Character, Social–Emotional, and Academic Outcomes Among Underachieving Elementary School Students

Abstract

One purpose of this research was to examine the psychometric properties of a character assessment scale (the Character Assessment for School Age Children; CASAC) based on 6 pillars of character (Josephson Institute, 2009). Many youth development and character education programs utilize some, if not all, of the pillars of character explicitly or implicitly (e.g., Prestwich, 2004), yet few character assessments integrate these components in a comprehensive way (e.g., Character Education Partnership [CEP], 2008). Furthermore, as many of these programs have been utilized to augment academic achievement, emphasis on the importance of formative evaluation has increased (e.g., Berkowitz & Bier, 2004; Zins, Bloodworth, Weissberg, & Walberg, 2004). Hence, a brief assessment of character that is also predictive of academic achievement among underachieving students would be useful as a formative evaluation tool. A second purpose was to examine the significance of character and other social–emotional indexes in predicting academic outcomes among underachieving elementary school students. Exploratory factor analysis resulted in a 2-dimensional scale. Internal reliability and validity were demonstrated for these CASAC dimensions. Although CASAC dimensions related to academic achievement, the relevance of character and other social-emotional indexes to achievement varied across academic outcomes. The educational implications of the findings for underachieving students were addressed.

Acknowledgments

I thank Jeannie Kim-Han, Dawn Macy, and the staff at the Center for Internship and Community Engagement at California State University Fullerton for their support of this project. I thank Ioakim Boutakidis for his contributions to this article. I also thank participating parents and students.

Notes

Note. CST = California Standards Test. ELA = English language arts.

*p < .05. **p < .01.

Note. Not all children were available for all assessments. Some children completed self-concept and self-worth assessments incompletely or inappropriately and their scores were not included. CST = California Standards Test. ELA = English language arts.