Current practices of character education in public secondary schools in Virginia

This study focused on current practices of character education in Virginia secondary schools and intended to establish baseline data. The research was conducted in two phases and used a mixed methodology. Of the 621 secondary schools in Virginia, a combination of 243 urban and county schools were randomly selected to participate in Phase One of this study. Ninety-three principals were approved and invited to participate in an online survey addressing character education practices as stated in the Virginia Mandate and the No Child Left Behind recommendations. Of those who received this invitation, 19 principals completed the survey. Phase Two employed qualitative measures interviews conducted with experts in the field of character education, who were selected based on geographic location within Virginia. Participants were each asked the same open-ended questions to solicit their input regarding character education practices in secondary schools in Virginia.;Several themes were found across both phases of research. The themes found in Phase One of the research included inconsistencies with character education programmatic strategies, implementation methods, and evaluation practices. The themes found during the second phase of the research included (1) a lack of principals' involvement and knowledge; (2) varied implementation of character education practices between schools; and (3) the low return rate of the study itself indicating current character education practices.