The longitudinal transition of the moral character latent profile of elementary school students and predictive factor verification in Korea

This study investigated the longitudinal transition of the moral character profiles of elementary school students and their predictive factors. Latent profile, latent transition, and logistic regression analyses were conducted using data from 2132 elementary school students in the fourth and sixth grades, who responded to both the first and third surveys in 2017 and 2019, respectively. The results were as follows: First, the latent groups of moral character profiles of elementary school students were classified into three types each year: the "low," "intermediate," and "high" moral character types. Second, the highest transition pattern was observed in the transition from the "intermediate" moral character type to the "high" type. Third, "happiness" was the most powerful predictor affecting the latent group transition of moral character, followed by "parental relationship," "teacher-student relationship," and "volunteer activities.". The findings suggest that the government needs to organize and provide effective educational methods considering parental relationship, student-teacher relations, and "volunteer activities" to improve the morality of elementary school students in the future.