The Effect of a Character Education Program on High School Student Achievement

The purpose of my research is to study what effect if any the implementation of a character education program has on high school student achievement. Many of the journal articles that I have come across in researching character education and student achievement indicate more of an indirect relationship where for example, an increase in student achievement is considered a product of improved attendance resulting from character education participation. A majority of such articles include studies on the development and effectiveness of specific character education programs. Therefore, my research study will focus solely on character education implementation and student achievement in an effort to establish whether a direct correlation exists.

According to Gay, Mills & Airasian (2009, pg. 196), “correlational studies typically investigate a number of variables believed to be related to a major, complex variable, such as achievement.” One of the main purposes of correlational studies is “to determine relations among variables” via a relationship study (Gay, Mills & Airasian, 2009, pg. 196). I plan to collect and use “already available data” including CST scores and grade point averages, the two major determinants of measurable student achievement, both prior to the research study and after in order to determine if there is in fact a correlation between character education implementation and student achievement (Gay, Mills & Airasian, 2009, pg. 147).

A notable advantage to utilizing a correlational research design is that it enables a researcher to not only determine whether or not and to what extent a relationship exists between two variables, it also enables researchers to test hypothesis regarding anticipated relations (Gay, Mills...

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...tablish the correlation coefficient (Gay, Mills & Airasian, 2009). Gay, Mills & Airasian (2009, pg. 201) maintain that Pearson r results are the preferred method in educational research because it “results in the most precise estimate of correlation”. Of particular interest in the data analysis and interpretation portion of the study is whether a linear or curvilinear relationship exists between the variables and whether or not there is a relation among variables for certain defined subgroups, such as 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th, graders; however, a large enough sample size is needed in order to denote any relationship in the latter (Gay, Mills & Airasian, 2009).

References

Gay, L.R., Mills, G. E., & Airasian, P. W. (2009) Educational research: Competencies foranalysis and applications. (9th. Ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. ISBN-10: 0135035015