Abstract: In this study we are observing if moral/character education has any implications on reducing bullying. When  reviewing literature on this topic there is minimal recent studies being done on character education. In a report in the Journal American Medical Association says that nearly 1/3 of United States children and teenagers have experienced bullying, either as the victim, or the perpetrator, or both. This survey, done in 1998, was the first one that looked at the prevalence of bullying in the U. S. The report indicates that not enough is being done to prevent the problem in this country in comparison to other countries. 

The Purpose:

Currently there has been a great increase in the amount of bullying in the school setting, as well as the implementation of character/moral education programs.  It is for this reason that we hope to determine whether or not character/moral education reduces bullying in the school setting.

Our Hypothesis:

We hypothesize that due to the implementation of character/moral education programs there is a reduction of bullying in the school setting.

Our Assumptions:

In accordance with our hypothesis, the following statements are assumptions that we have made.  We will assume that the selected population has been exposed to bullying before receiving character/moral education.  We will assume that schools without any form of character/moral education will have a higher occurrence of bullying.  We will assume that by providing students with character/moral education, bullying is greatly reduced in the school setting.  We will assume that there is a vast need for teacher training in character/moral education.  Lastly, we will assume that our student population is able to read and write.

Operational Definitions:

Character/Moral Education is defined as learning about good behavior and moral virtues, such as responsibility, trustworthiness, kindness, and respect (Mehlig&Milson, 2002).

Bullying is defined as willfully attempting to injure another person physically, emotionally, or verbally (Bulach, Fulbright & Williams, 2003).

Who might this information help?

It is our intent to help administrators, teachers, preservice teachers, students, and parents reduce the amount of bullying in the school setting.

Literature Review

Method

The Design:

Our study will be both qualitative and quantitative.  We intend to use interviews to collect qualitative data.  Our quantitative data will be collected in the form of a questionnaire.

Our Population:

Our population will consist of students and teachers.  We will distribute questionnaires to 4^th-12^th grade students who are considered at-risk OPS youth.  These students all attend the Pacesetter Academy in Omaha, Nebraska.  Questionnaires will also be distributed to select classrooms at St. Vincent DePaul Catholic School and St. Stephen the Martyr Catholic School.  Formal interviews will be conducted to attain information from select teachers at the Pacesetter Academy, St. Vincent DePaul, and St. Stephen the Martyr.

Limitations Of Our Study:

We perceive the limited population and time to be definite limitations to our study.  We also feel that the lack of character/moral education programs available in the metro area will be a limitation.

Data Collection

Analysis of Data:

We will use various forms of coding patterns and graphs to analyze the data we collect.

Method:

We will collect data through the use of structured formal interviews.  This method will allow us to intimately know how teachers feel about character/moral education and its relationship with bullying.  It will also allow us to ask all teacher participants the same series of questions without having the same interviewer present.  We will also use questionnaires in the form of the Likert Scale.  This method of data collection will allow us to collect large amounts of data in a short period of time.  It will also provide us with quantitative data that could still be considered descriptive.

Discussion/Reporting:

We will report our findings in the form of graphs and in the form of a written paper.

Summary/Conclusion

We will disseminate our findings by presenting our information in a symposium format for the CSM community, our friends, and our family.

Recommendations

We as future educations feel that there needs to be more emphasis on character/moral education training students, and teachers. We will add more later.

References

Bulach, C., Fulbright, J.P., & Williams, R.  (2003).  Bullying behavior: what is the potential for violence at your school? [Electronic Version].  Journal of Instructional Psychology.

Mehlig, L.M., & Milson, A.J. (2002). Elementary School Teachers' Sense of Efficacy for Character Education [Electronic Version]. Journal of Educational Research, 96(1), 47-53.