ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
An Integrative Head–Heart–Hands Model of Moral Education: Evidence from Chinese Higher Education
Provisionally accepted
- 1Faculty of Educational Studies, Putra Malaysia University, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
- 2Henan Institute of Science and Technology, Xinxiang, China
- 3Putra Malaysia University, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
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Conventional moral education often treats moral cognition, moral affect, and moral practice as separate targets, making it difficult for students to integrate what they know, feel, and do. This study examines a Head–Heart–Hands (3H) process model and its classroom operationalization in a compulsory Chinese university moral education course. Using an action-research-informed, embedded qualitative case study design, we implemented a 19-week 3H-informed instructional intervention in three parallel classes of 'Ideology, Morality and Rule of Law' (total class enrolment = 175). Data included structured classroom observations, reflective journals, and semi-structured interviews with 12 purposively selected focal cases. Thematic analysis indicates that students reported (a) more contextualized moral reasoning and critical reflection (Head), (b) stronger value-related resonance, empathy, and emotion regulation during collaborative tasks (Heart), and (c) more sustained engagement in action-oriented and community-relevant practices (Hands), with meaningful heterogeneity across cases. Across the semester, the data also suggest a recursive pattern in which reasoning, affective engagement, and action tasks could mutually inform one another through iterative reflection (Head ↔Heart ↔Hands). These findings are exploratory and context-specific, but they illustrate how 3H-aligned activity sequencing and reflective integration may support integrated moral learning, while also highlighting conditions and tensions relevant to implementation in compulsory university moral education courses.
Keywords: character education, Head-Heart-Hands (3H), holistic education, moral affect, Moral cognition, Moral education, MoralBehavior.Chinese higher education
Received: 07 Dec 2025; Accepted: 09 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Wang, Saharuddin, YASIN and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Norzihani Saharuddin
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