Theoretical Information on the HBVCI

To date, over 80,000 individuals have been assessed using the HBVCI from ninth grade through adult populations, including longitudinal studies at the United States Military Academy at West Point, the Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, to youth, interscholastic, and intercollegiate athletes and coaches and the general non-competitive population. The HBVCI has a high reliability and validity, with Chronbach Alphas from .74 to .88. The HBVCI, the "Moral Reasoning and Moral Development in Sport Review and HBVCI Manual", and normative tables are available from the Center for ETHICS*.   The HBVCI has been translated into six different languages.

To date, secondary analyses have been run and preliminary normative tables have been developed (see Norms in Moral Reasoning and Moral Development in Sport and HBVCI Manual, available from the Center for ETHICS*). HBVCI scores do not reflect moral action, but rather cognitive moral knowledge. In other words, the inventory is not designed to assess individual reasoning to project honest, just, or responsible moral actions. Rather, the inventory gives a characterization about how different groups morally reason and make cognitive judgments about moral issues in sport. The inventory is designed to assess mean reasoning scores of different groups and make inferences to populations as a whole. It is also important to note that cognitive knowledge, is not the only factor affecting moral action.

"Three general concepts to foster development and maturation of moral character are: moral knowing, moral valuing, and moral acting. Moral knowing is the cognitive phase of learning about moral issues and how to resolve them" (Lickona, 1991). Moral Knowing involves sensitivity, self-knowing, moral reasoning, perspective taking, and decision making. Moral valuing is the basis of what we believe about ourselves, society, and other around us. Moral valuing involves the conscious, self-esteem, empathy, self-control, and humility. Moral action is our outward behavior that we manifest contingent on our values and cognitive processes. Moral acting involves knowledge, courage, determination, and habit. Kohlberg (1981) and Rest (1983) state that moral understanding should directly affect moral motivation and behavior. Kohlberg, however, states that the strength of the relationship is only moderate. At this point, he and others state that too many other factors are involved for a high correlation, such as emotion, empathy, guilt, social background, experiences, and so forth. The three phases work in concert to help us make moral decisions (Stoll & Beller, 1992, p.4).

The HBVCI measures "cognitive knowing" and in no way predicts or measures moral action. However, cognitive knowing is a precursor to moral action. Interpretation of data from the HBVCI should be used as an indicator of perspectives different groups use when making cognitive decisions about right actions in sport. From this information, educational programs can be developed to foster critical thinking and moral reasoning.

Deontic Reasoning and Selected HBVCI Questions Below are three inventory examples of moral situations in sport. Following the questions are discussions concerning how a deontic may reason through these questions. A respondent is asked to mark each question, SA = strongly agree, A = Agree, N = Neutral, D = Disagree, SD = Strongly Disagree. Immediately following is a typical deontic reasoned response for each case.

Question 1: Male soccer players are allowed to play the ball with any part of their body except the hands or outstretched arms. A soccer player receives a chest high pass and taps the ball to the ground with his hand. The referee does not see this action and the play continues, Because it is the referee's job to see these actions, the player is not obligated to report his foul. SA A N D SD

Based on deontological theory, this scenario deals with a direct action by the participant or moral agent. In this case, the moral agent acted and then passed his obligation of honesty to an authority and then lied by omission about the act. A deontic would say that he is being dishonest in his act of omission and irresponsible by passing his responsibility to another. A true deontic, therefore, would tell the referee that he touched the ball with the hand and accept the consequences. As scored on the HBVCI, a deontic would mark this question SD (strongly disagree).

Question 2: A gold medal track athlete was told to undergo drug testing during a recent international competition. She opposed the drug testing because she played by the rules, competed on her won merits, and did not use performance enhancing drugs. She believed that athletic organizations had no moral authority to force her to be tested. Consequently, because she and other athletes should be considered sincere, drug testing should not be mandatory. SA A N D SD

This question concerns beliefs rather than actions. It questions what should be rather than what is. Therefore, the deontic is asked to weigh the scenario and decide what would be a responsible recommendation about a rule. A deontic might say that irresponsible behavior should not be tolerated. Any athlete who uses steroids is highly suspect, irresponsible, and immoral. And, such abusers should not be permitted to play the game. Does this mean that all athletes should be tested? Not necessarily. The deontic would say that everyone should not be assumed guilty because of the acts of a few. To assume that everyone is guilty is to be irresponsible to the duty of justice. The governing body has a responsibility to punish offenders and to try to keep competition "clean", yet it also has a responsibility to the non-abusers. A deontic might say that what is needed is a comprehensive moral education program that addresses drug use and a better action might be to only test those who show some appearance of drug use. The deontic, therefore, would argue that drug testing should not be mandatory and would mark SA (strongly agree).

Question 3: During the double play in baseball, players must tag second base before throwing to first. However, some players deliberately fake the tag, thus delivering a quicker throw to first base. Pretending to tag second base is justified because it is good strategy. Besides, the umpire's job is to call an illegal play. SA A N D S D

This question has two parts, on the action of abridging a rule in the name of strategy and the second statement acts as an irrelevant distractor. The statement, "Besides, the umpire's job is to call an illegal play" is irrelevant. The umpire's job has nothing to do with deciding the issue of good strategy. A reasoned deontic would instantly dismiss this statement and resolve the greater question of justice. Therefore, we turn to the next question, what would a deontic say about abridging rules in the name of good strategy? A deontic would never accept that this action is justified. Cheating in the name of good strategy is never fair or just. Fair play is playing by the rules, both by the letter and intent. Abridging the rules to gain an advantage and calling it strategy is never justified. The deontic, therefore, would mark SD (strongly disagree). The HBVCI is not so concerned with the specific moral values, as much as, whether deontic reasoning is used and how consistent is the reasoning.

Theoretical Foundation:
Based in ethical theory, the HBVCI specifically uses deontological or deontic theory as its theoretical guide. Specifically, deontological ethics provides answers to such questions as: "What is the nature of rightness?" That is, deontics study the relationship of rightness to another basic concept of ethics - duty or moral obligation. In general, the deontics consider these concepts to be synonymous, holding that statements "Action X is right", "Action X is my duty", and "I ought, or am morally obligated, to do action X", are equivalent in meaning (Ross, 1930, p.3-4). Deontological theory therefore holds that rightness is a fundamental, irreducible ethical concept.

Deontic theory lies in an appeal to moral life itself. For example, promise-keeping is an act that we believe is right. We believe that it is our duty to keep promises, not because doing so will produce the best possible consequences, but simply because we have made the promise. That is, promise-keeping is right because it is promise keeping. Ross (1930) called this kind of example a "prima facie duty". "`Prima facie duty" of `conditional duty' is a brief way of referring to the characteristic (quite distinct from that of being a duty proper) which an act has, in virtue of being of a certain kind (e.g. the keeping of a promise), of being an act which would be a duty proper if it were not at the same time of another kind which is morally significant." (p.19) Deontic theory, such as Ross' prima facie duty, has an inherent rightness for all actions which we ought to follow, rather than considering the consequences. Deontic, sometimes called, nonconsequentialists, maintain either that consequences do not count at all in deciding what is morally right, or that rightness is a function of many considerations. Deontic theories can be divided into act and rule deontology. The latter holds that moral judgements are determined by references to something general, a rule or principle. Frankena (1973) said "rule deontologists hold that the standard or right or wrong consists of one or more rules - concrete ones like `we ought always to tell the truth."

On the other hand, act deontology does not appeal to the principles. The act deontics maintain that it is straight forwardly a matter of perception whether an act is right or wrong. Ashmore (1987) said that moral judgment are not proven by inference or argument from other knowledge sources because values are capable of being directly or immediately apprehended. The act deontologists' argument against rule deontologists is that: "1) Whatever principles would be the premises of a moral argument must themselves have been derived from particular perceptions. 2) Although we try to develop general moral principles that capture moral truth in our experience, this effort can never be completely successful, because each particular act, situation or person is unique" (Ashmore, 1987, p.98).

In contrast, the rule deontics argue that rules are basic and are not derived by induction from particular cases. The rule deontologists assert that judgments about what we should do in particular cases are always determined in light of the rules (Frankena, 1973, p.17). Hare (1952) agreed about the necessity of the rule and stated: "To learn to do anything is never to learn to do an individual act; it is always to learn to do acts of a certain kind of situation; and this is to learn a principle. Without principles or rules we could not learn anything whatever from our elders...every generation would have to start from scratch and teach itself. But...self-teaching like all other teaching, is the teaching of principles or rules." (p.60-61)

With such different perspectives of deontology, it is difficult to decide which perspective is better because both act deontology and rule deontology have merit. For this instrument, no differentiation is made between rule and act deontology because the essential natures are the same: they both state that moral acts, intentions, and motives have an inherent rightness that we ought to follow. Deontics, in general, argue that certain universal codes of conduct exist. That is, certain basic moral values can be generalized and are universal to all mankind.

The HBVCI is based on three of these universal codes of conduct: honesty, responsibility, and justice. Using deontic theory, definitions for honesty, responsibility, and justice were developed.

For the HBVCI:

Honesty is defined as the condition or capacity of being trustworthy or truthful. Honesty, in this sense, is a basic character that society espouses - an ideal of moral development...to be honest in thought, word, or deed. Honesty, therefore, is the code of conduct which takes into consideration lying, cheating, and stealing, and refers to the honest person as one who follows the rules and laws.

Responsibility is defined as accounting for one's actions in the past, present, and future. We are responsible for our acts, if, and only if, we did the act or caused it to occur. A responsible person is morally accountable and capable or rational conduct.

Justice is defined as an equity or fairness for treating peers or competitors equally. Justice is the quality of being righteous or of dealing justly with others. It is based in the integrity of doing the right or fair act.

The HBVCI theoretically assumes that by applying the defined principles of honesty, responsibility, and justice, any abused or confused situation should be solved deontologically. This implies that an already established rightness or right action/rule might be followed in order to avoid violating other players.

Reliability:

The HBVCI questions how participants reason in the sport context concerning honesty, responsibility, and justice. The HBVCI's deontological foundation proposes that the former values are followed in action, word, and deed.

Thirty inventory questions were designed using current sport moral dilemmas. Ten questions for each value were included in a Part A and Part B format (15 questions each). To measure reliability (consistency), the questions were listed in parallel form. Using a Likert scale of SA = strongly agree, A = agree, N = neutral, D = disagree, and SD = strongly disagree, subjects responded to one of the five former scales that most clearly represented their thoughts and feelings. Questions 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 20 represent the deontic value of honesty, where as questions 3, 6, 7, 9, 12, 15, and 18 reflect responsibility. Finally, questions 1, 4, 10, 13, 16, 19, and 21 represent the deontic value of justice. While the HBVCI's measurement level is ordinal rather than interval, because the sums (or means) of the 21 questions (total reasoning scores and three scale scores) are used, normality is assumed.

October, 1987, one hundred and thirty randomly selected high school physical education and health students and student athletes completed the pilot study. The sample consisted of 65 males and 65 females. The SPSSX "Reliability Model" computer package, using the split-half and test-retest techniques, was used to examine inter-question and Form A-B reliability. The independent variables consisted of Tests Form A and Form B and the three scales of honesty, responsibility, and justice. The dependent variables included summed total reasoning scores, as well as the sums of the three separate values: honesty, responsibility, and justice.

The initial pilot study found a reliability of 0.65. Because the reliability scores were below acceptable standards, questions with low reliability were deleted and others rewritten to clarify meaning. Form A and Form B were then combined into one twenty-one question inventory, with seven questions corresponding to each scale: honesty, responsibility, and justice.

December, 1987, twenty-four randomly selected college physical education majors participated in the inventory's second pilot study. Test development reliability coefficients for deontological scores ranged from 0.75 to 0.88 (Hahm, Beller, & Stoll, 1989b). Moreover, both Hahm's (1989) study of 197 American student athletes and general students, and Penny and Priest's (1990) study of 2,044 U.S.M.A. cadets, found consistent reliability coefficients with test development, 0.75 to 0.88 and 0.74 to 0.79 respectively. In Hahm's (1989) study, total deontological scores on the HBVCI reflected similar scores with the DIT's "P" values. In particular, male student athletes' low total deontological mean scores (60.51) also reflected a low DIT "P" mean value (32.36).

Although higher, female total deontological scores reflect similar patterns: HBVCI mean scores (70.79) and DIT mean "P" values (35.92). A reliability study was conducted on 6,500 HBVCIs taken by interscholastic, intercollegiate, and elite athletes and coaches, and high school and university age general students (non-athletes). The Cronbach's Alpha Index ranged from 0.77 to 0.79. The results were well within the range found in previous studies using the HBVCI.

Validity:

The inventory has been read and evaluated by several notable sport and general ethicists who agreed that the inventory, in their interpretations, does measure deontological reasoning. The sport ethicists have written and published extensively in the area of ethics and sport, and were members of the Academy of Physical Education and the international Philosophic Society for the study of sport. The general ethicists were known for their teaching and publishing in the area of theoretical and applied ethics.

During the HBVCI test development stages, the DIT was used as a measure of concurrent validity. The DIT itself is known as a valid and reliable measurement instrument. The original American DIT test-retest reliability analysis conducted by Rest (1979) was 0.82. In addition, DIT internal consistency checks were 0.77 for Rest (1979) and 0.66 for Dickensian (1979). Furthermore, the Chronbach's Alpha Index, found by calculating each story's stage scores across the six categories, is found in the high 0.70s.

Hahm's (1989) study, found total deontological scores on the HBVCI reflected similar scores with the DIT's "P" values. In particular, male student athlete scores (60.51) also reflected a low DIT "P" mean value (28.74). In 1990, Beller found a correlation between the HBVCI total deontic reasoning scores and the DIT "P Index" of 0.82.

Across all studies using the HBVCI, data are consistent in that student athletes reason at a lower level compared to non-athletes (Beller, Stoll, & Sumanik, 1992; Beller & Stoll, 1992a; Beller & Stoll, 1991, Beller, 1990; Penny & Priest, 1990; Hahm, 1989); Empirical evidence from the HBVCI supports previous sport psychologists' and sport sociologists' hypotheses that the longer athletes participate in sport, the less able they are to reason morally (Beller & Stoll, 1995). Specifically, results show a steady decline in cognitive moral reasoning from ninth grade through university age populations (Beller & Stoll, 1995).

Measures of validity are not separate and distinct entities. Rather, the areas of validity are meshed. Furthermore, validity relies on reliability. Reliability concerns the repeatability of a set of measures. The test must be consistent, in that successive measurements must produce similar results. In particular, an inventory cannot be considered valid if not reliable, however, an inventory could be reliable but not valid. Longitudinal studies of over 5,000 cadets at the USMA and USAFA have found high consistency with the HBVCI. Specifically, scores for incoming cadets at the USMA in 1988 were identical to scores of incoming cadets at the USAFA in 1994.

Cadets for each of these institutions are selected from the upper 3-4 percent of high school graduates nationwide. Thus over time, scores for similar populations reveal consistency on the HBVCI.