Teachers' perceptions, training, and implementation of character education: Implications for staff development

All across the United States character education has been endorsed by education leaders, top elected officials at the federal and state government levels with the objective of creating schools that foster ethical, responsible, and caring young people. Some states have enacted legislation that mandates character education in their public school districts. The review of the literature indicated that formal character education was absent from public schools for approximately 30 to 40 years. Research indicated that perceptions towards the adoption of an innovation must begin with the individual who is required to implement the innovation. Hall and Hord (1987) identified seven stages of concern that teachers are believed to go through as they first become aware of an innovation and then gradually become increasingly confident in their use of the innovation.; The primary purpose of this study was to identify elementary school teachers' stages of concern as they relate to character education implementation in their classrooms. The Concerns Based Adoption Model, developed by Hall and Hord, was the primary vehicle used to evaluate participants' stages of concern regarding implementation of character education. Insights into teachers' stages of concern suggest to supervisors what teachers need to successfully implement character education in their classrooms. This study also sought to determine if relationships exist between elementary school teachers' stages of concern and (1) their perceptions of the value of character education, (2) their training opportunities, (3) their highest degree earned, and (4) their years of teaching experience. Survey methodology was used in this study to gather descriptive data on teachers' responses to items related to their stages of concern, perceptions about the value of character education, the training they already received to help them understand and implement character education in their classrooms, and the methods they are using to facilitate character education lessons in their classrooms. For analytic purposes, the survey inquired about teachers' gender, highest degree earned, number of years of teaching experience, the location of the school, and current grade level teaching assignment.; A questionnaire, telephone, and personal interviews were used to collect data. The instrument consisted of four, Likert-type, five-point scale questions; two forced-choice questions that were answered by placing a check by the appropriate box or boxes, and three opened ended questions. Approximately 120 public elementary school teachers received surveys to complete and 10 teachers were interviewed. The respondents were selected from K--6 classroom teachers, in one large school district in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The questionnaire was completed and returned by 109 teachers. A significant number of the respondents (34.9%) indicated that they needed training. Some respondents (23.9%) indicated concerns about managing time to implement character education. Responsive Classroom and discussions were reported to be the most frequently used methods for implementing character education. The analysis of the relationship between teachers' training and stages of concern indicated that teachers who were not provided training to teach character education were between Stage 0 (awareness) and Stage 3 (management) of concern. The respondents' responses (60.5%) indicated that they were at Stage 2 or 3 unclear about the demands of character education or focusing on the processes and tasks of implementing it.; Logistic regression analysis indicated that both training and value expressed regarding character education were statistically significant predictors of stages of concern. Training and value expressed were important factors associated with teachers stages of concern, reflecting where they fall on the continuum starting at minimum regard for character education to actually implementing and managing character education i...