The Effects of Character Education on Student Behavior

Denise Green

Loyola University
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The Effects of Character Education on Student Behavior

After conversing with colleagues who teach in the public school system, it has come to

my attention that in some schools, behavior issues have become a problem amongst students.

Behaviors may vary from fighting, disrespecting adults, or even partaking in illegal activity.

Sometimes the issues may be so extreme, it interferes with a teacher’s instructional time, taking

away knowledge from other students that are not engaging in the negative behaviors. In some

cases, students and faculty may be put in danger due to the lack of self-control that some students

have. The big question that arises is “What are teachers supposed to do to minimize these

behaviors during instruction time?” Teachers are not certified to break up fights or combat

bullies, but something must be done to ensure that each and every child can attend school

without the fear of being attacked or hurt.

Select schools choose to implement a character education program to help teach students

the skills necessary to be a productive student and citizen, but is this really working? Character

education is a program used to help students develop socially, emotionally and ethically. This

helps to instill core values within a student that they will be able to use for the rest of their lives.

Research suggests that schools who have used some type of character education program have

seen an increase in prosocial behaviors and a decrease in negative behaviors (Holtzapple, 2011).

According to the Character Education partnership, not only do these programs affect behavior

but it has also lowered rates of absenteeism and increased student achievement.

When examining these character education programs, there are many questions that do

arise. “What effects does character education have on students with behavioral issues in an urban

setting? What factors are necessary for this program to be successful? And how will one know

that character education truly works?” The purpose of this study will be to investigate what
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effects character education has to help decrease negative behaviors in students in the urban

school setting.

In order to gather information on this topic, I used EBSCOhost to find journals articles

related to the topic. When searching for information, the keywords I used were character

education, student behavior and elementary schools. This search brought out a plethora of

information and studies that helped to support whether or not character education has an impact

on students in elementary schools.

By looking into character education programs and collecting data as to how effective they

are, will help the urban community to decide if these programs work for students that come from

low socioeconomic status and different minorities. All students are unique and there is no one

size fits all program to help foster students into making good choices and learning how to treat

others. It is necessary to take a deeper look into what programs work for students of color and

still help develop the whole child.

This review will focus on the behaviors that are exhibited by students and the programs

that are implemented to help modify challenging behaviors. The studies will help to support the

use of character education and the impact it has on students at the elementary level. The

behaviors are getting in the way of student learning and something must be done to minimize the

effect it has on students.

There are different behaviors that occur in schools around the world. Some schools have

reported that disrespect towards adults is a major behavioral issue (Teyful, 2015). This behavior

makes it difficult for teachers to carry out instruction when students are being disrespectful

refusing to follow rules. In some cases students are found to be consistently non-compliant in the
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classroom setting (Parker, Nelson, & Burns, 2010). When a student refuses to listen to the adult

and follow specific instructions, it puts even more of a burden on teachers because they have to

stop instruction to correct behaviors or repeat instructions that were not heard the first time. If

this is something that must occur on a regular basis, how can anyone make sure that students are

getting what they need?

Another behavior issue that teachers face is verbal and physical aggression (Parker,

Nelson, & Burns, 2010). Unfortunately educators are not mind readers and cannot always predict

how students will react in every situation. When students get physical, teachers are at risk of

getting hurt. It may be a fight that has to be broken up or a student attacking a teacher. Both

ways, these actions are inexcusable and consequences should be put in place to avoid a repeat of

the given behavior. But in some cases, students may not respond to the consequence given and

continue with the negative behavior.

Another factor that was reported in schools that effected student behavior was

absenteeism. When looking at students who have behavior issues, students who had a tendency

to be absent on a repeated basis, tended to act out in class (Snyder, Flay,Vuchinich,

Acock,Washburn, Beets, & Li, 2010).

Most research that was found, took place in high risk schools. They deemed these schools high

risk not only due to the reports of behavior, but because of the amount of students enrolled in

free or reduced- price lunch as well as standardized test scores (Snyder et al. 2010).

Now the question that comes to mind is, “How do we minimize or stop these behaviors

from happening?” Is it something that can be done? Based on research from previous studies,

some schools are choosing to implement a character education program to help teach students the
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skills necessary to be a productive student and citizen, but is this really working? Character

education is a program that works on the whole student. Its purpose is to help students develop

social skills, emotional learning, behavior management and ethical decision making (Ruby &

Doolittle, 2010). This helps to instill core values within a student that they will be able to use for

the rest of their lives. Research suggests that schools who have used some type of character

education program have seen an increase in prosocial behaviors and a decrease in negative

behaviors (Holtzapple, 2011). According to the Character Education partnership, not only do

these programs affect behavior but it also lowered rates of absenteeism and increased student

achievement.

One school in Hawaii implemented a program called the Positive Action Program (Beets,

Flay, Vuchinich, Snyder, Acock, Li & Durlak, 2009). Out of 20 elementary schools, researchers

found that after implementing the program the prevalence rate of sexual activity, substance use

and violence decreased. Researchers, Beets et al. (2009) even declared that “Risk-related

behaviors were substantially reduced for students who participated in the program, providing

evidence that a comprehensive school-based program can have a strong beneficial effect on

student behavior” (p. 1438).

Many character education programs are deeply rooted in the trait theory (White & Warfa,

2011). The programs focus on the traits that are necessary for students to be successful. Then

lessons that are infused with those important traits are incorporated into the classroom. Due to

the fact students may not learn these traits at home, it is important for educators to help instill

certain traits into their students. When done properly, studies have shown that if a student’s

social, emotional, and cognitive needs are met, negative behaviors that may have occurred before

the program do not happen as often.

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One study that took place in North Carolina yielded opposing results in comparison to the

previously mentioned studies. Researchers implemented the Social and Character Development

(SACD) program for third through fifth graders. The program was to follow students for three

years, but due to students moving out of the school, it was difficult to collect data on all

participants. After collecting the data from those who still remained for the three year

longitudinal study, results determined that there was not a statistical significance in the use of the

SACD and student behavior. They thought that the reason for this may have been due to the large

sample size which consisted of fourteen schools, or the fact that they had to include students in

the study who had not been there for the entire three years (Ruby & Doolittle, 2010)

After reviewing the research related to student behavior and character education, there

tends to be an overwhelming result in positive effects on student behavior associated with the

implementation of a character education program. Although many locations had a different name

for the program they used, they essentially all covered the same topics focusing on the social,

emotional and cognitive well-being of the students. One of the limitations in the research that

needs to be addressed is the locations of the studies. The research was only collected in a few

areas including Hawaii, Chicago, North Carolina and the UK. By completing the study in

different parts of the United States, especially larger cities, could yield different results. Some of

the strengths that were found in the research were the repeated results of character education

programs decreasing negative behaviors. Not many studies included socioeconomic status as a

factor in their studies, but it would be interesting to see if these negative behaviors are only

occurring in high poverty schools or is economic status an irrelevant factor when it comes to

behavior.
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Some questions that need to be addressed in the research would be how often do

the behaviors occur and how extreme are they? The studies did include that teachers reported

behaviors occurring during class time and throughout the school day, but there wasn’t any

quantitative data to state how often the behaviors were occurring for these teachers. Many of the

behaviors listed were typical behaviors that we see from children across the board. But what

about the extreme behaviors that other children exhibit such as physically attacking teachers?

Does character education help to address this issue. The research tends to focus on a certain type

of student rather than the distinct areas where students face different challenges and traumatic

events that are not typically experienced by students of a higher socioeconomic status.

Altogether, research does support the fact that character education does help to decrease

negative behaviors from the student population. But due to the fact that the studies have not been

implemented in a variety of states nationwide, it is hard to believe that these programs work for

every school. More studies need to be conducted to help support the validity of the effect of

character education programs on student behaviors around the world.

Methodology

Research Design

This study will be a convergent parallel mixed methods design to address the effects of

character education and student behavior. This study will analyze quantitative data and

qualitative data separately and then merge the two to see if there is a relationship between the

dat. Participants will be observed and interviewed by researchers to determine what types of

behaviors participants are exhibiting during class time. Surveys will also be given to record how

often behaviors occur and if students think the program has helped their behavior. By using both
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methods, we can gain insight as to how studnets feel about the program and its effects as well as

how often the behaviors are occurring with the proper use of the program. According to John

Creswell, using mixed method research designs allows for researchers to use one method of data

to inform another method of data providing insight when analyzing data.

Data Collection

The data for this study will be collected through observations, interviews, and

questionnaires. Before implementing the study, teachers will be interviewed by researchers to

determine their perception of challenging student behaviors, their experience with these

behaviors and how they handle the behaviors. They will also be given The Character Education

Survey to complete electronically. Teachers will also have to complete a demographic

questionnaire pertaining to age, race, gender, experience teaching and highest education attained.

Students will be interviewed by researchers using a set of interview questions. Before starting the

study, teachers will be thoroughly trained in how to implement the GAT program. Throughout

the school year, teachers will be given a Character Education Practice Statement Survey

monthly to help ensure that teachers are teaching the GAT lessons. Teachers will also be

provided with a spreadsheet to tally how often behaviors occur. Observations will be conducted

once a week per classroom and a debriefing will take place with the teacher and the observer

afterwards by whichever agreed upon method of communication. Students will be given a survey

to complete about behaviors that they display or see displayed in their school or classrooms.

They will then complete a post survey that will be used to determine if they behaviors or

thoughts about behaviors have changed. Parents will also complete and pre and post survey to

determine if they know of the behaviors that their child displays, if any. They will answer
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questions that pertain to how they deal with their child’s challenging behaviors when they act

out.

Limitations of Study

One limitation in the study would be that one school may not see the same challenging

behaviors as the other school which could affect the reliability of the results. Another problem

that we may face is students withdrawing from the school. If they withdraw we will not be able

to monitor them any longer. Due to the fact that these two schools are predominantly African

American, we would have to look at studies with a varied demographic to ensure the reliability

of the program. Lastly, teachers may not implement the program the way they were trained,

which in turn could lead to the program not decreasing the challenging behaviors. Another

limitation would be that depending on the ethnicity of participants, the students may not be as

responsive to the program implemented as other of a different ethnicity may respond to the

intervention.

Participant Sample

Participants in the study will include all students in grades k-5 at two urban elementary/

middle schools in Maryland. The students will be part of the study throughout the course of the

school year. All teachers in grades k-5 will undergo training to implement the Getting Along

Together (GAT) character education program properly. One school will be the controlled

variable which will not implement the GAT program.

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Researcher Reflection

This topic is important to me because as an educator in an urban school district, we

sometimes face challenging behaviors that interfere with instruction time. Administrators

provide us with character education programs, but many times it does not seem as if the program

shows any significance. By completing research on this topic we can address administrators to

let them know if the programs work or if we need to take another approach to make sure the

needs of each student are being met. We have to get out of the mindset that these programs are a

one size fits all model. Just like all children learn differently, character is included in that as well.

When something is not working, it is necessary for change, and one change would be to start by

finding out what students respond to.

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References

Beets, M. W., Flay, B. R., Vuchinich, S., Snyder, F. J., Acock, A., Li, K., . . . Durlak, J. (2009).

Use of a social and character development program to prevent substance use, violent

behaviors, and sexual activity among elementary-school students in Hawaii. American Journal of

Public Health, 99(8), 1438-1445. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2008.142919

Holtzapple, Carol K. (2011). Measuring behavioral outcomes associated with

comprehensive character education programs: a practical approach to using fewer schools in

school-randomized controlled trials while maintaining adequate statistical power. Journal of

Research in Character Education, Vol. 9(1), 57-70.

Ruby, A., Doolittle, E. (2010). Efficacy of schoolwide programs to promote social and character

development and reduce problem behavior in elementary school children. report from the social

and character development research program. (NCER 2011-2001. ().National Center for

Education Research).

Teyfur, M. (2015). Undesirable student behaviours encountered by primary school teachers and

solution proposals. Educational Research and Reviews, 10(17), 2422-2432.

Parker, D. C., Nelson, J. S., & Burns, M. K. (2010). Comparison of correlates of classroom

behavior problems in schools with and without a school-wide character education program.

Psychology in the Schools, 47(8), 817-827.

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J.P., DuBois, D. L., & Flay, B. R. (2013). Social-emotional and character development scale:

Development and initial validation with urban elementary school students. Journal of Research in

Character Education, 9(2), 121-147.

Snyder, F., Flay, B., Vuchinich, S., Acock, A., Washburn, I., Beets, M., & Li, K. (2010). Impact

of a social-emotional and character development program on school-level indicators of academic

achievement, absenteeism, and disciplinary outcomes: A matched-pair, cluster-randomized,

controlled trial. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 3(1), 26-55.

White, R., & Warfa, N. (2011). Building schools of character: A case-study investigation of

character education's impact on school climate, pupil behavior, and curriculum delivery. Journal

of Applied Social Psychology, 41(1), 45-60. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.2010.00701.x