Abstract:

Introduction:
Until recently, critical and moral thinking have been studied in Slovakia as two independent phenomena. Practice suggests that the two topics need to be intertwined. Paul and Elder (2013) state that the same standards apply to moral reasoning as to other areas of knowledge. If our moral reasoning is to be sound, it must be clear, precise, relevant, deep, logical, etc. How we think is reflected in our actions. Future teachers should have developed the ability to resolve problems and conflicts on the basis of their own moral principles. In this context, the insight of G. Linda (2009): moral competence is defined as the ability to judge arguments by their moral quality instead of by their opinion-agreement or other non-moral criteria.

Methods and respondents:
Based on the above, we formulated the following scientific problem: What is the moral competence of Slovak future teachers? The basic measurement tool was The Moral Competence Test (Lind, 2009). The basic group consisted of students of all teacher training programmes at the University of Prešov in Prešov (N = 761). Through the group selection, we selected n = 241 respondents (13 groups). These were the students of various study combinations of teacher programmes who attended compulsory study subjects of pedagogical-psychological basis. Testing was realized in October, academic year 2020/2021.

Results:
The average gross C-score of the entire sample of students was M = 21.15 (SD = 12.88), which proves teacher students´ medium level of moral reasoning. In the study, we discuss selected variables (in terms of gender, faculties, field of study) and confront them with current foreign results. Statistically significant differences in moral competence were demonstrated in terms of faculties. A worrying indicator is that the lowest level of moral competence was achieved by the educational studies programs (M = 16.12; SD = 13.11).

Conclusion:
The findings show that the highest level of moral competence was achieved by students of humanities study programmes. At the same time, we identified that teacher education programs clearly need a change in orientation towards the development of moral judgment. The basic recommendation is to innovate the pedagogical-psychological preparation of teacher faculties in the context of changing the curriculum, creating new information sheets of university courses supporting moral judgment as part of just critical thinking.

Keywords:

Moral competence, student teachers, challenges to the integrity of critical and moral judgment.