Effectiveness

Findings

The WWC review of character education addresses student outcomes in three domains: behavior; knowledge, attitudes, and values; and academic achievement.

Behavior. Page and D'Agostino reported findings for four measures of student behavior related to six core character traits: honesty, kindness, perseverance, responsibility, self-control, and tolerance. The study examined students' final scores relative to their baseline scores. The study reported statistically significant differences favoring the intervention group for middle and high school students' reports of their own and their classmates' behavior (middle/high school student survey part I and part II). The WWC confirmed the statistical significance of these differences. The study found no statistically significant effects on elementary school students' assessments of their own or their classmates' behavior (elementary school student survey part I and part II). The average effect across all four outcome measures was positive and statistically significant.³

Rating of effectiveness

The WWC rates interventions as positive, potentially positive, mixed, no discernible effects, potentially negative, or negative. The rating of effectiveness takes into account four factors: the quality of the research design, the statistical significance of the findings (as calculated by the WWC), the size of the differences between participants in the intervention condition and the comparison conditions, and the consistency of the findings across studies (see the WWC Intervention Rating Scheme).