What Works in Character Education: What Is Known and What Needs to Be Known

Abstract

As we sip from the cup of knowledge about the effectiveness of character education, there are two related problems. First, there is the half full/half empty problem. Are we drinking from the full half or the empty half? Are we, in other words, looking at the problems with research in the eld or are we looking at the substantial body of data about character education’s impacts? Second, through which straw are we sipping? There are two main straws to choose right now and, unfortunately, they look very similar, largely because they have very similar names: “What Works in Character Education” and “The What Works Clearinghouse: Character Education.” In this chapter, we will address these two problems, as well as others, in an attempt to better understand what we can and cannot conclude about the effectiveness of character education based upon, cumulatively, 87 research studies of 45 character education programs. Certainly there are many cases studies (Dovre, 2007), as well as enthusiastic endorsements and equally enthusiastic condemnations of character education. What we want to explore is what scienti c research can tell us about such effectiveness. Beyond that, we will discuss what still needs to be known, suggest some research studies that should be done, and note some forthcoming reviews of the research literature that may shed additional light on this question.

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