IMPLEMENTING
A CHARACTER EDUCATION CURRICULUM AND ASSESSINGIT’S IMPACT ON STUDENT BEHAVIOR
Department
of Educational Leadership and Professional Studies
College
of Education
State
University of West Georgia
Carrollton,
GA 30118
770-836-4435
770-836-4646
FAX
www.westga.edu/~cbulach(home page)
Clearly there is a need
in society and at the school setting to curb violence and to have citizens and
students who practice behaviors that are of a more civil/moral nature than
currently is the pattern. This pattern of harmful behavior has been attributed
to the breakdown of the family and the lack of moral training in the home. As a
result, more and more school systems are introducing curriculums to address
this concern. This training is often called character education. The citizens
of some school systems have objected to this process because the desired
character traits are often in the eyes of the beholder, i.e., one community may
emphasize character traits that are not valued by citizens of another
community. Consequently, school officials need to ascertain those
characteristics that are valued by their community to avoid this
problem.Further, they need to determine the extent to which these
characteristics are present or lacking in the student body. For example, if a
characteristic is already present, there is no need to teach it.
Purpose/Problem Statement
The October 27, 1997
issue of Business Week, in addition to containing a wealth of
information on character education programs, posed two similar problems as
follows: (1) whose values should be taught? and (2) the insistence of educators
that character is too complex an issue to be measured accurately. The
purpose of this research was to address these two concerns and describe a
process for determining those traits a school should teach and to develop an
instrument to measure the degree to which behaviors associated with the
identified traits are present or absent.
A character trait/value
according to Bulach (1999) is something that comes into play whenever the
golden rule has been applied.In other words, it is something that deals with a
person's relationship with others. However, he also believes that there is a
self component for some character values, e.g., persistence.Consequently, he
defined a character trait as an intrinsic attitude or belief that determines a
person's behavior in relation to other people and in relation to self.Character
values such as sportsmanship, generosity, courtesy, and empathywould have
behaviors associated with those values that would be easily observable in
relation to other people.Character values such as persistence, motivation,
self respect, and self control would have behaviors associated with those
values that would relate more to self and not be so easily observable.
The process for
determining the character traits valued by a community consisted of an
extensive survey of parents, teachers, and ministers in a K-12 school system
near Atlanta, Georgia.They were asked to list those traits they thought should
be taught in their school systems. These data were analyzed for the frequency
with which each trait was listed.Based on frequency data, 25 traits were
identified as valued by the community. These were consolidated/grouped into 16
character traits because a number of them overlapped, e.g.,
responsibility/dependability/accountability. The teachers, parents, and
ministers were then asked to rank these 16 traits from most important to least
important. This process is described in more detail by Bulach (1999).
Teachers and parents at
all grade levels were in agreement on the three most important character values
to teach.They were the following: (1) respect for self, others and property,
(2) honesty, and (3) self control/discipline.The top three for the clergy were
the following: (1) perseverance/diligence, (2) motivation, and (3) empathy,
with respect coming in fourth. The remaining 13, ranked in order of importance,
were as
follows:cooperation,responsibility/dependability/accountability,integrity/fairness,
kindness,forgiveness, perseverance/diligence/motivation, compassion/empathy,
courtesy/politeness, patriotism/ citizenship, tolerance of diversity, humility,
generosity/charity, and sportsmanship.
In order to accomplish
the second purpose (develop an instrument), 130 teachers (K-12) were asked to
list those behaviors they would see if a student modeled or did not model those
character traits. Frequency data were again used to select behaviors that could
be used in a survey to determine the presence or absence of these character
traits.The elementary version of this instrument is suitable for 4th
and 5th grade students, but is not suitable for the primary grades.
The middle and high school version has one item dealing with sexual activity
that was removed from the elementary version. School officials did not believe
it was necessary to ask elementary students about perceived sexual activity.
The instrument provides
a measure of 96 behaviors associated with 16 character traits. It can be used
to have teachers describe their perceptions of students’ behavior on each of
the items or it can be used to have the students describe their perceptions of
students’ behavior. In the pilot study (Bulach, 1999) students (462) and
teachers (130) responded to each of the 96 behaviors on a five-point Likert
scale ranging from "never" to "always." “Never was scored
as a “one” and “always” was scored as a “five.”For example, one of the
behaviors is: “They think it is okay to do something as long as they don't get
caught.”The instructions tell them to choose the response which comes closest
to the behavior that describes what you think other students do or think.Forty
of the items are stated negatively and are reverse scored. See Appendix A for a
grouping of the 96 behaviors according to the character trait represented by
those behaviors. All negative behaviors are underlined to assist with reading
the data.*
A
Cronbach alpha was used to measure the internal consistency/reliability of the
instrument.The reliability coefficient involving 222 high school students was
.96, for 210 junior highs school students it was also .96 and for 30 third
grade students it was .97.
The instrument has
construct validity only for those behaviors identified for that character
trait.It is possible that there are other behaviors associated with a character
trait that were not measured.Consequently, a student could be honest on the six
behaviors listed for honesty and be dishonest on some other behavior not
measured by the instrument.A further constraint on validity, is that students
report only on what they think other students do or think.Their perception
could be inaccurate.
Another factor that
could affect the validity of the instrument could be the racial/ethnic
composition of the student body/community. The racial composition ofthe
students in this study was 39% Afro-American, 52% Caucasian, and 9% other. It
is believed that the instrument is a valid measure of student behavior in a
racially mixed school or a Caucasian or Afro-American school. The instrument
has not been used in a school with a heavy Latino or Asian population.
In the pilot study
(Bulach 2001), data were gathered from both teachers and students. The students
at the elementary level tended to be slightly more positive than teachers about
students’ behavior, while the reverse occurred at the middle and high school
level, i.e., students were more negative than the teachers.The differences were
slight, however, and were not statistically significant.It is recommended that
decisions be based on student data because these data are believed to be a more
valid measure of what really occurs regarding student behavior. Students are
more likely to know what goes on in bathrooms, hallways, and buses or when a
teacher’s back is turned whereas teachers are less likely to know. Brendtro
(2001) reported that thousands of students are bullied and teased each day and
teachers intervene in only one out of 25 episodes. Either teachers do not see
what is going on, or do not care! I prefer to believe they do not see what is
going on, and that is why data should be collected from students and not
teachers.
The instrument has been
used at the elementary, middle, and high school levels for a total of 17
schools, and it does discriminate between students exposed to a character
education curriculum and those who are not. Students who are exposed to a
character education curriculums have more positive scores. For example,
students in a Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) have significantly higher
scores than students in the same school who are not in the JROTC program
(Bulach and Burke, 2001). For example, JROTC students rated each other on the
character trait “Courtesy/politeness” with a score of 3.43 compared to the rest
of the student body with a score of 2.65. The 3.43 JROTC score indicated that
students had more “a lot” responses that they are courteous and polite while
the rest of the student body with a score of 2.65 had more “a little” responses
that they were courteous and polite.The same pattern occurred for each of the
other 15 character traits.
Implementation Suggestions
An effective character
education program involves the entire faculty, staff, parents and community.
Cooks, custodians, and bus drivers, as well as the teachers, parents, and
community must be involved if student behaviors are to be positively impacted.
It is believed that character cannot be taught, but it can be caught (Bulach,
2001). Students have to see the behaviors modeled by the people they see every
day. Also, a good character education program cannot be taught in a social
studies, health, or counseling program.It must be infused throughout the
curriculum during the entire school day. If the parents and community are also
involved, it will be reinforced outside the school as well.
Lickona (1991) has done
a lot of work in the character education domain. He also compiled a document
titled “The Eleven Principles of Character Education Effectiveness.” This is
available from the Character Education Partnership (800-988-8081). A survey has
been constructed from the eleven principles and it can be used to determine how
effectively the character education program has been implemented.Data from the
11 principles survey and the instrument described in this manuscript would
allow school officials to determine how well their character education program
is being implemented and if their character curriculum is having any effect on
student behaviors. Based on the data from these two instruments, school
officials can modify their program as needed.
Conclusions
School officials must
identify those character traits that the school community wants taught.As many
people as possible and in particular the clergy should be involved in the
process.School officials also need to assess those behaviors associated with
each character trait so they will know which ones to target and whether their
character education curriculum is effective in improving behavior. Implementing
programs to improve student behaviors associated with character traits is a
task well worth undertaking, but it must involve everyone in the community and
the process and progress must be evaluated. If the character education program
is successful in changing student behaviors, bullying behavior and incidents of
violence should decrease. Another possible outcome of a successful character
education program could be an improvement in the culture/climate of the school.
As faculty and staff model the behaviors associated with the character traits,
and as their behavior is “caught” by the students, an improvement in
climate/culture is likely to occur. With improvements in student behavior and
culture/climate, the end result should be improved student achievement and test
scores.
Brendtro, L. K., (2001). Worse than sticks and stones: Lesson from research on ridicule. Reclaiming Children and Youth, 10(1), 47-49.
Bulach, C. R. (in press). A comparison of character values as perceived by students and teachers at differing grade levels. Journal of Humanistic Education and Development
Bulach, C. R. & Burke, N. (2001). A comparison of character traits for ROTC students versus Non-JROTC students. Paper presented at the Eastern Education Research Association at Hilton Head SC , 2-15, 2001.
Bulach, C. R. (2000). Bullying behavior at the middle school level: Are there gender differences? Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association at New Orleans, LA, 4-27-2000
Bulach, C. R. (2000). External factors that affect bullying behavior. Paper presented at the Eastern Educational Research Association at Clearwater, FL,2-17-2000.
Bulach, C. R. (1999) Bullying behavior: What is the potential for violence at your School?Paper presented at the Georgia Educational Research Association at Atlanta, GA, 9-28 99.
Bulach, C. R. (1999). So you want to teach values? The School Administrator. 56(9), 37.
Joyner, T. (8-29-1999). Bullies on the rise. The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Section R-1, p.1.
Lickona, T. (1991).Educating for character:How our
schools can teach respect and responsibility.New York: Bantam Books, 51