Support and Importance of Character Education: Pre-Service Teacher Perceptions

Overview & Synopsis

Character education is the explicit teaching of positive values by teachers, which is supported by the school. Currently, there is a lack of research on character education with regard to pre-service teachers. The purpose of this study was to ascertain the perceptions of pre-service teachers with regard to their support for character education and their feelings toward its importance in an undergraduate curriculum/methods course. The instrument utilized in this study was PPCES (Pre-service Teacher Perceptions of Character Education Survey). The study's sample consisted of pre-service teachers enrolled in an undergraduate course at a mid-western university. Descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation coefficients revealed that character education received high levels of support and pre-service teachers supported the notion of including character education issues in undergraduate teacher education courses.