EXAMINATION OF PRESCHOOL EDUCATION PROGRAM IN TERMS OF MORAL COMPONENTS
Morals signify discrimination of concepts such as right-wrong, acting based on this discrimination, and adoption of virtuous behaviors. Moral development, on the other hand, can be explained as establishment of system of values, conceptualization of right and wrong, and process of developing behaviors appropriate for these values. Moral maturity, which is the state of an individual to be competent in emotions, thoughts, judgments, attitudes, and behaviors, had three components; cognitive, emotional and behavioral. These three components support each other and function together for a good character. Emotions constitute moral motivation and this motivation forms moral behaviors by combining with moral awareness. Therefore, a good moral education should attach importance to support all of three components. None of them is superior than another one. Based on this point of view, Preschool Education Program of the Ministry of National Education was investigated in terms of moral education in this study. The study was designed in qualitative model and conducted by using the case design. Document review was used as data collection method. As a result of the document review, the data obtained were analyzed by using descriptive analysis method. The categories of moral knowing (cognitive), moral feeling (emotional), and moral behavior (behavioral) determined as components of a good character by Lickona (1992) for descriptive analysis were used. Acquirements in the program were assessed according to these categories. As a result of the study, it was observed that the Preschool Education Program of the Ministry of National Education supported moral development of children and involved moral components mostly in cognitive and behavioral dimensions and the emotional dimension remained in the background more. Therefore, the program should also involve emotional component of morals as much as the other components and the program should be arranged in such a way to include acquirements to enable children to display moral behaviors via internal motivations instead of authority and rules.

Keywords
Moral Education, Moral Maturity, Moral Components, Preschool Education Program