Character Education Research: A Scoping Review

Character education has become an established field within education research. However, no overview of this rapidly evolving field is available, and several previous methodological concerns about the field, including the use of valid measures and of robust quantitative research protocols, remain unaddressed. The purpose of this review is to fill this gap in the literature, addressing the following research questions: RQ1: What is the current publishing landscape of character education research? and, RQ2: Is the quality of character education quantitative research a cause for concern? We searched the Scopus and Web of Science databases, and, following abstract screening, generated a pool of 981 articles for analysis. Of these articles 38% were published in a journal without a Web of Science journal impact factor, and only 10% conducted intervention studies. Regarding quantitative character education research, 72% of quantitative studies did not use a valid measure, and, for intervention studies, only 8% used an active control, 61% did not randomise, and 75% did not report a standard error, effect size, or both. Our recommendations include a greater depth of empirical character education research in most contexts, the development of more character-related measures, and the increased use of active controls and randomisation.