華人的學業成就目標與儒家倫理觀：兼回應「台灣青少年是否認為努力與學業成就關乎道德？」一文

Chinese Academic Achievement Goals and Confucian Ethics: A Response to “Do Taiwanese Adolescents Believe in the Moral Significance of Effort and School Performance?”

「台灣青少年是否認為努力與學業成就關乎道德？」（以下簡稱「台」文）一文（張泰銓、雷庚玲，2018），針對Fwu 等人（2014）、Chen 等人（2009）與Hwang（2012）提出努力的道德性及努力是無條件的積極義務之論點，提出質疑。「台」文採用「社會—認知範疇理論」，透過直接詢問台灣高中生與大學生的看法，得到結論：努力具道德性非台灣青少年的共識。為了深化學術對話，本文先闡述華人學業成就目標與儒家倫理觀之特性，及相關研究結果，接著進一步針對「台」文之論點提出回應。首先，在理論上，「台」文所採用的理論基礎與基於儒家倫理觀所建構的理論有極大差異，概念也無法對比。其次，在方法上，「台」文的量表題目未呼應其所採用「社會—認知範疇理論」道德範疇的前提，而且在方法論上也帶有素樸實證主義的根本問題。最後，在結果的解釋上，「台」文未說明其研究參與者對於孝道、努力、學業成就之判斷不同的原因，但從儒家倫理觀所建構的理論反而可以解釋這樣的結果。

"Chang & Lei’s (2018) article entitled, “Do Taiwanese Adolescents Believe in the Moral Significance of Effort and School Performance?” took a critical stand to the perspective held by a series of research conducted by Chen et al. (2009), Hwang (2012) and Fwu et al. (2014) that effort as positive duty has moral significance. Through empirical data collection on Taiwanese high school and college students, Chang & Lei concluded that such viewpoint was not supported by Taiwanese adolescents. As an attempt to further academic dialogue, this article first explicates the characteristics of and relevant research findings based on the Chinese academic achievement goal and the Confucian ethics. Then, this article responded to Chang & Lei’s (2018) claims in the following three dimensions. First, theoretically, the social-cognitive domain theory adopted by Chang & Lei was quintessentially different from the theory constructed by the authors based on the Confucian ethics, and thus the ideas and concepts developed by the two distinct theories could not be compared and contrasted. Second, methodologically, the items used in Chang & Lei’s measurement scale were not accurately developed to capture the essence of morality in the theoretical context of social-cognitive domain theory, demonstrating a fundamental problem of naïve positivist approach in methodology. Lastly, Chang & Lei failed to explain the rationales used by their participants to discern filial piety, effort and academic achievement. The authors argued that, on the contrary, their findings could be better explained by the theory constructed based on the Confucian ethics."