| The purpose of this study was to determine teachers' perceptions toward character education. Their perceptions were important in order to develop appropriate staff development. A Likert-type, four-point scaled survey was used to determine teachers' perceptions of character education.; The respondents were K--12 public school educators in one school district in the Commonwealth of Virginia in a large-sized school system. Four hundred seven public school educators from nine elementary, middle, and high schools were sent surveys to complete, establishing their perception of character education and need for staff development. Of the 407 surveys sent, 118 surveys were returned usable.; A critical finding of this study was that in order for teachers to adopt an innovation, in this case character education, the learning process had to be individualized to meet that particular teacher's needs. Although the teachers in this study agreed that character education was important, their needs for the adoption and implementation of character education was different based upon their years of teaching experience and level of program implementation (elementary, middle, or high school). |
