Moral Motivation and Its Relationship with the Perceived Stresses of Life among University Students

Abstract

The current research aims to identify moral motivation and its relationship with the perceived stresses of life among university students. The researchers adopted the descriptive approach, and the current study is limited to Baghdad University students of both genders (males and females) for 2020-2021.The research sample consisted of 400 male and female students who were selected by stratified random method with a proportional distribution. To achieve the research objectives, the researchers reviewed the literature related with moral motivation concept, and the Janoff-Bulman and Carnes (2016) scale was adopted, and the scale consisted of two domains: the first is the internal moral motivation, which includes (self- control, diligence and not to harm others), while the second is the external moral motivation, which includes (social system, equality and social justice, provision of assistance), as the scale items reached 30 items divided equally on its six dimensions. Also, The researchers adopted the Cox and Ferguson scale (1991), and the scale consists of 89 items distributed on six dimensions: academic, health, emotional, social and family, economic, and occupational stresses. The two research tools were presented to a group of arbitrators and extracted the psychometric properties of validity and reliability. After collecting the data, it was statistically analyzed by using SPSS program. The results showed the following: 1. There is a level of moral motivation among university students 2. There are statistically significant differences in moral motivation according to gender and in favor of males. 3. There is a level of perceived life stresses among university students. 4. There are statistically significant differences in perceived life stresses according to gender and in favor of males. 5. There is a statistically significant relationship between moral motivation- and its six domains - and the perceived stresses of life - and its six domains. Based on the findings of the researchers, the researchers made a set of recommendations, as well as a number of proposals to conduct a number of future studies.