The major purpose of this study was to compare the progress made by a group of children taught by the experience method of teaching with a group taught by the old textbook method, to determine whether the experimental group would show as much gain in academic knowledge as the control group, and in turn gain the other desired traits of the present-day personal and social needs.

In diploma theses, I focused on the theme of the educational field and the school subject Ethic Education. The work is divided into two parts. The theoretical part deals with the concept of ethic education in a broad context, with the history of ethic education in the Czech Republic, as well as with the polemic about the (non) dispensability of ethic education as an independent teaching subject. The last chapter focuses on an overview of how ethic education is succeeding today along with outlining its next possible development for the future. The aim of this diploma thesis was to find out the opinions of Ethic education teachers on issues related to the concept and curriculum of ethic education in the Czech Republic. Also differences in answers of Czech and Slovak respondents on the same research questions. The research shows that Czech teachers are identified with the current concept of ethic education, its aims, teaching methods, they are pleased by teaching ethic education. Compared to Slovak respondents, Czech teachers responded less critically, consensually. They have shown greater satisfaction with the amount and quality of the methodical materials they have at their disposal.

This work considers the theoretical, epistemological and methodological criteria for a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to the study of spiritual experience founded within a qualitative paradigm. Spirituality is noted to be of increasing significance in society and as a developing discipline within the academy and spiritual experience is offered as an opening to greater understanding and appreciation of an individual's understandings of their spirituality. The methodology provides an interpretative approach towards an opportunity for resonance, identification and empathy between individual and reader through richly descriptive narratives offering insights into such experiences and developing themes and threads of particular interest prior to seeking universal and semi universal traits between or amongst narratives. Practical methods for applying the methodology are considered, including ethical and researcher reflexive issues. The assessment of the methodology includes its application to a case study, located within contemporary Christianity in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh, Scotland, which due to limitations of space focuses particularly on the notion of the Gift and assists in the determination of the efficacy and validity of hermeneutic phenomenology in the study of spiritual experience.