Keywords
Character Education, Responsibility, Academic Achievement, International School
Abstract
The purpose of this research was to determine the effectiveness of a character education program on middle school student academic performance, effort and attitude about their school located in an international setting. Middle school students at the participating international school were assigned to either an experimental or control group. Those students in the experimental group classes received a series of 12 lessons focusing on the character trait of responsibility. Those students in the control group classes did not receive these lessons. Twelve responsibility-based lessons were presented to students in the experimental group. Student academic grades in six different academic subjects, effort scores in six different academic courses, and student attitude concerning school climate constituted the dependent variable. The literature review and the general results of this study indicate that there are many factors that may influence student academic performance, effort or attitude. Various character education programs which have been designed to be integrated into school curricula as part of pre-existing courses or as stand alone programs have had varying levels of success. There is limited quantitative data available to support the claims that many existing programs make related to their effectiveness. The data collected from this study were also inconclusive making it difficult to generalize the findings beyond the scope of this study. While certain middle school grade levels showed statistically significant improvement in some academic disciplines or effort improvement in some subjects it would not be appropriate to generalize the findings based on this investigation. Implications of this study and suggestions for future investigations are discussed.
Notes
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Graduation Date
2005
Semester
Summer
Advisor
Robinson, Edward H. (Mike)
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
College
College of Education
Department
Child, Family, and Community Sciences
Degree Program
Education
Format
application/pdf
Identifier
CFE0000620
URL
http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0000620
Language
English
Release Date
August 2005
Length of Campus-only Access
None
Access Status
Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access)
STARS Citation
Howard, Terry Allen, "The Effects Of A Responsibility-based Character Education Program On Middle School Academic Achievement And School Climate At An International School In East Africa" (2005). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 450.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/450