who have framed the relationship between academic performance and discipline as a circular process. School misconduct in the early elementary grades, combined with low ability or learning disabilities, are antecedents of poor academic performance in the late grades; poor academic performance in the late elementary grades leads to a low commitment to educational activities, disaffection toward school and an association with delinquent peers. These factors lead to dropping out or to delinquent behaviour. Value education is another concerned faculty that is gaining much concern in education. The results of a study on students attending character education and some of which did not have shown that the scores of those who underwent character education were higher than the scores of others [ 49 ]. As a whole, according to these authors, schools’ or any other learning community’s disciplinary climate acknowledges that better-behaved students generally are higher academic achievers. On that basis, as highlighted in the aforementioned discussion, if personal values are considered as abstract ideals that guide people’s behaviour, then there should be a correlation between delinquent behavioural patterns, cognitive ability level, academic performance and the personal values of an individual.

Liem et al. [ 44 ] examined the relationships between values, achievement motives, achievement goals and academic achievement among Indonesian high school students. There, in terms of the relationships between values and achievement motives, findings indicate that security and conformity values are positive predictors of the social-oriented achievement motive; self-direction is a positive predictor of the individual-oriented achievement motive, whereas hedonism is a negative predictor of both achievement motive orientations. There is also evidence for the direct effects of values on academic achievement. How personal values influenced students’ learning approaches and in turn, how they related to students’ achievement has been examined several times, and they have resulted in more or less similar results, as in Liem et al. [ 44 ]. Accordingly, Wilding and Andrew [ 43 ], based on their study cohort behaviour, have observed that those with less interest in wealth and status life goals produced better academic results. In other words, the successful students would seem to apply themselves more (or more effectively) to the immediate task rather than wider ambitions. Hence, they concluded the two variables associated with better performance were a self-reported achieving approach to learning, reflecting good organization and a systematic programme of study and a lower emphasis on wealth and status achievement in life. Furthermore, they stress that Biggs’ achievment approach to learning has consistently been shown to be positively related to academic performance, but neither the surface approach nor the deep approach has shown any such consistent relation. In contrast to that, the results of a study on a sample of university students by Tarabashkina and Lietz [ 10 ] showed that specific combinations of values were related to each learning approach and their relationship with the academic achievement of students over three years. In general, certain consistencies of these relationships have been observed throughout the study period. The deep and achieving learning approaches were associated with higher achievement, whereas students who displayed more characteristics of the surface learning approach had lower academic performance. Through statistical analysis, they built up the positive and negative relationships between personal values and learning approach: (a) Achieving learning approach—self-direction, achievement and hedonism; (b) Deep learning approach—self direction and hedonism; (c) Surface learning approach—conformity and self-direction. As they found, if the deep and achieving learning approaches were associated with higher achievement, then it can be assumed that self-direction, achievement and hedonism values are consistently associated with academic achievements, affecting them negatively and/or positively.

Similarly, the research findings of the study on learning approaches of successful students done using freshman students ranked in the top one percent portion in a university placement exam (2013) in Ankara by Beyaztaş & Senemoğlu [ 50 ] were supported with the similar research literature and has shown that students can enhance their level of success by increased use of the deep learning approach and decreased use of the surface approach. Furthermore, references made in Watkins’s [ 51 ] meta-analysis of 60 studies addressing learning approaches and academic achievement found a negative relationship between academic achievement and surface learning approaches in 28 studies, a positive relationship between academic achievement and deep learning approaches in 37 studies and a positive relationship between academic achievement and strategic learning approach in 32 studies. Additionally, in a study by Senemoğlu [ 52 ] a positive and meaningful relationship was found between Turkish and American students’ perceived level of success and learning approaches. This study reported that students who perceived themselves to be successful tended to adopt deep and strategic learning approaches, whereas students who thought they were less successful used surface learning approaches in both countries. According to the outcomes of the above-mentioned research studies, any consistent assumptions cannot be made about the correlation between the effectiveness of the learning approaches and students’ academic achievements or about how learning approaches influence academic performance. As emerged in the previous research literature, students’ learning behaviour along with personal values may change according to the circumstances and, in turn, it makes a direct effect on the students’ academic achievement.

4.3. Objective 3: To Investigate the Importance of Developing Individual’s Personal Values as a Part of Their Academic Life

Education is a combined process in which the advancement of knowledge, development of skills and the acquisition of beliefs and habits progress from an earlier age. Education providers, especially schools, play an important role in helping young people to develop and manage their physical, social and emotional well-being, and to live and work with others in different contexts. Specifically, they are partly responsible for enlightening an individual in both personal and professional areas. In that sense, personal value development is given a prominent place in most of academic interventions since they are considered as the concepts of beliefs that guide behaviours, attitudes and social norms. Education is naturally and inevitably directly related to a person’s goals and values [ 53 ]. The objective of developing an individual’s personal values as a part of academic life has been discussed, mainly concerning the theme of value education in many of the studies. In general value, education occupies an impressive place in contemporary society and school education is the most influential means of developing an individual and the schools are meeting places of value and are also full of values [ 54 ].

Values education itself has been defined simply as a purposive attempt to teach what is good or bad. As Iscan and Senemoglu [ 49 ] define it, values education is an open initiative aimed to provide instruction in values, value development or value actualization. According to the definition underpinning the Value Education Study, Australia [ 55 ], ‘Values education’ is broader and refers to any explicit and/or implicit school-based activity to promote student understanding and knowledge of values and to inculcate the skills and dispositions of students so they can enact particular values as individuals and as members of the wider community. Beena [ 56 ] says that value education given at schools is much concerned with striving for personal wholeness as well as generating a responsible attitude towards others and an understanding of wrong and right behaviour. For Thornberg and Oguz [ 57 ], all kinds of activities in schools in which students learn or develop values and morality are often referred to as values education. It seems that through the value education at school, children are encouraged to explore the powers of good and bad while unconsciously setting appropriate limits to behaviour. In relation to the Schwartz theory of personal values, the school value education promotes the values (benevolence, universalism, tradition, conformity, security) that primarily regulate how one relates socially to others and affects their interests. Security and universalism values are boundary values primarily concerned with others’ interests, but their goals also regulate the pursuit of their own interests [ 19 ]. Particularly, schools being sites for ethical practices, it seems that they focus much on social value development rather than personal development. According to Kunduroglu & Babadogan [ 53 ], that may be because the values students get with values education affect firstly their families and circle of friends, then their acquaintances and at the end, all the community.

As Thornberg and Oguz [ 57 ] emphasize, referring to several studies, value education is accomplished in two distinct ways such as explicit values education (schools’ official curriculum of what and how to teach values and morality, including teachers’ explicit intentions and practices of values education and implicit values education (associated with a hidden curriculum and implicit values, embedded in school and classroom practices). Bergmark [ 54 ] also mentions that schools are full of implicit and explicit values which shape school leaders’, teachers’ and students’ perceptions and actions. Furthermore, Thornberg and Oguz [ 57 ] mention two general approaches to values education as described in the literature. The first is the Traditional Approach: adult transmission of the morals of society through character education, direct teaching, exhortation, and the use of rewards and punishments. The aim is to teach and discipline students to develop good character and virtues (being honest, hardworking, obeying legitimate authority, kind, patriotic and responsible) and to conform to the dominant values, legitimate rules and the authority of society. In contrast, the Progressive or Constructivist Approach emphasises children’s active construction of moral meaning and development of a personal commitment to principles of fairness and concern for the welfare of others through processes of social interaction and moral discourse. Reasoning and explanations, deliberative discussion about moral dilemmas and participation in decision-making processes are viewed as typical methods for this approach. The aim is to promote moral autonomy, rational thinking, moral reasoning skills and democratic values and competence among the students.

Values education has always been a part of the school curriculum in many countries aiming to inculcate religious beliefs, moral values, duties and social responsibilities as the social values are of crucial importance for an individual’s life [ 53 ]. Therefore, the personal value development of students is important as it is beneficial for the individual in academic, professional and social life. Academic development achieved without personal value development is worthless because individuals who are not disciplined find it difficult to survive in the long run of professional and social life. They lack positive qualities such as punctuality, flexibility, the willingness to learn, a friendly nature, an eagerness to help others, sharing and caring and many more. In addition, they do not believe in themselves and others and lack self-confidence, self-efficacy and self-courage, which are considered the main components of personal development. Obviously, educating people on an only cognitive level is incomplete and not functional [ 53 ]. Henceforth, academic growth must be supplemented with personal value development to strengthen the individual to fit in the competitive society and do away with negative behavioural traits. That gives the sense that better personalities yield positive results in academics, social and professional life.

The research study by Iscan and Senemoglu [ 49 ] on the effectiveness of values education curriculum for fourth graders to equip students with the values of “universalism” and “benevolence” on students’ value-related cognitive behaviours, affective characteristics and performances has resulted in important findings. The experimental group of the study has shown higher values-related cognitive behaviour acquisition level and used more expressions reflecting values in the interviews during and after the implementation of the program. Additionally, the experimental group has displayed a larger number of positive value-related behaviours during the study than the control group. In parallel to the particular study, Iscan and Senemoglu [ 49 ] highlight the the importance of value-based educational interventions. As they revealed, exposing students to such experiences may make them aware of moral issues, establish empathy with others and understand their moral values, decreasing bullying and violence. Furthermore, they have made students more tolerant, polite, compassionate and forgiving, and [ 58 ] it has led to positive changes in students’ respect and responsibility levels along with a decrease in unacceptable behaviour. A similar study on “Values Education Program Integrated with the 4th Grade Science and Technology Course’’ [ 53 ] has revealed that at the end of the 6-week intervention period, students in the experimental group improved their perspective on the values, being more open-minded, unbiased and scientific. In addition, they have interrogated values concepts and developed positive behaviours for the relevant values.

As a whole, it proves that value education is an essential component in the general teaching-learning procedure since it highly encourages positive personal quality development and value gain which in turn benefit the whole community, society and the world.

4.4. Objective 4: To Investigate How One’s Personal Value Shape the Learning Community around That Person and Vice-Versa

Definitions for learning communities that have been given by a variety of journals, top universities and educational experts indicate a common set of characteristics. Considering them all together, a learning community can be defined as the same groups of students taking the same subjects or studying in the same class together. In addition, they see and meet each other frequently, share the same learning experiences, work across boundaries, spend a considerable amount of time together and engage in common academic activities in two or more classes as a specific unit. Additionally, they hold common goals, characterize collaboration, peer review and relationship building.

Sometimes the learning community can be the whole class or a group of students. Otherwise, it can be the whole learning institution: a school, university or any other institution where the individuals of the community develop their intellectual and professional skills and abilities while improving socioethical values. In addition, they work collaboratively as a single unit for achieving a set of common academic goals, sharing and bearing all kinds of similarities and differences [ 58 ]. In a more formal sense, according to the literary evidence, developing and implementing an intentional learning community (LC) has emerged as a popular method for improving the quality of the undergraduate experience at a range of higher educational institutions. Learning communities have a long history in higher education, dating from the 1920s when Alexander Meiklejohn introduced the “Experimental College” at the University of Wisconsin [ 59 ].

It is known that, from early ages, pupils are greatly influenced by their peers [ 21 ], and this has been empirically studied. Zhao and Kuh [ 58 ] state that students who actively participate in various out-of-class activities are more likely to connect with an affinity group of peers, which is important for student retention, success and personal development. Peer communities sometimes encourage and sometimes discourage value development as the students encountered different learning activities. Ma and Willms [ 47 ] view peer relationships are associated with delinquency in early adolescence. So, the potential role of peers as an influential factor on others in the process of values formation at the schools has been studied several times. In this respect, the study of Garnier and Stein [ 60 ] confirms that peer groups in which people interact and share norms and goals are another significant matter that affects the personal values of an individual. One important source of values is that of a ‘pivotal’ person: a person observed as displaying values that would produce advantageous benefits for the observer [ 4 ]. In a learning community, there is a possibility of a friend or friends becoming a pivotal person or persons other than the teacher or the instructor. Hence, it is evident that learning communities trigger personal value development through peers, their behaviours and attitudes and all the personal attributes.

To address the above features through the teaching and learning process, different approaches have been taken by the educational practitioners to figure out the best way to teach their students, and many have failed. However, some have succeeded and are still on the ground with alterations and developments. Among them, the cooperative learning strategy has continued to be developed and used by the teachers at all levels. Hence, by exposing students to collaborative or cooperative learning experience, they are encouraged to work together with colleagues to achieve common targets. As the word sense, it is not just group work but a very dynamic strategy [ 61 ] that provides room for students to experience different personalities, to promote social interaction, to identify sociocultural dynamics, to transfer ideas, and to develop group leadership skills among students. Cooperative learning is a teaching practice that breaks students into groups of three to four, with each student having a particular role within the group [ 61 ]. However, collaborative learning goes beyond working together, and it inspires self-management, self-monitoring and self-directed earning while developing a core skill required for employment [ 62 ]. In that sense, when comparing the intended outcomes of collaborative and cooperative learning approaches with the Schwartz’s [ 19 ] categorisation of values, they enhance values such as self-direction, achievement, benevolence and universalism.

Zhao and Kuh [ 58 ] refer to several studies, and according to them, most learning communities incorporate active and collaborative learning activities and promote involvement in complementary academic and social activities that extend beyond the classroom. Such approaches are linked with such positive behaviours such as increased academic effort and outcomes such as promoting openness to diversity, social tolerance and personal and interpersonal development. In parallel to that, Stassen [ 59 ] points out the results of the empirical studies collectively and show that “living-learning communities have a significant positive effect on several student outcomes, including: student gains in autonomy and independence, intellectual dispositions and orientations, and generalized personal development and socialization”. Stassen [ 59 ] mentions that students in learning communities show greater institutional commitment, greater intellectual development and opportunities to analyse and integrate ideas, greater tolerance for difference and appreciation for pluralism and demonstrate higher persistence and academic performance as measured by college grade point average.

Taken together, by taking classes together and/or engaging in peer-to-peer learning as a learning community, students get to know each other better, learn from each other and support each other. Along with that, students experience more social relationships. A connected learning environment increases the potential for academic success while creating more opportunities for students to adapt themselves to the individual needs of each other, to adjust their schedules and to work with diverse groups since learning groups are a mixture of different intellectual abilities, academic interests and goals and learning styles. Then again, social relationships established as a result of learning communities will continue through the end of the academic experience and will last even after promoting social harmony. As explained in Schwartz’s [ 1 ], benevolence values provide an internalized motivational base for voluntarily promoting the welfare of others. Equally, conformity values promote prosocial behaviour to avoid negative outcomes for oneself. Hence, both benevolence and conformity values motivate the same helpful act of promoting cooperative and supportive social relations, separately or together. As discussed above the learning communities also directly or indirectly enrich the development of values such as benevolence and conformity in learners, since they support the natural integration of academic life with social life providing opportunities to interact with a variety of individuals. In turn, the learning community will be benefited or disturbed by the certain characteristics of the personal values held by the individual.

5. Discussion & Conclusions

Based on the above literature on the themes of personal values and related directions, it is clear that there is no universally accepted definition for personal values. However, despite the diversity and gaps in the definitions, values and personal values have been viewed basically as the concepts or beliefs which are depicted through behavioural patterns, selections and personal goals. Furthermore, intrinsic and extrinsic factors including family, social and economic background, neighbourhood, religion and education have been identified as the influential factors on value formation and development. Their effect on the life of a person alternate according to the circumstances. Jardim et al. [ 63 ] identified this nature of values as the two main functions: as a motivator (materialist or humanitarian law) or as guidance (personal, social or central). Furthermore, based on the different attributes of values and priorities given to them in different contexts, they have been defined, named and grouped in various ways with more or fewer similarities to each other. However, both Schwartz [ 19 ] and Jardim [ 63 ] explained the similarities of values and value systems. As they state values have a basic universal structure and character which make them to be believed as the judgment of truths. The emphasis given to values in many areas has resulted in a number of theories and frameworks, and they have been used as the theoretical grounds to evaluate the research outcomes. According to the search results of this particular study revealed that Schwatrz theory of personal values has been frequently used in many of the recent education-based research studies in comparison to the other theories.

The study of personal values can provide greater insight into the entirety of human behaviour. Therefore, it has been studied concerning a variety of disciplines including education. Although there are a limited number of educational studies dealing with values, attempting to explore the relationship between personal values and learning approaches, personal values and academic achievement, influence of one’s personal values on learning community and vice versa and value education are important trends that emerged in educational research. Those studies mainly focused on identifying students’ preferred learning approaches at different stages of academic life and underlying values that are likely to influence the preference. In addition, the positive and negative behaviours of the underlying values with the learning approaches over time and the changes were aimed at. When concerned with the learning approaches that are found frequently in studies, the deep, surface, achieving and strategic approaches are prominent. According to Wilding and Andrews [ 43 ], the two main approaches to studying are the deep approach and the surface approach, as distinguished by several researchers. In addition, an achieving or strategic approach employs either deep or surface strategies, depending on the demands of the task. Contrastingly, Matthews et al. [ 3 ] and Lietz and Matthews [ 27 ] cite Biggs [ 29 ], and he has specified three distinct approaches to learning, namely, The Surface, The Deep and The Achieving approaches to learning. The classification of Biggs’ [ 29 ] learning approaches appeared in many of the studies related to personal values, learning approaches and academic achievements. Research by Matthews et al. and Lietz et al. [ 3 , 27 , 37 ] based on personal values and their effect on students’ preference for learning approaches have revealed similar relationships and their changes over time, mainly related to the underlying values along with the other factors. In fact, revealing the correlation among value, learning approach and academic achievement is extremely important for educational practices. However, as they conclude, there is no consistency in those changes, and it has been further revealed that one learning approach is influenced by several value attributes. In general, deep and strategic learning approaches are found to be positively related to the academic achievement of successful students, whereas the surface learning approach is reported with less successful students. Self-direction and achievement values were identified as the most influential in students’ success through the above approaches. Collectively, the above study results offer potential insights that may be useful when designing new academic courses or in any teaching-learning intervention. Furthermore, though personal values are not the sole determinant of educational or career choice, the correct understanding of values is useful in addressing the arising needs and issues in any discipline. Especially to address a wide range of issues relating to schooling and any educational outcomes such as academic achievement, retention, participation, dropping out, discipline and career selection.

With regard to today’s transforming society, value education has identified a crucially important requirement. Both the cognitive and affective domains of a child need to be developed through education. Kunduroglu and Babadogan [ 53 ] stressed that the purpose of education is to furnish students with affective behaviours. Mainly, schools and other educational institutions are the places where students continue their value education process, which begins at home. One of the objectives of values education in schools is to develop a healthy, consistent and balanced personality in students [ 16 ]. In that sense, formal educational interventions are better focused on enhancing the values that children have already started to develop and help children to reflect, understand and implement their own values accordingly. At this point, direct or indirect inclusion of themes such as moral, religious, civic, democratic, national, personal and social goals and issues in the school curricula has been stressed as important. Furthermore, the need of treating value education as a high priority in terms of ensuring the continuity of society and cultural transmission at a personal level also highlighted in many studies. The effectiveness of curricula including value education has been studied several times, and the results revealed the robust links between value education, student disciplinary conduct and academic achievements. Additionally, the consideration given to the respective roles of formal and informal education, learning communities, peers, parents and other institutions and agencies in making sense of values and forming personal values is emphasized in much of the value-education-based research.

Another concept that emerged as important in the dimension of personal values is its close relationship with the learning community and vice versa. The peer group influence on shaping academic behaviour and personal behaviour have long been studied by scholars over different perspectives. Concerning that, many researchers have focused on cooperative/collaborative learning interventions as the means of establishing social relationships and value development.

In general, when analysing the contents of research studies, it was notable that research related to personal values and learning approaches have been the major focus of many scholars in comparison to the other directions. A few studies found online databases discussing the relationship between personal values and academic achievement. Study reports directly focusing on the correlation of personal values and learning community and vice versa and the importance of personal values as a part of academic life are found lacking in online databases. Methodologically, it was found that many of the studies tend to apply mixed method designs and only a few have taken qualitative and quantitative research as their main research method. Other than that, literature-based reports are also available as useful academic resources. In the data collection process, questionnaires and interviews were found as the most commonly used instruments.

The discussion of personal values includes many distinct dimensions and can be approached through numerous perspectives: education, personal and social life, professional world, culture, political, religion and so on. It is realized that focusing only on a part of it cannot result in a holistic study of the concept but still it would be important to understand the depth of the concept. Depending on online resource availability and the time period set for the selection of resources for the current review may have resulted in the exclusion of some valuable research outcomes and directions. However, the comparative analysis based on available literature would probably shed light on the variety of interpretations, findings and research tendencies.

Finally, as the research literature reveals, the insight gained through the results of value-related studies facilitate the clear identification of the role of value in personal life and partly as a deciding factor of academic life. If one is not clear of his or her own values, then he/she is not clear with aims and is ineffective in controlling their life. Hence, further investigation on value-related topics over the wide range of its interrelated dimensions would give a more holistic and profound view of the role of personal values in education.

6. Recommendations

Based on the above discussion, it is apparent that still there is much room for future research studies on the theme of personal values since they affect all the avenues of human life, individually or in common as a group or a community. Conversely, several factors influence personal values and their changes. Therefore, a detailed further examination of the complex interplay of factors influencing personal values and how personal values influence an individual and in common to the whole human community seems to be valuable.

According to the analyses presented in this article, it is implied that the topic of personal values is very much important in the field of education to identify students’ behaviours, life goals and expectations, learning styles and how these change over time. Furthermore, increased attention is given to value education since values are considered as essential social or soft skills that one must acquire and practice in the 21st century world. Therefore, education, regardless of the level of junior, secondary, tertiary or professional, should aim at making human life better not only through professional or economic enhancement but also through social, moral and spiritual strengthening. At present, schools and other educational providers have adopted several co-curricular programmes that uplift values in students, such as peer support systems, community service projects and student action teams. These interventions provide students with opportunities to develop a sense of responsibility, empathy, unity, appreciation of others and their views, lifestyles and cultures and work with others to resolve the problems. These programmes have been recorded with notable achievements. This is a common feature of almost all the educational contexts that ensure values are incorporated into teaching programmes across the key learning areas to develop students’ civic and social skills. Thus, there is a need for a realistic and balanced curriculum in which the programs that inspire the value acquisition and internalisation of socially beneficial skills and behaviours are emphasized. In addition, the integration of such features into the disciplines in the curriculum is also important. Along with that, research studies to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses and the positive and negative aspects of such programmes need to be continued. According to the general and most practiced procedure, during or at the end of the academic experience, cognitive behaviours are always tested, but testing effective behaviours is always neglected. Hence, it is a noteworthy point to mention the importance of assessing processes for the progress of value development in students.

Finally, the current study based on the available literature has shown that students probably tend to adjust their approaches to a specific learning strategy due to several factors: learning environment, subject area, expectations, curriculum, teacher and teaching style, origin and cultural context, gender, religion, etc. Furthermore, there is no significant pattern of selecting learning approaches such as deep, surface or achieving, etc., at different levels of the context of learning. Therefore, deep study into how learning approaches are changed, on what basis and what the most influential motives for such alterations are will be beneficial to understanding students’ learning behaviours. Hence, research studies further investigating such dimensions would probably useful and needed at present and in future.

Author Contributions

Conceptualisation, K.A.A.G.; methodology, D.M.S.C.P.K.D. and K.A.A.G.; formal analysis, D.M.S.C.P.K.D. and S.Y.E.; investigation, D.M.S.C.P.K.D. and K.A.A.G.; resources, K.A.A.G.; writing—original draft preparation, D.M.S.C.P.K.D.; writing—review and editing, K.A.A.G.; supervision, K.A.A.G. and S.Y.E.; project administration, K.A.A.G. and S.Y.E. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

This research received no external funding.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Crisis in Values or Values in Crisis: Experiences of Values Education Teachers in The New Normal

• Dondon B. Buensuceso Ph.D.
• Ma. Dolores F. Bayocboc MAEd
• Feb 22, 2023

Dondon B. Buensuceso, Ph.D. and Ma. Dolores F. Bayocboc, MAEd Don Bosco Technical Institute of Makati, Philippines

The purpose of this research is to explore the lived experiences of Values Education teachers teaching elementary grades at Don Bosco Technical Institute of Makati. Value crisis in values education during online distance learning is evident. The practice of values education teachers starts deviating from the values we hold. This research is also intended to derive a framework for teaching values education in an online learning environment, describe the challenges encountered by the values education teachers and their coping mechanisms, and identify the phenomenon through investigation. It is essential for the Values Education teachers to have their insights and experiences shared for research and development.

Keywords : Values Education Teachers, Online Distance learning, Synchronous Learning, Asynchronous Learning

INTRODUCTION

John Maxwell once said, “When values, thoughts, feelings, and actions are in alignment, a person becomes focused, and character is strengthened.”

What exactly are values? Values are a person’s or society’s beliefs about what is important and what is not. They are a set of guiding principles; what one considers to be correct and desirable in life, particularly in personal conduct. Values Education, which evolved into Edukasyon sa Pagpapahalaga, then changed to Edukasyon sa Pagpapakatao (EsP) in the K to 12 curriculum, allows the teacher to guide students in the formation of their values, attitudes, and habits in order to become good citizens in the country (Wirihana, 2018).

A lot has changed since the pandemic. It influenced people’s lifestyles not only in our country but all over the world. It gave us the chance to examine how this affects us. Values education is a form of education that stresses the acquisition of living values by students. It inculcates universal and ethical values such as compassion, courage, honesty, tolerance, and truthfulness (Aggrawal, 1992).

There’s an increased valuing of self-direction, security, humility, caring, and universalism and a decrease in hedonism. (Bojanowska, Kaczmarek, et al. Changes in Values and well-being amidst the covid -19 pandemic in Poland, Sept 15, 2021)

Existing evidence demonstrates the importance of human values, and the extent to which they are shared by fellow citizens, for tackling the COVID-19 crisis. Individuals who attach higher importance to self-transcendence (e.g., responsibility) and conservation (e.g., security) values are likely to be more compliant with COVID-19 behavioral guidelines and to help others who are struggling with the crisis. (Lucas Wolf et al. The importance of (shared) human values for containing the COVID-19 pandemic)

Education must emphasize a child’s overall development. This includes values that aid in the development of children into individuals with strong character. It prepares them for their future responsibilities. As a result, moral and social values must be included in the educational system. When we teach students about values, we hope to instill values in them rather than simply teach them about values and their importance. We want them to put the values we taught them into action, not just know about them.

Values remain stable during normal times, but when a disturbance occurs, such as a pandemic, situational changes can affect the stability of these values. However, does this justify a shift in one’s or society’s values? For example, if an employee loses his job, is he justified to steal food to feed his family? Is it acceptable for a teacher to arrive at school unprepared?

Values are essential, especially in times of crisis. Leaders make decisions that affect everyone in their organization based on their own values, whether personal or institutional. Decisions that are in the best interests of all stakeholders. Indeed, we require values in times of crisis, or we will have a crisis in values. Values education teachers in this time of the pandemic also change the way they teach their students which greatly affects how they facilitate learning.

For Don Bosco schools, values integration and values education are two important aspects of the curriculum to make sure that students’ values are anchored on the core values of Don Bosco Educational Centers (DBEC). They are integrally part of Jesus My Best Friend Catechesis, with one of the three core values (Spirituality, Collaboration, and Integrity) being tackled at every term following the growing circles of relationships beginning with the widest, “God,” followed by “Others,” and then the “Self.” Four allied values, one allied value per lesson, support each DBEC core value. Allied values from the other learning areas may be added. The same set of values are proposed to the students every year, but every year presenting an ever-deepening appreciation following the catechetical spiral model.

The limited time when teaching values education, the insufficiency of knowledge on the strategies they can apply during online learning, the lack of understanding of the nature of the subject due to the irrelevant field of specialization, and the use of technology, are just a few of the concerns of values education teachers in the school where the researchers currently work.

With this, the study was conducted about the lived experiences of values education teachers and how the synchronous and asynchronous learning environments they utilized can help them cope with the challenges brought by the crisis in values or values in crisis.

Research Questions

This study aimed to describe the lived experiences of teachers teaching values education in online distance learning.

Specifically, this study seeks to answer the following questions.

• What are the challenges experienced by the values education teachers during online learning?
• How did they cope with the challenges they encountered during online learning?
• What program can be developed based on the findings of this research?

Scope and Delimitations of the Study 

           This research covers a phenomenological study of values education teachers, and how they utilized synchronous and asynchronous learning for effective classroom instruction. The research is based on the participants’ experiences in teaching values education.

           The result of this study was derived from the participants’ responses through the interview that the researchers conducted, wherein they tackled about their experiences in teaching values education during the pandemic. The strategies they used were based on the student’s needs, the implications and difficulties they encounter in the classroom, and how they resolve or enhance their effectiveness in the classroom.

Conceptual Framework

The conceptual framework focused on the lived experiences of values education teachers during synchronous and asynchronous classes and how the teachers cope with the challenges they have encountered.

Figure 1 Conceptual Framework

The diagram shows the interrelatedness of each variable wherein the diagram shows the connections of the variables conceptualizing a pedagogical model to the lived experiences of Values Education teachers during synchronous and asynchronous classes.

From the lived experiences of the participants, the challenges they encountered were also identified in online classes. their coping mechanisms. These factors perceived how the Values Education teachers’ coping mechanism could influence the student’s values. Also, how the proposed action plan can aid the values education teachers to become effective in an online learning environment.

METHODOLOGY

                        The researchers focused on phenomenological research, a type of qualitative research design. Giorgi (2009) believes that statements of lived experience are complex and need the utmost caution and conceptual clarity in their explanation through core components, considering their rich multi-contextuality in the situations of actual individual human beings. Furthermore, Frechette et al. (2020) stated that evaluating the lived experience is improved with the use of an interpretative phenomenological approach, for it enables an important research perspective. Moreover, with greater experiential learning and involvement, the interpretative phenomenological approach offers researchers characteristics of contemplation about their being in the world as researchers, their scope of relevance, and their embodiment.

In addition, the researchers used a semi-structured interview in which the participants answered based on their experiences in teaching values education during this time of the pandemic. This study sought to ascertain the lived experiences of value education teachers. Furthermore, the researchers were able to define the various difficulties encountered by values education teachers as well as how to resolve specific issues.

The study used purposive sampling. This enabled the researchers to filter whether the informants were relevant and met the study’s parameters. By gathering qualitative responses through purposeful sampling, the researcher gained a deeper understanding and produced more accurate research findings. As Etikan et al. (2016) stated, a researcher employs non-probability sampling techniques called purposive sampling to determine a selection of participants or subjects from one population. With this, the researchers compiled a set of possible participants in the study using one of the other purposive sampling techniques and then individually chose the necessary number of participants from the list. A homogenous purposive sampling technique was used to identify the informants of this study. It was used to gather a homogeneous sample. The researchers used the following criteria.

• Teachers teaching values education at the elementary level.
• Teaching values education for more than 2 years.
• Teaching values education using online distance as the modality.

The informants of this study were the eighteen (18) values education teachers currently teaching in the elementary department of the Don Bosco Technical Institute of Makati. The informants were chosen based on the subject area they teach and the number of years they have worked at the school.

The researchers sent the letter to the chosen informants of this study and were permitted to conduct an interview about their experiences. After the approval, the informants had an interview with the researchers, where they asked questions regarding this study.

The researchers used a semi-structured interview in which the participants answered based on their experiences in teaching values education in this time of the pandemic. Also, the interview that the researchers conducted was recorded for data collection. Lastly, the researchers made sure that all information was confidential and used only in this study. The researchers analyzed the collected data using Giorgi’s descriptive phenomenological method to gain a deeper understanding of how the selection of appropriate teaching strategies can be a factor in developing the listening and speaking competencies of students.

Thematic Analysis

Theme 1: Difficulties in Online Distance Learning

Difficulty in understanding Tagalog Difficulty in Expressing their thoughts and feelings in Tagalog Difficulty in terms of the schedule of synchronous classes

This question comes up with the themes of “Difficulties in Online Distance Learning” and “Independent Continuity of Learning”. The first theme reveals that the challenges encountered by the students were caused by their difficulty in understanding Tagalog . This was also mentioned by informant 18 “Also, some of the boys were having a hard time understanding the Filipino language” and informant 7 “Also, they are having difficulty speaking in Filipino language. This is evident whenever I let them read some sentences in the presentation.” Students are having difficulty in Values education class because they don’t understand the medium of instruction. They are English speakers. As mentioned by the teachers, students who are not performing well in values education are those who can’t speak tagalog and are having difficulty understanding it.  This concern was also related to the sub-theme “ Difficulty in Expressing their thoughts and feelings in Tagalog”. Those students who don’t understand tagalog are also having difficulty expressing themselves in tagalog. The cannot express their thought and feelings in tagalog because they are English speakers. Finally, the sub-theme “Difficulty in terms of the schedule of synchronous classes” also contributes to the difficulties encountered by the teachers in values education because they only meet the students once a week. They were not able to discuss the lesson thoroughly because of time constraint.

Theme 2: Independent Continuity of Learning

Clarification time and completion of requirements Students become Independent

Another challenge that the teachers encounter was “Independent Continuity of Learning”. This theme reveals that the use of asynchronous activities gave the students time for clarification and completion of requirement but most of the time students don’t ask questions to their teachers. They only do the activities themselves. The activities provide the flexibility necessary for students during values education class to participate, regardless of what time they do the tasks given to them. The teachers also expect to see contributions from their students who they might never have met in a synchronous online class. The students were also trained to be independent and responsible as mentioned by the informant 1 “P1 It’s a way of training the students to do other tasks/assignments at their own pace independently and responsibly”. Values education teachers needs to develop students who can learn independently without the teacher after their students. The students have to acquire information and judge its validity based on their thought processes. Processing as one of the important aspects of teaching was limited because of the lack of time to teach the students online.

• How did they cope with the challenges they have encountered during online learning?

Theme: Teacher Capacity Building and Collaboration

Technology Training and availability of tech-supportUtilization of different learning activitiesBrainstorming and being resourceful

            The theme emerged in this question was “Teacher Capacity Building and Collaboration” with sub-themes “Technology Training and availability of tech-support”, “Utilization of different learning activities” and “Brainstorming and being resourceful”. This theme reveals that the teachers were able to cope with the challenges and difficulties in teaching values education because of the teacher training and webinars conducted by the school and the collaboration of the teachers with their colleagues. This was also mentioned by the informants during the interview. They said “P 5 If there are technical problems, seek assistance from your colleagues.” “P1 The teacher attended seminar workshops with accreditation.”  and “P4 They were always there helping me out with some technical difficulties that I have to go through. The full support of my immediate heads and other colleagues were most appreciated.” This shows that the technical supports from immediate heads and their colleagues are evident. They were able to cope with the technical difficulties because of the help of the technical support team. Moreover, attending webinars about teaching online and brainstorming with their co-values education teachers also helped them with their difficulties.

SOP 3. What action plan can be developed based on the findings of this research?

Emergent Conceptual Framework

The emergent conceptual framework presents the interrelation of variables conceptualizing an academic pattern and serves as the basis to determine how the values education teachers play an important part in developing the values of the students considering the action plan that will be developed based on the results of the study.

This phenomenological study about the lived experience of values education teachers concluded that values education teachers shared both positive and negative experiences in teaching values education in an online learning environment. They experienced difficulties such as students having difficulty in understanding Tagalog because they are English Speakers. They described their experiences as Self-fulfilled because it is challenging but rewarding, enjoyable and relatable, and inspiring others. The teachers cope with the difficulties and challenges they have encountered by utilizing different learning activities for the students, technology training and brainstorming with their co- teachers.

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Education Research from the Development Research Group

Over and above their intrinsic value, investments in education are crucial for economic development in low- and middle-income countries due to their transformative impact on human capital formation, productivity enhancement, and sustainable growth. The Development Research Group (DECRG) at the World Bank conducts cutting-edge research on education a) to understand the global patterns in educational attainment and b) to test and evaluate programs and interventions aimed at improving both the quantity and the quality of education from early childhood development to the school to work transition.

This page highlights research on the topic of education produced by the DECRG in collaboration with research partners at the World Bank and other institutions.

DECRG's recent portfolio of work (completed and ongoing) on education can be broadly categorized into the following five thematic areas:

One crucial area of study is early childhood development (ECD). Understanding the impact of early experiences on cognitive, social, and emotional development lays the foundation for effective interventions that support children's readiness for school and lifelong learning.

Preprimary education Improves Current Skills and Future Wellbeing: Causal and Cost-Benefit Evidence from Around the World   Alaka Holla, Lelys Dinarte-Diaz , Magdalena Bendini, Iva Trako \   Working Paper Version

Socioemotional Skills in Preschool. Evidence from Mexico Lelys Dinarte-Diaz , Francisco Haimovich, Mauricio Romero, and Marcela Silveyra

Violent Discipline and Parental Behavior: Short- and Medium-term Effects of Virtual Parenting Support Lelys Dinarte-Diaz , Saravana Ravindran, Manisha Shah, Shawn Powers, and Helen Baker-Henningham |  Working Paper Version | NBER WP 31338

Helping Families Help Themselves. The (Un)intended Impacts of a Digital Parenting Program Sofia Amaral, Lelys Dinarte-Diaz , Patricio Dominguez, and Santiago Perez-Vincent, Journal of Development Economics, 2023 | Working Paper Version

Executive function in Chilean preschool children: Do short-term memory, working memory, and response inhibition contribute differentially to early academic skills? F. Morrison, M. Montoya, M. Susperreguey, Lelys Dinarte-Diaz , C. Rojas, C. Föster, and E. San Martin,  Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 2019

Is Fade-Out a Myth? The Medium-Term Effects of an At-Scale Preschool Program in a Low-Capacity Context Marina Bassi, Lelys Dinarte-Diaz , Saravana Ravindran, Ana Reynoso, and Bruno Besbas

Empowering Afghan Caregivers Through a Resilient Mobile Parenting Intervention Lelys Dinarte-Diaz, Saher Asad, and Manisha Shah

Improving Preschool Provision and Encouraging-Demand: Evidence from a Large Construction Program Jan Berkes, Adrien Bouguen, Deon Filmer and Tsuyoshi Fukao, Journal of Public Economics, 230:105050, 2024 | Working Paper Version

Early Education, Preferences, and Decision-Making Abilities Joana Cardim, Pedro Carneiro, Leandro Carvalho, and Damien de Walque,  World Bank Policy Research working paper 10187, 2022

Impacts of an unconditional cash transfer program plus accompanying measures (information sessions and home visits) in Burkina Faso Richard Akresh, Damien de Walque and Harounan Kazianga, Ongoing

The determinants of school participation and strategies to enhance it, is another important research area, recognizing that access to school is the starting point for the full benefits of education to be realized.

Keeping Girls in School: Evaluating the Case Management System in Zambia S Anukriti,  and Kathleen Beegle .

Long-Term Impacts of Primary School Scholarships: Evidence from Cambodia Felipe Barrera-Osorio, Andreas de Barros, and Deon Filmer,  Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 43(1):10-38, 2024 |  Working Paper Version

Incentivizing School Attendance in the Presence of Parent-Child Information Frictions Damien de Walque,  and Christine Valente, AEJ: Economic Policy 2023 15(3): 265-85 | Blog Post

Intergenerational Effects of Early Childhood Shocks on Human Capital Kibrom Tafere

Another focus of research is the school-to-work transition, exploring pathways for youth to successfully transition from education to employment. Understanding the skills and competencies needed in the labor market, as well as the role of vocational training and entrepreneurship programs, informs policies and initiatives aimed at facilitating smooth transitions and fostering youth empowerment.

Informational Barriers to Female Employment in India: Experimental Evidence from Vocational Training Students S Anukriti , Catalina Herrera-Almanza, and Sophie Ochmann

The Influence of COVID-19 on Young Women's Labor Market Aspirations and Expectations in India S Anukriti , Catalina Herrera-Almanza, and Sophie Ochmann

Improving youth labor market outcomes in Sikkim: Impact Evaluation with a P4R operation in India S Anukriti

Improving non-farm employment of women in Tamil Nadu: Impact Evaluation with a P4R operation in India S Anukriti

Enhancing Apprenticeship Programs for Youth and Firms Oyebola Okunogbe

Apprenticeships, Skills and the Transition to Work in Senegal Frédéric Aubery, John Giles , and David Sahn

The Fast Track to New Skills: Short-Cycle Higher Education Programs in Latin America and the Caribbean M. M. Ferreyra ,  Lelys Dinarte-Diaz , Sergio Urzua , and Marina Bassi

Quality Determinants of Short-Cycle Higher Education Programs in Latin America and the Caribbean  In " The Fast Track to New Skills... "  Lelys Dinarte-Diaz , and Marina Bassi, 2021

What Makes a Program Good? Evidence from Short-Cycle Higher Education Programs in Five Developing Countries Lelys Dinarte-Diaz , M. M. Ferreyra, S. Urzua, and M. Bassi, World Development, 2023 | Working Paper Version

The Value Added of Short-Cycle Higher Education Programs to Students' Outcomes: Evidence from Colombia Lelys Dinarte-Diaz,  M. M. Ferreyra, T. Melguizo, and A. Sanchez | Working Paper Version

Education and learning outcomes measurement are central to assessing the effectiveness of educational interventions and guiding continuous improvement efforts. The evaluation of tutoring, mentoring, and other supportive mechanisms seeks to enhance learning outcomes and promote equitable access to quality education for all children.

The Impact of Role Models on Educational Aspirations: Evidence from Nigeria Oyebola Okunogbe

Evidence on data-driven remedial instruction in the Dominican Republic Carolina Lopez and Astrid Pineda

Tripping at the Finish Line: Experimental Evidence on the Role of Misperceptions on Secondary School Completion Carolina Lopez

Exacerbated Inequalities: The Learning Loss from COVID-19 in Italy Michela Carlana, Eliana La Ferrara,  Carolina Lopez , AEA Papers and Proceedings, vol. 113, 2023 

Preventing Violence in the Most Violent Contexts. Behavioral and Neurophysiological Evidence Lelys Dinarte-Diaz, and Pablo Egana, Journal of the European Economic Association | Working Paper Version

Peer Effects on Violence. Experimental Evidence in El Salvador Lelys Dinarte-Diaz,  Policy Research Working Paper 9187, March 2020

When Emotion Regulation Matters: The Efficacy of Social-Emotional Learning to Address School-Based Violence in Central America Lelys Dinarte-Diaz , Pablo Egana, Claudia Martinez, and Cindy Rojas,   Policy Research Working Paper 9957, March 2022

Designing a Character Strengths Development Program for Youth Living in Violent Contexts B. Vasquez, and Lelys Dinarte-Diaz,  Journal of Youth Development, 2021

School Management and Government Support During an Emergency Ciro Avitabile, Lelys Dinarte-Diaz , and Renata Lemos, Ongoing

Tech-enabled Tutoring Program for Learning Recovery for Adolescents in Ukraine Lelys Dinarte-Diaz , Renata Lemos, Rony Rodriguez, James Gresham, and Harry Patrinos, Ongoing

Mechanisms to Improve the Effectiveness of an Online Teacher Professional Development Program for Early Literacy Jacobus Cilliers, Lelys Dinarte-Diaz , Dave Evans, Carolina Rovira, and Magdalena Bendini, Ongoing

Teacher Professional Development in a Fragile Setting: Evidence from Mozambique Jacobus Cilliers, Lelys Dinarte-Diaz , Dave Evans, Ongoing

Supporting Mental Health and Learning Through the Promotion of Psychosocial Support in Armenian schools Lelys Dinarte-Diaz , Rony Rodriguez, Renata Lemos, Ongoing

Externalities of Connectivity: Labor, Education, and Crime in El Salvador Wilber Baires , Lelys Dinarte-Diaz , Carlos Schmidt-Padilla, and G. Khanna, Ongoing

High Temperature and Learning Outcomes Bhavya Srivastava, Kibrom Tafere and A. Patrick Behrer , Policy Research Working Paper 10714, March 2024

Public investments in health infrastructure during early life increase adult educational achievement Kibrom Tafere, Ongoing

Curriculum reform and learning in primary schools in Guyana Kibrom Tafere

Cognitive and Socioemotional Skills in Low-Income Countries : Measurement and Associations with Schooling and Earnings Alice Danon, Jishnu Das, and Andreas de Barros and Deon Filmer,  Journal of Development Economics, vol. 168, May 2024  | Working Paper Version

Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling (LAYS): Defining A New Macro Measure of Education Deon Filmer , Halsey Rogers, Noam Angrist, and Shwetlena Sabarwal, Economics of Education Review, vol. 77, August 2020 | Working Paper Version

Research on education system reform examines policy frameworks, incentives, governance structures, and institutional mechanisms aimed at enhancing the effectiveness, efficiency, and equity of education systems in LMICs.

Teacher Performance-Based Incentives and Learning Inequality Deon Filmer , James Habyarimana, and Shwetlena Sabarwal, Journal of Human Resources, October 2023  | Working Paper Version

Long-Lived Consequences of Rapid Scale-Up? : The Case of Free Primary Education in Six Sub-Saharan African Countries Deon Filmer,  International Journal of Educational Development, vol. 102, October 2023  | Working Paper Verison

Teacher Pay in Africa: Evidence from 15 Countries David K. Evans, Fei Yuan, and Deon Filmer, World Development, vol. 155, July 2022  | Working Paper Version

Heterogenous Teacher Effects of Two Incentive Schemes: Evidence from a Low-Income Country Felipe Barrera-Osorio, Jacobus Cilliers, Marie-Helene Cloutier and Deon Filmer,  Journal of Development Economics, vol. 156, May 2022  |  VoxDev  | Working Paper Version

Information, Knowledge and Behavior: Evaluating Alternative Methods of Delivering School Information to Parents Pedro Cerdan-Infantes, Deon Filmer and Santoso, Economic Development and Cultural Change, vol. 70, January 2022 | Working Paper Version

Development Research Group

Human Development Research Team

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Values education and holistic learning: Updated research perspectives

2011, International Journal of Educational Research

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Why writing by hand beats typing for thinking and learning

Jonathan Lambert

If you're like many digitally savvy Americans, it has likely been a while since you've spent much time writing by hand.

The laborious process of tracing out our thoughts, letter by letter, on the page is becoming a relic of the past in our screen-dominated world, where text messages and thumb-typed grocery lists have replaced handwritten letters and sticky notes. Electronic keyboards offer obvious efficiency benefits that have undoubtedly boosted our productivity — imagine having to write all your emails longhand.

To keep up, many schools are introducing computers as early as preschool, meaning some kids may learn the basics of typing before writing by hand.

But giving up this slower, more tactile way of expressing ourselves may come at a significant cost, according to a growing body of research that's uncovering the surprising cognitive benefits of taking pen to paper, or even stylus to iPad — for both children and adults.

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In kids, studies show that tracing out ABCs, as opposed to typing them, leads to better and longer-lasting recognition and understanding of letters. Writing by hand also improves memory and recall of words, laying down the foundations of literacy and learning. In adults, taking notes by hand during a lecture, instead of typing, can lead to better conceptual understanding of material.

"There's actually some very important things going on during the embodied experience of writing by hand," says Ramesh Balasubramaniam , a neuroscientist at the University of California, Merced. "It has important cognitive benefits."

While those benefits have long been recognized by some (for instance, many authors, including Jennifer Egan and Neil Gaiman , draft their stories by hand to stoke creativity), scientists have only recently started investigating why writing by hand has these effects.

A slew of recent brain imaging research suggests handwriting's power stems from the relative complexity of the process and how it forces different brain systems to work together to reproduce the shapes of letters in our heads onto the page.

Your brain on handwriting

Both handwriting and typing involve moving our hands and fingers to create words on a page. But handwriting, it turns out, requires a lot more fine-tuned coordination between the motor and visual systems. This seems to more deeply engage the brain in ways that support learning.

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"Handwriting is probably among the most complex motor skills that the brain is capable of," says Marieke Longcamp , a cognitive neuroscientist at Aix-Marseille Université.

Gripping a pen nimbly enough to write is a complicated task, as it requires your brain to continuously monitor the pressure that each finger exerts on the pen. Then, your motor system has to delicately modify that pressure to re-create each letter of the words in your head on the page.

"Your fingers have to each do something different to produce a recognizable letter," says Sophia Vinci-Booher , an educational neuroscientist at Vanderbilt University. Adding to the complexity, your visual system must continuously process that letter as it's formed. With each stroke, your brain compares the unfolding script with mental models of the letters and words, making adjustments to fingers in real time to create the letters' shapes, says Vinci-Booher.

That's not true for typing.

To type "tap" your fingers don't have to trace out the form of the letters — they just make three relatively simple and uniform movements. In comparison, it takes a lot more brainpower, as well as cross-talk between brain areas, to write than type.

Recent brain imaging studies bolster this idea. A study published in January found that when students write by hand, brain areas involved in motor and visual information processing " sync up " with areas crucial to memory formation, firing at frequencies associated with learning.

"We don't see that [synchronized activity] in typewriting at all," says Audrey van der Meer , a psychologist and study co-author at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. She suggests that writing by hand is a neurobiologically richer process and that this richness may confer some cognitive benefits.

Other experts agree. "There seems to be something fundamental about engaging your body to produce these shapes," says Robert Wiley , a cognitive psychologist at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. "It lets you make associations between your body and what you're seeing and hearing," he says, which might give the mind more footholds for accessing a given concept or idea.

Those extra footholds are especially important for learning in kids, but they may give adults a leg up too. Wiley and others worry that ditching handwriting for typing could have serious consequences for how we all learn and think.

What might be lost as handwriting wanes

The clearest consequence of screens and keyboards replacing pen and paper might be on kids' ability to learn the building blocks of literacy — letters.

"Letter recognition in early childhood is actually one of the best predictors of later reading and math attainment," says Vinci-Booher. Her work suggests the process of learning to write letters by hand is crucial for learning to read them.

"When kids write letters, they're just messy," she says. As kids practice writing "A," each iteration is different, and that variability helps solidify their conceptual understanding of the letter.

Research suggests kids learn to recognize letters better when seeing variable handwritten examples, compared with uniform typed examples.

This helps develop areas of the brain used during reading in older children and adults, Vinci-Booher found.

"This could be one of the ways that early experiences actually translate to long-term life outcomes," she says. "These visually demanding, fine motor actions bake in neural communication patterns that are really important for learning later on."

Ditching handwriting instruction could mean that those skills don't get developed as well, which could impair kids' ability to learn down the road.

"If young children are not receiving any handwriting training, which is very good brain stimulation, then their brains simply won't reach their full potential," says van der Meer. "It's scary to think of the potential consequences."

Many states are trying to avoid these risks by mandating cursive instruction. This year, California started requiring elementary school students to learn cursive , and similar bills are moving through state legislatures in several states, including Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina and Wisconsin. (So far, evidence suggests that it's the writing by hand that matters, not whether it's print or cursive.)

Slowing down and processing information

For adults, one of the main benefits of writing by hand is that it simply forces us to slow down.

During a meeting or lecture, it's possible to type what you're hearing verbatim. But often, "you're not actually processing that information — you're just typing in the blind," says van der Meer. "If you take notes by hand, you can't write everything down," she says.

The relative slowness of the medium forces you to process the information, writing key words or phrases and using drawing or arrows to work through ideas, she says. "You make the information your own," she says, which helps it stick in the brain.

Such connections and integration are still possible when typing, but they need to be made more intentionally. And sometimes, efficiency wins out. "When you're writing a long essay, it's obviously much more practical to use a keyboard," says van der Meer.

Still, given our long history of using our hands to mark meaning in the world, some scientists worry about the more diffuse consequences of offloading our thinking to computers.

"We're foisting a lot of our knowledge, extending our cognition, to other devices, so it's only natural that we've started using these other agents to do our writing for us," says Balasubramaniam.

It's possible that this might free up our minds to do other kinds of hard thinking, he says. Or we might be sacrificing a fundamental process that's crucial for the kinds of immersive cognitive experiences that enable us to learn and think at our full potential.

Balasubramaniam stresses, however, that we don't have to ditch digital tools to harness the power of handwriting. So far, research suggests that scribbling with a stylus on a screen activates the same brain pathways as etching ink on paper. It's the movement that counts, he says, not its final form.

Jonathan Lambert is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance journalist who covers science, health and policy.

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Cultural Relativity and Acceptance of Embryonic Stem Cell Research

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There is a debate about the ethical implications of using human embryos in stem cell research, which can be influenced by cultural, moral, and social values. This paper argues for an adaptable framework to accommodate diverse cultural and religious perspectives. By using an adaptive ethics model, research protections can reflect various populations and foster growth in stem cell research possibilities.

INTRODUCTION

Stem cell research combines biology, medicine, and technology, promising to alter health care and the understanding of human development. Yet, ethical contention exists because of individuals’ perceptions of using human embryos based on their various cultural, moral, and social values. While these disagreements concerning policy, use, and general acceptance have prompted the development of an international ethics policy, such a uniform approach can overlook the nuanced ethical landscapes between cultures. With diverse viewpoints in public health, a single global policy, especially one reflecting Western ethics or the ethics prevalent in high-income countries, is impractical. This paper argues for a culturally sensitive, adaptable framework for the use of embryonic stem cells. Stem cell policy should accommodate varying ethical viewpoints and promote an effective global dialogue. With an extension of an ethics model that can adapt to various cultures, we recommend localized guidelines that reflect the moral views of the people those guidelines serve.

Stem cells, characterized by their unique ability to differentiate into various cell types, enable the repair or replacement of damaged tissues. Two primary types of stem cells are somatic stem cells (adult stem cells) and embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells exist in developed tissues and maintain the body’s repair processes. [1] Embryonic stem cells (ESC) are remarkably pluripotent or versatile, making them valuable in research. [2] However, the use of ESCs has sparked ethics debates. Considering the potential of embryonic stem cells, research guidelines are essential. The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) provides international stem cell research guidelines. They call for “public conversations touching on the scientific significance as well as the societal and ethical issues raised by ESC research.” [3] The ISSCR also publishes updates about culturing human embryos 14 days post fertilization, suggesting local policies and regulations should continue to evolve as ESC research develops. [4]  Like the ISSCR, which calls for local law and policy to adapt to developing stem cell research given cultural acceptance, this paper highlights the importance of local social factors such as religion and culture.

I.     Global Cultural Perspective of Embryonic Stem Cells

Views on ESCs vary throughout the world. Some countries readily embrace stem cell research and therapies, while others have stricter regulations due to ethical concerns surrounding embryonic stem cells and when an embryo becomes entitled to moral consideration. The philosophical issue of when the “someone” begins to be a human after fertilization, in the morally relevant sense, [5] impacts when an embryo becomes not just worthy of protection but morally entitled to it. The process of creating embryonic stem cell lines involves the destruction of the embryos for research. [6] Consequently, global engagement in ESC research depends on social-cultural acceptability.

a.     US and Rights-Based Cultures

In the United States, attitudes toward stem cell therapies are diverse. The ethics and social approaches, which value individualism, [7] trigger debates regarding the destruction of human embryos, creating a complex regulatory environment. For example, the 1996 Dickey-Wicker Amendment prohibited federal funding for the creation of embryos for research and the destruction of embryos for “more than allowed for research on fetuses in utero.” [8] Following suit, in 2001, the Bush Administration heavily restricted stem cell lines for research. However, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005 was proposed to help develop ESC research but was ultimately vetoed. [9] Under the Obama administration, in 2009, an executive order lifted restrictions allowing for more development in this field. [10] The flux of research capacity and funding parallels the different cultural perceptions of human dignity of the embryo and how it is socially presented within the country’s research culture. [11]

b.     Ubuntu and Collective Cultures

African bioethics differs from Western individualism because of the different traditions and values. African traditions, as described by individuals from South Africa and supported by some studies in other African countries, including Ghana and Kenya, follow the African moral philosophies of Ubuntu or Botho and Ukama , which “advocates for a form of wholeness that comes through one’s relationship and connectedness with other people in the society,” [12] making autonomy a socially collective concept. In this context, for the community to act autonomously, individuals would come together to decide what is best for the collective. Thus, stem cell research would require examining the value of the research to society as a whole and the use of the embryos as a collective societal resource. If society views the source as part of the collective whole, and opposes using stem cells, compromising the cultural values to pursue research may cause social detachment and stunt research growth. [13] Based on local culture and moral philosophy, the permissibility of stem cell research depends on how embryo, stem cell, and cell line therapies relate to the community as a whole. Ubuntu is the expression of humanness, with the person’s identity drawn from the “’I am because we are’” value. [14] The decision in a collectivistic culture becomes one born of cultural context, and individual decisions give deference to others in the society.

Consent differs in cultures where thought and moral philosophy are based on a collective paradigm. So, applying Western bioethical concepts is unrealistic. For one, Africa is a diverse continent with many countries with different belief systems, access to health care, and reliance on traditional or Western medicines. Where traditional medicine is the primary treatment, the “’restrictive focus on biomedically-related bioethics’” [is] problematic in African contexts because it neglects bioethical issues raised by traditional systems.” [15] No single approach applies in all areas or contexts. Rather than evaluating the permissibility of ESC research according to Western concepts such as the four principles approach, different ethics approaches should prevail.

Another consideration is the socio-economic standing of countries. In parts of South Africa, researchers have not focused heavily on contributing to the stem cell discourse, either because it is not considered health care or a health science priority or because resources are unavailable. [16] Each country’s priorities differ given different social, political, and economic factors. In South Africa, for instance, areas such as maternal mortality, non-communicable diseases, telemedicine, and the strength of health systems need improvement and require more focus. [17] Stem cell research could benefit the population, but it also could divert resources from basic medical care. Researchers in South Africa adhere to the National Health Act and Medicines Control Act in South Africa and international guidelines; however, the Act is not strictly enforced, and there is no clear legislation for research conduct or ethical guidelines. [18]

Some parts of Africa condemn stem cell research. For example, 98.2 percent of the Tunisian population is Muslim. [19] Tunisia does not permit stem cell research because of moral conflict with a Fatwa. Religion heavily saturates the regulation and direction of research. [20] Stem cell use became permissible for reproductive purposes only recently, with tight restrictions preventing cells from being used in any research other than procedures concerning ART/IVF.  Their use is conditioned on consent, and available only to married couples. [21] The community's receptiveness to stem cell research depends on including communitarian African ethics.

c.     Asia

Some Asian countries also have a collective model of ethics and decision making. [22] In China, the ethics model promotes a sincere respect for life or human dignity, [23] based on protective medicine. This model, influenced by Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), [24] recognizes Qi as the vital energy delivered via the meridians of the body; it connects illness to body systems, the body’s entire constitution, and the universe for a holistic bond of nature, health, and quality of life. [25] Following a protective ethics model, and traditional customs of wholeness, investment in stem cell research is heavily desired for its applications in regenerative therapies, disease modeling, and protective medicines. In a survey of medical students and healthcare practitioners, 30.8 percent considered stem cell research morally unacceptable while 63.5 percent accepted medical research using human embryonic stem cells. Of these individuals, 89.9 percent supported increased funding for stem cell research. [26] The scientific community might not reflect the overall population. From 1997 to 2019, China spent a total of $576 million (USD) on stem cell research at 8,050 stem cell programs, increased published presence from 0.6 percent to 14.01 percent of total global stem cell publications as of 2014, and made significant strides in cell-based therapies for various medical conditions. [27] However, while China has made substantial investments in stem cell research and achieved notable progress in clinical applications, concerns linger regarding ethical oversight and transparency. [28] For example, the China Biosecurity Law, promoted by the National Health Commission and China Hospital Association, attempted to mitigate risks by introducing an institutional review board (IRB) in the regulatory bodies. 5800 IRBs registered with the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry since 2021. [29] However, issues still need to be addressed in implementing effective IRB review and approval procedures.

The substantial government funding and focus on scientific advancement have sometimes overshadowed considerations of regional cultures, ethnic minorities, and individual perspectives, particularly evident during the one-child policy era. As government policy adapts to promote public stability, such as the change from the one-child to the two-child policy, [30] research ethics should also adapt to ensure respect for the values of its represented peoples.

Japan is also relatively supportive of stem cell research and therapies. Japan has a more transparent regulatory framework, allowing for faster approval of regenerative medicine products, which has led to several advanced clinical trials and therapies. [31] South Korea is also actively engaged in stem cell research and has a history of breakthroughs in cloning and embryonic stem cells. [32] However, the field is controversial, and there are issues of scientific integrity. For example, the Korean FDA fast-tracked products for approval, [33] and in another instance, the oocyte source was unclear and possibly violated ethical standards. [34] Trust is important in research, as it builds collaborative foundations between colleagues, trial participant comfort, open-mindedness for complicated and sensitive discussions, and supports regulatory procedures for stakeholders. There is a need to respect the culture’s interest, engagement, and for research and clinical trials to be transparent and have ethical oversight to promote global research discourse and trust.

d.     Middle East

Countries in the Middle East have varying degrees of acceptance of or restrictions to policies related to using embryonic stem cells due to cultural and religious influences. Saudi Arabia has made significant contributions to stem cell research, and conducts research based on international guidelines for ethical conduct and under strict adherence to guidelines in accordance with Islamic principles. Specifically, the Saudi government and people require ESC research to adhere to Sharia law. In addition to umbilical and placental stem cells, [35] Saudi Arabia permits the use of embryonic stem cells as long as they come from miscarriages, therapeutic abortions permissible by Sharia law, or are left over from in vitro fertilization and donated to research. [36] Laws and ethical guidelines for stem cell research allow the development of research institutions such as the King Abdullah International Medical Research Center, which has a cord blood bank and a stem cell registry with nearly 10,000 donors. [37] Such volume and acceptance are due to the ethical ‘permissibility’ of the donor sources, which do not conflict with religious pillars. However, some researchers err on the side of caution, choosing not to use embryos or fetal tissue as they feel it is unethical to do so. [38]

Jordan has a positive research ethics culture. [39] However, there is a significant issue of lack of trust in researchers, with 45.23 percent (38.66 percent agreeing and 6.57 percent strongly agreeing) of Jordanians holding a low level of trust in researchers, compared to 81.34 percent of Jordanians agreeing that they feel safe to participate in a research trial. [40] Safety testifies to the feeling of confidence that adequate measures are in place to protect participants from harm, whereas trust in researchers could represent the confidence in researchers to act in the participants’ best interests, adhere to ethical guidelines, provide accurate information, and respect participants’ rights and dignity. One method to improve trust would be to address communication issues relevant to ESC. Legislation surrounding stem cell research has adopted specific language, especially concerning clarification “between ‘stem cells’ and ‘embryonic stem cells’” in translation. [41] Furthermore, legislation “mandates the creation of a national committee… laying out specific regulations for stem-cell banking in accordance with international standards.” [42] This broad regulation opens the door for future global engagement and maintains transparency. However, these regulations may also constrain the influence of research direction, pace, and accessibility of research outcomes.

e.     Europe

In the European Union (EU), ethics is also principle-based, but the principles of autonomy, dignity, integrity, and vulnerability are interconnected. [43] As such, the opportunity for cohesion and concessions between individuals’ thoughts and ideals allows for a more adaptable ethics model due to the flexible principles that relate to the human experience The EU has put forth a framework in its Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being allowing member states to take different approaches. Each European state applies these principles to its specific conventions, leading to or reflecting different acceptance levels of stem cell research. [44]

For example, in Germany, Lebenzusammenhang , or the coherence of life, references integrity in the unity of human culture. Namely, the personal sphere “should not be subject to external intervention.” [45]  Stem cell interventions could affect this concept of bodily completeness, leading to heavy restrictions. Under the Grundgesetz, human dignity and the right to life with physical integrity are paramount. [46] The Embryo Protection Act of 1991 made producing cell lines illegal. Cell lines can be imported if approved by the Central Ethics Commission for Stem Cell Research only if they were derived before May 2007. [47] Stem cell research respects the integrity of life for the embryo with heavy specifications and intense oversight. This is vastly different in Finland, where the regulatory bodies find research more permissible in IVF excess, but only up to 14 days after fertilization. [48] Spain’s approach differs still, with a comprehensive regulatory framework. [49] Thus, research regulation can be culture-specific due to variations in applied principles. Diverse cultures call for various approaches to ethical permissibility. [50] Only an adaptive-deliberative model can address the cultural constructions of self and achieve positive, culturally sensitive stem cell research practices. [51]

II.     Religious Perspectives on ESC

Embryonic stem cell sources are the main consideration within religious contexts. While individuals may not regard their own religious texts as authoritative or factual, religion can shape their foundations or perspectives.

The Qur'an states:

“And indeed We created man from a quintessence of clay. Then We placed within him a small quantity of nutfa (sperm to fertilize) in a safe place. Then We have fashioned the nutfa into an ‘alaqa (clinging clot or cell cluster), then We developed the ‘alaqa into mudgha (a lump of flesh), and We made mudgha into bones, and clothed the bones with flesh, then We brought it into being as a new creation. So Blessed is Allah, the Best of Creators.” [52]

Many scholars of Islam estimate the time of soul installment, marked by the angel breathing in the soul to bring the individual into creation, as 120 days from conception. [53] Personhood begins at this point, and the value of life would prohibit research or experimentation that could harm the individual. If the fetus is more than 120 days old, the time ensoulment is interpreted to occur according to Islamic law, abortion is no longer permissible. [54] There are a few opposing opinions about early embryos in Islamic traditions. According to some Islamic theologians, there is no ensoulment of the early embryo, which is the source of stem cells for ESC research. [55]

In Buddhism, the stance on stem cell research is not settled. The main tenets, the prohibition against harming or destroying others (ahimsa) and the pursuit of knowledge (prajña) and compassion (karuna), leave Buddhist scholars and communities divided. [56] Some scholars argue stem cell research is in accordance with the Buddhist tenet of seeking knowledge and ending human suffering. Others feel it violates the principle of not harming others. Finding the balance between these two points relies on the karmic burden of Buddhist morality. In trying to prevent ahimsa towards the embryo, Buddhist scholars suggest that to comply with Buddhist tenets, research cannot be done as the embryo has personhood at the moment of conception and would reincarnate immediately, harming the individual's ability to build their karmic burden. [57] On the other hand, the Bodhisattvas, those considered to be on the path to enlightenment or Nirvana, have given organs and flesh to others to help alleviate grieving and to benefit all. [58] Acceptance varies on applied beliefs and interpretations.

Catholicism does not support embryonic stem cell research, as it entails creation or destruction of human embryos. This destruction conflicts with the belief in the sanctity of life. For example, in the Old Testament, Genesis describes humanity as being created in God’s image and multiplying on the Earth, referencing the sacred rights to human conception and the purpose of development and life. In the Ten Commandments, the tenet that one should not kill has numerous interpretations where killing could mean murder or shedding of the sanctity of life, demonstrating the high value of human personhood. In other books, the theological conception of when life begins is interpreted as in utero, [59] highlighting the inviolability of life and its formation in vivo to make a religious point for accepting such research as relatively limited, if at all. [60] The Vatican has released ethical directives to help apply a theological basis to modern-day conflicts. The Magisterium of the Church states that “unless there is a moral certainty of not causing harm,” experimentation on fetuses, fertilized cells, stem cells, or embryos constitutes a crime. [61] Such procedures would not respect the human person who exists at these stages, according to Catholicism. Damages to the embryo are considered gravely immoral and illicit. [62] Although the Catholic Church officially opposes abortion, surveys demonstrate that many Catholic people hold pro-choice views, whether due to the context of conception, stage of pregnancy, threat to the mother’s life, or for other reasons, demonstrating that practicing members can also accept some but not all tenets. [63]

Some major Jewish denominations, such as the Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist movements, are open to supporting ESC use or research as long as it is for saving a life. [64] Within Judaism, the Talmud, or study, gives personhood to the child at birth and emphasizes that life does not begin at conception: [65]

“If she is found pregnant, until the fortieth day it is mere fluid,” [66]

Whereas most religions prioritize the status of human embryos, the Halakah (Jewish religious law) states that to save one life, most other religious laws can be ignored because it is in pursuit of preservation. [67] Stem cell research is accepted due to application of these religious laws.

We recognize that all religions contain subsets and sects. The variety of environmental and cultural differences within religious groups requires further analysis to respect the flexibility of religious thoughts and practices. We make no presumptions that all cultures require notions of autonomy or morality as under the common morality theory , which asserts a set of universal moral norms that all individuals share provides moral reasoning and guides ethical decisions. [68] We only wish to show that the interaction with morality varies between cultures and countries.

III.     A Flexible Ethical Approach

The plurality of different moral approaches described above demonstrates that there can be no universally acceptable uniform law for ESC on a global scale. Instead of developing one standard, flexible ethical applications must be continued. We recommend local guidelines that incorporate important cultural and ethical priorities.

While the Declaration of Helsinki is more relevant to people in clinical trials receiving ESC products, in keeping with the tradition of protections for research subjects, consent of the donor is an ethical requirement for ESC donation in many jurisdictions including the US, Canada, and Europe. [69] The Declaration of Helsinki provides a reference point for regulatory standards and could potentially be used as a universal baseline for obtaining consent prior to gamete or embryo donation.

For instance, in Columbia University’s egg donor program for stem cell research, donors followed standard screening protocols and “underwent counseling sessions that included information as to the purpose of oocyte donation for research, what the oocytes would be used for, the risks and benefits of donation, and process of oocyte stimulation” to ensure transparency for consent. [70] The program helped advance stem cell research and provided clear and safe research methods with paid participants. Though paid participation or covering costs of incidental expenses may not be socially acceptable in every culture or context, [71] and creating embryos for ESC research is illegal in many jurisdictions, Columbia’s program was effective because of the clear and honest communications with donors, IRBs, and related stakeholders.  This example demonstrates that cultural acceptance of scientific research and of the idea that an egg or embryo does not have personhood is likely behind societal acceptance of donating eggs for ESC research. As noted, many countries do not permit the creation of embryos for research.

Proper communication and education regarding the process and purpose of stem cell research may bolster comprehension and garner more acceptance. “Given the sensitive subject material, a complete consent process can support voluntary participation through trust, understanding, and ethical norms from the cultures and morals participants value. This can be hard for researchers entering countries of different socioeconomic stability, with different languages and different societal values. [72]

An adequate moral foundation in medical ethics is derived from the cultural and religious basis that informs knowledge and actions. [73] Understanding local cultural and religious values and their impact on research could help researchers develop humility and promote inclusion.

IV.     Concerns

Some may argue that if researchers all adhere to one ethics standard, protection will be satisfied across all borders, and the global public will trust researchers. However, defining what needs to be protected and how to define such research standards is very specific to the people to which standards are applied. We suggest that applying one uniform guide cannot accurately protect each individual because we all possess our own perceptions and interpretations of social values. [74] Therefore, the issue of not adjusting to the moral pluralism between peoples in applying one standard of ethics can be resolved by building out ethics models that can be adapted to different cultures and religions.

Other concerns include medical tourism, which may promote health inequities. [75] Some countries may develop and approve products derived from ESC research before others, compromising research ethics or drug approval processes. There are also concerns about the sale of unauthorized stem cell treatments, for example, those without FDA approval in the United States. Countries with robust research infrastructures may be tempted to attract medical tourists, and some customers will have false hopes based on aggressive publicity of unproven treatments. [76]

For example, in China, stem cell clinics can market to foreign clients who are not protected under the regulatory regimes. Companies employ a marketing strategy of “ethically friendly” therapies. Specifically, in the case of Beike, China’s leading stem cell tourism company and sprouting network, ethical oversight of administrators or health bureaus at one site has “the unintended consequence of shifting questionable activities to another node in Beike's diffuse network.” [77] In contrast, Jordan is aware of stem cell research’s potential abuse and its own status as a “health-care hub.” Jordan’s expanded regulations include preserving the interests of individuals in clinical trials and banning private companies from ESC research to preserve transparency and the integrity of research practices. [78]

The social priorities of the community are also a concern. The ISSCR explicitly states that guidelines “should be periodically revised to accommodate scientific advances, new challenges, and evolving social priorities.” [79] The adaptable ethics model extends this consideration further by addressing whether research is warranted given the varying degrees of socioeconomic conditions, political stability, and healthcare accessibilities and limitations. An ethical approach would require discussion about resource allocation and appropriate distribution of funds. [80]

While some religions emphasize the sanctity of life from conception, which may lead to public opposition to ESC research, others encourage ESC research due to its potential for healing and alleviating human pain. Many countries have special regulations that balance local views on embryonic personhood, the benefits of research as individual or societal goods, and the protection of human research subjects. To foster understanding and constructive dialogue, global policy frameworks should prioritize the protection of universal human rights, transparency, and informed consent. In addition to these foundational global policies, we recommend tailoring local guidelines to reflect the diverse cultural and religious perspectives of the populations they govern. Ethics models should be adapted to local populations to effectively establish research protections, growth, and possibilities of stem cell research.

For example, in countries with strong beliefs in the moral sanctity of embryos or heavy religious restrictions, an adaptive model can allow for discussion instead of immediate rejection. In countries with limited individual rights and voice in science policy, an adaptive model ensures cultural, moral, and religious views are taken into consideration, thereby building social inclusion. While this ethical consideration by the government may not give a complete voice to every individual, it will help balance policies and maintain the diverse perspectives of those it affects. Embracing an adaptive ethics model of ESC research promotes open-minded dialogue and respect for the importance of human belief and tradition. By actively engaging with cultural and religious values, researchers can better handle disagreements and promote ethical research practices that benefit each society.

This brief exploration of the religious and cultural differences that impact ESC research reveals the nuances of relative ethics and highlights a need for local policymakers to apply a more intense adaptive model.

[1] Poliwoda, S., Noor, N., Downs, E., Schaaf, A., Cantwell, A., Ganti, L., Kaye, A. D., Mosel, L. I., Carroll, C. B., Viswanath, O., & Urits, I. (2022). Stem cells: a comprehensive review of origins and emerging clinical roles in medical practice.  Orthopedic reviews ,  14 (3), 37498. https://doi.org/10.52965/001c.37498

[2] Poliwoda, S., Noor, N., Downs, E., Schaaf, A., Cantwell, A., Ganti, L., Kaye, A. D., Mosel, L. I., Carroll, C. B., Viswanath, O., & Urits, I. (2022). Stem cells: a comprehensive review of origins and emerging clinical roles in medical practice.  Orthopedic reviews ,  14 (3), 37498. https://doi.org/10.52965/001c.37498

[3] International Society for Stem Cell Research. (2023). Laboratory-based human embryonic stem cell research, embryo research, and related research activities . International Society for Stem Cell Research. https://www.isscr.org/guidelines/blog-post-title-one-ed2td-6fcdk ; Kimmelman, J., Hyun, I., Benvenisty, N.  et al.  Policy: Global standards for stem-cell research.  Nature   533 , 311–313 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/533311a

[4] International Society for Stem Cell Research. (2023). Laboratory-based human embryonic stem cell research, embryo research, and related research activities . International Society for Stem Cell Research. https://www.isscr.org/guidelines/blog-post-title-one-ed2td-6fcdk

[5] Concerning the moral philosophies of stem cell research, our paper does not posit a personal moral stance nor delve into the “when” of human life begins. To read further about the philosophical debate, consider the following sources:

Sandel M. J. (2004). Embryo ethics--the moral logic of stem-cell research.  The New England journal of medicine ,  351 (3), 207–209. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp048145 ; George, R. P., & Lee, P. (2020, September 26). Acorns and Embryos . The New Atlantis. https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/acorns-and-embryos ; Sagan, A., & Singer, P. (2007). The moral status of stem cells. Metaphilosophy , 38 (2/3), 264–284. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24439776 ; McHugh P. R. (2004). Zygote and "clonote"--the ethical use of embryonic stem cells.  The New England journal of medicine ,  351 (3), 209–211. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp048147 ; Kurjak, A., & Tripalo, A. (2004). The facts and doubts about beginning of the human life and personality.  Bosnian journal of basic medical sciences ,  4 (1), 5–14. https://doi.org/10.17305/bjbms.2004.3453

[6] Vazin, T., & Freed, W. J. (2010). Human embryonic stem cells: derivation, culture, and differentiation: a review.  Restorative neurology and neuroscience ,  28 (4), 589–603. https://doi.org/10.3233/RNN-2010-0543

[7] Socially, at its core, the Western approach to ethics is widely principle-based, autonomy being one of the key factors to ensure a fundamental respect for persons within research. For information regarding autonomy in research, see: Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, & National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research (1978). The Belmont Report. Ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research.; For a more in-depth review of autonomy within the US, see: Beauchamp, T. L., & Childress, J. F. (1994). Principles of Biomedical Ethics . Oxford University Press.

[8] Sherley v. Sebelius , 644 F.3d 388 (D.C. Cir. 2011), citing 45 C.F.R. 46.204(b) and [42 U.S.C. § 289g(b)]. https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/6c690438a9b43dd685257a64004ebf99/$file/11-5241-1391178.pdf

[9] Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005, H. R. 810, 109 th Cong. (2001). https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/109/hr810/text ; Bush, G. W. (2006, July 19). Message to the House of Representatives . National Archives and Records Administration. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/07/20060719-5.html

[10] National Archives and Records Administration. (2009, March 9). Executive order 13505 -- removing barriers to responsible scientific research involving human stem cells . National Archives and Records Administration. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/removing-barriers-responsible-scientific-research-involving-human-stem-cells

[11] Hurlbut, W. B. (2006). Science, Religion, and the Politics of Stem Cells.  Social Research ,  73 (3), 819–834. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40971854

[12] Akpa-Inyang, Francis & Chima, Sylvester. (2021). South African traditional values and beliefs regarding informed consent and limitations of the principle of respect for autonomy in African communities: a cross-cultural qualitative study. BMC Medical Ethics . 22. 10.1186/s12910-021-00678-4.

[13] Source for further reading: Tangwa G. B. (2007). Moral status of embryonic stem cells: perspective of an African villager. Bioethics , 21(8), 449–457. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8519.2007.00582.x , see also Mnisi, F. M. (2020). An African analysis based on ethics of Ubuntu - are human embryonic stem cell patents morally justifiable? African Insight , 49 (4).

[14] Jecker, N. S., & Atuire, C. (2021). Bioethics in Africa: A contextually enlightened analysis of three cases. Developing World Bioethics , 22 (2), 112–122. https://doi.org/10.1111/dewb.12324

[15] Jecker, N. S., & Atuire, C. (2021). Bioethics in Africa: A contextually enlightened analysis of three cases. Developing World Bioethics, 22(2), 112–122. https://doi.org/10.1111/dewb.12324

[16] Jackson, C.S., Pepper, M.S. Opportunities and barriers to establishing a cell therapy programme in South Africa.  Stem Cell Res Ther   4 , 54 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1186/scrt204 ; Pew Research Center. (2014, May 1). Public health a major priority in African nations . Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2014/05/01/public-health-a-major-priority-in-african-nations/

[17] Department of Health Republic of South Africa. (2021). Health Research Priorities (revised) for South Africa 2021-2024 . National Health Research Strategy. https://www.health.gov.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/National-Health-Research-Priorities-2021-2024.pdf

[18] Oosthuizen, H. (2013). Legal and Ethical Issues in Stem Cell Research in South Africa. In: Beran, R. (eds) Legal and Forensic Medicine. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32338-6_80 , see also: Gaobotse G (2018) Stem Cell Research in Africa: Legislation and Challenges. J Regen Med 7:1. doi: 10.4172/2325-9620.1000142

[19] United States Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services. (1998). Tunisia: Information on the status of Christian conversions in Tunisia . UNHCR Web Archive. https://webarchive.archive.unhcr.org/20230522142618/https://www.refworld.org/docid/3df0be9a2.html

[20] Gaobotse, G. (2018) Stem Cell Research in Africa: Legislation and Challenges. J Regen Med 7:1. doi: 10.4172/2325-9620.1000142

[21] Kooli, C. Review of assisted reproduction techniques, laws, and regulations in Muslim countries.  Middle East Fertil Soc J   24 , 8 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s43043-019-0011-0 ; Gaobotse, G. (2018) Stem Cell Research in Africa: Legislation and Challenges. J Regen Med 7:1. doi: 10.4172/2325-9620.1000142

[22] Pang M. C. (1999). Protective truthfulness: the Chinese way of safeguarding patients in informed treatment decisions. Journal of medical ethics , 25(3), 247–253. https://doi.org/10.1136/jme.25.3.247

[23] Wang, L., Wang, F., & Zhang, W. (2021). Bioethics in China’s biosecurity law: Forms, effects, and unsettled issues. Journal of law and the biosciences , 8(1).  https://doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsab019 https://academic.oup.com/jlb/article/8/1/lsab019/6299199

[24] Wang, Y., Xue, Y., & Guo, H. D. (2022). Intervention effects of traditional Chinese medicine on stem cell therapy of myocardial infarction.  Frontiers in pharmacology ,  13 , 1013740. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2022.1013740

[25] Li, X.-T., & Zhao, J. (2012). Chapter 4: An Approach to the Nature of Qi in TCM- Qi and Bioenergy. In Recent Advances in Theories and Practice of Chinese Medicine (p. 79). InTech.

[26] Luo, D., Xu, Z., Wang, Z., & Ran, W. (2021). China's Stem Cell Research and Knowledge Levels of Medical Practitioners and Students.  Stem cells international ,  2021 , 6667743. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/6667743

[27] Luo, D., Xu, Z., Wang, Z., & Ran, W. (2021). China's Stem Cell Research and Knowledge Levels of Medical Practitioners and Students.  Stem cells international ,  2021 , 6667743. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/6667743

[28] Zhang, J. Y. (2017). Lost in translation? accountability and governance of Clinical Stem Cell Research in China. Regenerative Medicine , 12 (6), 647–656. https://doi.org/10.2217/rme-2017-0035

[29] Wang, L., Wang, F., & Zhang, W. (2021). Bioethics in China’s biosecurity law: Forms, effects, and unsettled issues. Journal of law and the biosciences , 8(1).  https://doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsab019 https://academic.oup.com/jlb/article/8/1/lsab019/6299199

[30] Chen, H., Wei, T., Wang, H.  et al.  Association of China’s two-child policy with changes in number of births and birth defects rate, 2008–2017.  BMC Public Health   22 , 434 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-12839-0

[31] Azuma, K. Regulatory Landscape of Regenerative Medicine in Japan.  Curr Stem Cell Rep   1 , 118–128 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40778-015-0012-6

[32] Harris, R. (2005, May 19). Researchers Report Advance in Stem Cell Production . NPR. https://www.npr.org/2005/05/19/4658967/researchers-report-advance-in-stem-cell-production

[33] Park, S. (2012). South Korea steps up stem-cell work.  Nature . https://doi.org/10.1038/nature.2012.10565

[34] Resnik, D. B., Shamoo, A. E., & Krimsky, S. (2006). Fraudulent human embryonic stem cell research in South Korea: lessons learned.  Accountability in research ,  13 (1), 101–109. https://doi.org/10.1080/08989620600634193 .

[35] Alahmad, G., Aljohani, S., & Najjar, M. F. (2020). Ethical challenges regarding the use of stem cells: interviews with researchers from Saudi Arabia. BMC medical ethics, 21(1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-00482-6

[36] Association for the Advancement of Blood and Biotherapies.  https://www.aabb.org/regulatory-and-advocacy/regulatory-affairs/regulatory-for-cellular-therapies/international-competent-authorities/saudi-arabia

[37] Alahmad, G., Aljohani, S., & Najjar, M. F. (2020). Ethical challenges regarding the use of stem cells: Interviews with researchers from Saudi Arabia.  BMC medical ethics ,  21 (1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-00482-6

[38] Alahmad, G., Aljohani, S., & Najjar, M. F. (2020). Ethical challenges regarding the use of stem cells: Interviews with researchers from Saudi Arabia. BMC medical ethics , 21(1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-00482-6

Culturally, autonomy practices follow a relational autonomy approach based on a paternalistic deontological health care model. The adherence to strict international research policies and religious pillars within the regulatory environment is a great foundation for research ethics. However, there is a need to develop locally targeted ethics approaches for research (as called for in Alahmad, G., Aljohani, S., & Najjar, M. F. (2020). Ethical challenges regarding the use of stem cells: interviews with researchers from Saudi Arabia. BMC medical ethics, 21(1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-00482-6), this decision-making approach may help advise a research decision model. For more on the clinical cultural autonomy approaches, see: Alabdullah, Y. Y., Alzaid, E., Alsaad, S., Alamri, T., Alolayan, S. W., Bah, S., & Aljoudi, A. S. (2022). Autonomy and paternalism in Shared decision‐making in a Saudi Arabian tertiary hospital: A cross‐sectional study. Developing World Bioethics , 23 (3), 260–268. https://doi.org/10.1111/dewb.12355 ; Bukhari, A. A. (2017). Universal Principles of Bioethics and Patient Rights in Saudi Arabia (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/124; Ladha, S., Nakshawani, S. A., Alzaidy, A., & Tarab, B. (2023, October 26). Islam and Bioethics: What We All Need to Know . Columbia University School of Professional Studies. https://sps.columbia.edu/events/islam-and-bioethics-what-we-all-need-know

[39] Ababneh, M. A., Al-Azzam, S. I., Alzoubi, K., Rababa’h, A., & Al Demour, S. (2021). Understanding and attitudes of the Jordanian public about clinical research ethics.  Research Ethics ,  17 (2), 228-241.  https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016120966779

[40] Ababneh, M. A., Al-Azzam, S. I., Alzoubi, K., Rababa’h, A., & Al Demour, S. (2021). Understanding and attitudes of the Jordanian public about clinical research ethics.  Research Ethics ,  17 (2), 228-241.  https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016120966779

[41] Dajani, R. (2014). Jordan’s stem-cell law can guide the Middle East.  Nature  510, 189. https://doi.org/10.1038/510189a

[42] Dajani, R. (2014). Jordan’s stem-cell law can guide the Middle East.  Nature  510, 189. https://doi.org/10.1038/510189a

[43] The EU’s definition of autonomy relates to the capacity for creating ideas, moral insight, decisions, and actions without constraint, personal responsibility, and informed consent. However, the EU views autonomy as not completely able to protect individuals and depends on other principles, such as dignity, which “expresses the intrinsic worth and fundamental equality of all human beings.” Rendtorff, J.D., Kemp, P. (2019). Four Ethical Principles in European Bioethics and Biolaw: Autonomy, Dignity, Integrity and Vulnerability. In: Valdés, E., Lecaros, J. (eds) Biolaw and Policy in the Twenty-First Century. International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine, vol 78. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05903-3_3

[44] Council of Europe. Convention for the protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine: Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (ETS No. 164) https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list?module=treaty-detail&treatynum=164 (forbidding the creation of embryos for research purposes only, and suggests embryos in vitro have protections.); Also see Drabiak-Syed B. K. (2013). New President, New Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Policy: Comparative International Perspectives and Embryonic Stem Cell Research Laws in France.  Biotechnology Law Report ,  32 (6), 349–356. https://doi.org/10.1089/blr.2013.9865

[45] Rendtorff, J.D., Kemp, P. (2019). Four Ethical Principles in European Bioethics and Biolaw: Autonomy, Dignity, Integrity and Vulnerability. In: Valdés, E., Lecaros, J. (eds) Biolaw and Policy in the Twenty-First Century. International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine, vol 78. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05903-3_3

[46] Tomuschat, C., Currie, D. P., Kommers, D. P., & Kerr, R. (Trans.). (1949, May 23). Basic law for the Federal Republic of Germany. https://www.btg-bestellservice.de/pdf/80201000.pdf

[47] Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Germany . Eurostemcell. (2017, April 26). https://www.eurostemcell.org/regulation-stem-cell-research-germany

[48] Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Finland . Eurostemcell. (2017, April 26). https://www.eurostemcell.org/regulation-stem-cell-research-finland

[49] Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Spain . Eurostemcell. (2017, April 26). https://www.eurostemcell.org/regulation-stem-cell-research-spain

[50] Some sources to consider regarding ethics models or regulatory oversights of other cultures not covered:

Kara MA. Applicability of the principle of respect for autonomy: the perspective of Turkey. J Med Ethics. 2007 Nov;33(11):627-30. doi: 10.1136/jme.2006.017400. PMID: 17971462; PMCID: PMC2598110.

Ugarte, O. N., & Acioly, M. A. (2014). The principle of autonomy in Brazil: one needs to discuss it ...  Revista do Colegio Brasileiro de Cirurgioes ,  41 (5), 374–377. https://doi.org/10.1590/0100-69912014005013

Bharadwaj, A., & Glasner, P. E. (2012). Local cells, global science: The rise of embryonic stem cell research in India . Routledge.

For further research on specific European countries regarding ethical and regulatory framework, we recommend this database: Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Europe . Eurostemcell. (2017, April 26). https://www.eurostemcell.org/regulation-stem-cell-research-europe   

[51] Klitzman, R. (2006). Complications of culture in obtaining informed consent. The American Journal of Bioethics, 6(1), 20–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/15265160500394671 see also: Ekmekci, P. E., & Arda, B. (2017). Interculturalism and Informed Consent: Respecting Cultural Differences without Breaching Human Rights.  Cultura (Iasi, Romania) ,  14 (2), 159–172.; For why trust is important in research, see also: Gray, B., Hilder, J., Macdonald, L., Tester, R., Dowell, A., & Stubbe, M. (2017). Are research ethics guidelines culturally competent?  Research Ethics ,  13 (1), 23-41.  https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016116650235

[52] The Qur'an  (M. Khattab, Trans.). (1965). Al-Mu’minun, 23: 12-14. https://quran.com/23

[53] Lenfest, Y. (2017, December 8). Islam and the beginning of human life . Bill of Health. https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2017/12/08/islam-and-the-beginning-of-human-life/

[54] Aksoy, S. (2005). Making regulations and drawing up legislation in Islamic countries under conditions of uncertainty, with special reference to embryonic stem cell research. Journal of Medical Ethics , 31: 399-403.; see also: Mahmoud, Azza. "Islamic Bioethics: National Regulations and Guidelines of Human Stem Cell Research in the Muslim World." Master's thesis, Chapman University, 2022. https://doi.org/10.36837/ chapman.000386

[55] Rashid, R. (2022). When does Ensoulment occur in the Human Foetus. Journal of the British Islamic Medical Association , 12 (4). ISSN 2634 8071. https://www.jbima.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/2-Ethics-3_-Ensoulment_Rafaqat.pdf.

[56] Sivaraman, M. & Noor, S. (2017). Ethics of embryonic stem cell research according to Buddhist, Hindu, Catholic, and Islamic religions: perspective from Malaysia. Asian Biomedicine,8(1) 43-52.  https://doi.org/10.5372/1905-7415.0801.260

[57] Jafari, M., Elahi, F., Ozyurt, S. & Wrigley, T. (2007). 4. Religious Perspectives on Embryonic Stem Cell Research. In K. Monroe, R. Miller & J. Tobis (Ed.),  Fundamentals of the Stem Cell Debate: The Scientific, Religious, Ethical, and Political Issues  (pp. 79-94). Berkeley: University of California Press.  https://escholarship.org/content/qt9rj0k7s3/qt9rj0k7s3_noSplash_f9aca2e02c3777c7fb76ea768ba458f0.pdf https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520940994-005

[58] Lecso, P. A. (1991). The Bodhisattva Ideal and Organ Transplantation.  Journal of Religion and Health ,  30 (1), 35–41. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27510629 ; Bodhisattva, S. (n.d.). The Key of Becoming a Bodhisattva . A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life. http://www.buddhism.org/Sutras/2/BodhisattvaWay.htm

[59] There is no explicit religious reference to when life begins or how to conduct research that interacts with the concept of life. However, these are relevant verses pertaining to how the fetus is viewed. (( King James Bible . (1999). Oxford University Press. (original work published 1769))

Jerimiah 1: 5 “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee…”

In prophet Jerimiah’s insight, God set him apart as a person known before childbirth, a theme carried within the Psalm of David.

Psalm 139: 13-14 “…Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…”

These verses demonstrate David’s respect for God as an entity that would know of all man’s thoughts and doings even before birth.

[60] It should be noted that abortion is not supported as well.

[61] The Vatican. (1987, February 22). Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation Replies to Certain Questions of the Day . Congregation For the Doctrine of the Faith. https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19870222_respect-for-human-life_en.html

[62] The Vatican. (2000, August 25). Declaration On the Production and the Scientific and Therapeutic Use of Human Embryonic Stem Cells . Pontifical Academy for Life. https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_academies/acdlife/documents/rc_pa_acdlife_doc_20000824_cellule-staminali_en.html ; Ohara, N. (2003). Ethical Consideration of Experimentation Using Living Human Embryos: The Catholic Church’s Position on Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Human Cloning. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology . Retrieved from https://article.imrpress.com/journal/CEOG/30/2-3/pii/2003018/77-81.pdf.

[63] Smith, G. A. (2022, May 23). Like Americans overall, Catholics vary in their abortion views, with regular mass attenders most opposed . Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/05/23/like-americans-overall-catholics-vary-in-their-abortion-views-with-regular-mass-attenders-most-opposed/

[64] Rosner, F., & Reichman, E. (2002). Embryonic stem cell research in Jewish law. Journal of halacha and contemporary society , (43), 49–68.; Jafari, M., Elahi, F., Ozyurt, S. & Wrigley, T. (2007). 4. Religious Perspectives on Embryonic Stem Cell Research. In K. Monroe, R. Miller & J. Tobis (Ed.),  Fundamentals of the Stem Cell Debate: The Scientific, Religious, Ethical, and Political Issues  (pp. 79-94). Berkeley: University of California Press.  https://escholarship.org/content/qt9rj0k7s3/qt9rj0k7s3_noSplash_f9aca2e02c3777c7fb76ea768ba458f0.pdf https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520940994-005

[65] Schenker J. G. (2008). The beginning of human life: status of embryo. Perspectives in Halakha (Jewish Religious Law).  Journal of assisted reproduction and genetics ,  25 (6), 271–276. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-008-9221-6

[66] Ruttenberg, D. (2020, May 5). The Torah of Abortion Justice (annotated source sheet) . Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/234926.7?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en

[67] Jafari, M., Elahi, F., Ozyurt, S. & Wrigley, T. (2007). 4. Religious Perspectives on Embryonic Stem Cell Research. In K. Monroe, R. Miller & J. Tobis (Ed.),  Fundamentals of the Stem Cell Debate: The Scientific, Religious, Ethical, and Political Issues  (pp. 79-94). Berkeley: University of California Press.  https://escholarship.org/content/qt9rj0k7s3/qt9rj0k7s3_noSplash_f9aca2e02c3777c7fb76ea768ba458f0.pdf https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520940994-005

[68] Gert, B. (2007). Common morality: Deciding what to do . Oxford Univ. Press.

[69] World Medical Association (2013). World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki: ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. JAMA , 310(20), 2191–2194. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2013.281053 Declaration of Helsinki – WMA – The World Medical Association .; see also: National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. (1979).  The Belmont report: Ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research . U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/belmont-report/read-the-belmont-report/index.html

[70] Zakarin Safier, L., Gumer, A., Kline, M., Egli, D., & Sauer, M. V. (2018). Compensating human subjects providing oocytes for stem cell research: 9-year experience and outcomes.  Journal of assisted reproduction and genetics ,  35 (7), 1219–1225. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-018-1171-z https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6063839/ see also: Riordan, N. H., & Paz Rodríguez, J. (2021). Addressing concerns regarding associated costs, transparency, and integrity of research in recent stem cell trial. Stem Cells Translational Medicine , 10 (12), 1715–1716. https://doi.org/10.1002/sctm.21-0234

[71] Klitzman, R., & Sauer, M. V. (2009). Payment of egg donors in stem cell research in the USA.  Reproductive biomedicine online ,  18 (5), 603–608. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1472-6483(10)60002-8

[72] Krosin, M. T., Klitzman, R., Levin, B., Cheng, J., & Ranney, M. L. (2006). Problems in comprehension of informed consent in rural and peri-urban Mali, West Africa.  Clinical trials (London, England) ,  3 (3), 306–313. https://doi.org/10.1191/1740774506cn150oa

[73] Veatch, Robert M.  Hippocratic, Religious, and Secular Medical Ethics: The Points of Conflict . Georgetown University Press, 2012.

[74] Msoroka, M. S., & Amundsen, D. (2018). One size fits not quite all: Universal research ethics with diversity.  Research Ethics ,  14 (3), 1-17.  https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016117739939

[75] Pirzada, N. (2022). The Expansion of Turkey’s Medical Tourism Industry.  Voices in Bioethics ,  8 . https://doi.org/10.52214/vib.v8i.9894

[76] Stem Cell Tourism: False Hope for Real Money . Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI). (2023). https://hsci.harvard.edu/stem-cell-tourism , See also: Bissassar, M. (2017). Transnational Stem Cell Tourism: An ethical analysis.  Voices in Bioethics ,  3 . https://doi.org/10.7916/vib.v3i.6027

[77] Song, P. (2011) The proliferation of stem cell therapies in post-Mao China: problematizing ethical regulation,  New Genetics and Society , 30:2, 141-153, DOI:  10.1080/14636778.2011.574375

[78] Dajani, R. (2014). Jordan’s stem-cell law can guide the Middle East.  Nature  510, 189. https://doi.org/10.1038/510189a

[79] International Society for Stem Cell Research. (2024). Standards in stem cell research . International Society for Stem Cell Research. https://www.isscr.org/guidelines/5-standards-in-stem-cell-research

[80] Benjamin, R. (2013). People’s science bodies and rights on the Stem Cell Frontier . Stanford University Press.

Mifrah Hayath

SM Candidate Harvard Medical School, MS Biotechnology Johns Hopkins University

Olivia Bowers

MS Bioethics Columbia University (Disclosure: affiliated with Voices in Bioethics)

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Research is the foundation of our liberal arts education

• Eric M. Wilcots
• May 10, 2024

The fundamental strength of UW–Madison’s College of Letters & Science experience is that it is broad and inherently interdisciplinary — characteristics that serve us well in an ever-changing global community. Through the arts and humanities, social sciences, biological and physical sciences, and the computer, data and informational sciences, our liberal arts education prepares students to understand and appreciate a range of disciplines, to think critically and to communicate well. We ensure that our students understand not just what we know about the world, but how that knowledge is built. We call this the act of “sifting and winnowing,” a principal that is the core of our teaching philosophy and a skill that is invaluable for our graduates well beyond their time at UW.

Dean Eric M. Wilcots welcomes the newest class of College of Letters & Science students to campus at the convocation event.

One major way that we put these words into action is by prioritizing research as part of the L&S experience. UW–Madison is one of the top-rated research institutions in the world, which means the campus is positively humming with discovery. And much of the groundbreaking findings from the university are coming from researchers in the College of Letters & Science. With experts in fields ranging from computer science and physics to journalism and history, we are at the forefront of research that answers some of the toughest questions facing our society today.

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I cannot overstate the importance of curiosity-driven research. My L&S colleagues are driven by questions of how and why. We seek to understand the natural world we inhabit, be it the complex functions of Earth’s atmosphere and climate, freshwater ecosystems or the universe as a whole. We are driven to understand how we as humans interact with one another as individuals and as societies, and how these interactions have changed over the course of human history. L&S research is also inspired by thinking about our political systems, our histories and our cultures and the sometimes difficult truths this thinking reveals. As technology — including the recent surge of AI — has changed our world, we see a need to understand how this changes life for workers, families and everyday citizens.

This edition of “Fueling Discovery” is a celebration of the research that is the lifeblood of the College of Letters & Science. It is our mission to address and tackle the most challenging and important questions of our time. We see this supplement of the Wisconsin State Journal as an opportunity to share our work with our fellow Wisconsinites. In the spirit of the Wisconsin Idea, the research we do in L&S directly benefits the citizens of our state, country and world. In these pages you’ll read essays from faculty members who are at the forefront of their fields and making cutting-edge discoveries covering topics including the ways quantum computing is revolutionizing modern-day technology, how plants are adapting to our changing climates and the formerly untold history of how Black people shaped the early Midwest.

You’ll also hear from our students, who have unparalleled access and opportunities to contribute to the discoveries being uncovered through research on our campus. Being able to work with faculty mentors as an undergraduate studying astronomy shaped my own career, and I’m proud that our students share that same experience today. Through programs like Undergraduate Research Scholars (URS), Letters and Science Excellence in Research (LASER) and L&S STEM Scholars, our undergraduate students are in the field and at the lab working side-by-side with faculty and graduate students. Take Ahmia Williams-Walsh for example. She’s a part of a team in the Department of Chemistry’s Hermans Research Group that is tackling one of the world’s most pressing challenges: How can we produce plastic in a way that lessens the environmental impact? The work being done by her and the research team could have the long-term industry impact of decreasing carbon emissions. And she’s just one of three outstanding undergraduate students featured in this publication, who represent a small sampling of the talent on the UW–Madison campus.

Through the breadth of L&S we are drawn to the realization that research, innovation and creativity are the engines that drive discovery. By fueling discovery today, we are investing in our future and that of our children and the world they will inherit.

About the Dean

Eric M. Wilcots is the dean of the College of Letters & Science and the Mary C. Jacoby Professor of Astronomy in the Department of Astronomy, his home department since 1995. Dean Wilcots is committed to creating an environment where all can succeed and thrive. In 2020, he launched the Dean’s Initiative for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and created the STEM Scholars program, which provides critical support for L&S students entering the university with an interest in science, technology, engineering or math. He is currently presiding over the design and construction of a new L&S academic building, Irving and Dorothy Levy Hall, as well as a new facility for the School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences, Morgridge Hall. Dean Wilcots is dedicated to promoting outreach and the Wisconsin Idea and serves as co-chair of the Wisconsin Science Festival.

This content was produced by UW-Madison’s College of Letters & Science. The news and editorial departments of the Wisconsin State Journal had no role in its creation or display. For more information, contact [email protected]

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Globalisation and Current Research on Teaching Values Education

• First Online: 18 June 2020

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Part of the book series: Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research ((GCEP,volume 20))

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This chapter discusses current and dominant models employed in teaching values education in schools. It offers researchers, teachers and students with an insight as to why values education should be incorporated in classroom teaching. It is suggested that values education, in addition to focusing on moral education, is connected to democracy, active citizenship education, social justice and human rights education. Drawing on current research, various curriculum and pedagogical approaches are offered as to how to improve the effectiveness values education in classroom pedagogy. The chapter concludes that values education to be meaningful, engaging and authentic must involve a greater sense of active citizenship education, social constructivist pedagogy, and more emphasis on cultural diversity, critical thinking and a deeper and critical understanding and knowledge of democracy, equality, human rights and social justice for all.

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Zajda, J. (2020). Globalisation and Current Research on Teaching Values Education. In: Zajda, J. (eds) Globalisation, Ideology and Education Reforms. Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research, vol 20. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1743-2_7

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