Evaluation of character education programs

The purpose of this study was to introduce character education and effective character education programs, and evaluate effectiveness of these programs as well. This study is composed of the information obtained by review of the literature.In broad sense, character education is an effort to help new generation on acquiring core ethical values such as caring, honesty, fairness, responsibility and respect for self and others, care about them, and behaving them thorough explicit or hidden curriculum. Historical developmental periods, fundamentals of character education and theories and approaches in character education are involved in this study. At the same time, effective character education programs mainly implemented in United States and their strategies were introduced. Additionally, full translation of globally accepted Character Education Quality Standards which is a self-assessment tool of character education was added.The researches which analysing efficiency of character education programs and critics of the programs are placed in the last part of the study. When they were evaluated, results from the analyses showed that the vast majority of character education programs have a significant statistical influence on student behaviour and academic achievement. The study concluded with suggestions for educators.Key words: Character education, values education, moral education, effectiveness.