The consolidation/transition model in moral reasoning development

The consolidation/transition model conceptualizes development as entailing a cyclical pattern of alternating consolidation and transition phases and p osits that stage advance is predicted by a specific distribution of reasoni ng across stages indicative of disequilibrium (more reasoning above than be low the mode, with a high degree of mixture). The validity of this model wa s examined in the context of moral reasoning development with the use of st andard statistical techniques as well as Bayesian techniques that can bette r account for classification error. In this longitudinal study, 64 children and adolescents participated in 5 annual administrations of the Moral Judg ment Interview. The distribution of their reasoning across stages was used to predict subsequent development. The results support the hypotheses regar ding cyclical patterns of change and predictors of stage transition and dem onstrate the utility of Bayesian techniques for evaluating developmental ch ange.