Preservice Secondary Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy in Teaching Character Education

Abstract

Character education is one of the most controversial domains of academic instruction in the United States. At the present time, many states and individual schools are considering the question of their responsibility for educating students about democratic principles and moral values as a vital part of a teacher's role. This study investigated the personal teaching efficacy and general teaching efficacy beliefs of 130 preservice secondary teachers at a large university in Florida. The subjects were in one teacher education program preparing to teach language arts, science, social studies, and mathematics. The teacher education program had no formal courses dedicated to character education, but the topic was included in some of the content coursework. The study utilized the Character Education Efficacy Belief Instrument (CEEBI), which was developed and validated by Milson and Mehlig (2002). The results of this survey add to the literature on character education and teacher education by taking a closer look at the specific beliefs of secondary preservice teachers regarding their Personal Teaching Efficacy (PTE) and General Teaching Efficacy (GTE) for character education. This study provides insight into the efficacy beliefs of secondary preservice teachers in a teacher preparation program in a state that mandates character education.