Scheduled for Pedagogy II Free Communications, Saturday, April 29, 2006, 10:15 AM - 11:30 AM, Convention Center: 150DEF


Enhancing Affective Development Through Character Education Programming

Daniel W. Balderson, Weber State Univeristy, Ogden, UT and Thomas L. Sharpe, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV

A variety of social challenges are on the rise including poverty, single-parent homes, substance abuse, violence, and anti-social behavior (Anderson-Butcher, 2000), with the latter an increasingly exascerbating challenge within K-12 education settings (Rose & Gallup, 2002). A plethora of curriculum development has taken place in the area of character education for physical education settings (e.g., Glover & Anderson, 2003). Operating on the view that structured K-12 physical education is an ideal setting for the development of a variety of positive social skills and larger character education themes, this study used a multiple methodology design to describe and document one model character education curriculum for underserved elementary school children who exhibited a chronic history of disruptive, anti-social, and violent behavior. A multiple treatment, treatment reversal ABACADACAB single case design across one class and two distinct settings was implemented for this study with 30 underserved fourth grade participants to determine the effects of three curriculum components of (a) personal accountability, (b) personal responsibility, and (c) character education in relation to affective domain education. Daily interaction data on off-task, positive and negative social behavior, conflict and conflict resolution behavior, and student leadership were collected across no treatment and treatment conditions of the experiment in the primary physical education classroom and in a regular education classroom to determine respective education and short term generalization effects of model curriculum exposure. Results showed that the model curriculum improved the incidence of a variety of character education related student interactions, and acted to diminish the incidence of undesirable student activities. Additionally, student changes consistently generalized to the regular education classroom setting in the absence of model curriculum treatment exposure. Results, therefore, provide empirical support for the use of character education curricula in structured physical education settings, and illustrate how one may go about more effectively measuring in quantitative and qualitative ways the potential effectiveness of curricula designed for positive change in the affective domain.
Keyword(s): curriculum development, leadership development, research

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