Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Institute of Education (SHBIE)

The interaction among the society at large has been shifted from direct interaction to virtual one across borderless space. However, it seems to have led to emerge the challenging issues such as cyber bullying, uncertain information and etc. An exposure on moral engagement such as trust, care, friendship, and commitment needs to pay a serious attention to provide a foundational framework in driving the user interaction in the digital era. This paper aims to explore the moral engagement in underlying virtual interaction by providing an innovative way to help the human society in a good life. This study attempts to investigate the moral engagement which can underlie the interaction from live to virtual basis. To achieve this, literature review from peer reviewed journals, conferences and books was conducted to propose the framework model of strengthening moral engagement in the digital era. By using keywords on moral values and live and virtual interaction, multiple research findings can be achieved from met-synthesis with integrating, evaluating and interpreting process. As a result, phenomenological and grounded theories and ideas extracted to identify their common features, elements, and functionalities can be integrated and used to propose a framework model. The findings reveal that to exposure the moral engagement with professional and ethical basis associated with the instructional strategy and application in virtual interaction, reference model demonstrates how the human with all the potency they behave can become a significant contribution to the society at large to enhance the abilities to improve their capacities to operate the technological tools wisely and appropriately. Considering the way to go further with more challenging issues in the virtual interaction like cyberbullying, uncertain information and etc., exploring moral engagement should be regarded to provide the framework of interactional basis with human communities such as trust, care, friendship, and commitment.