Center for the Fourth and Fifth "R"s

Assessment Instruments

To access full instruments or more information, click on titles.

Character Education Evaluation Toolkit

Does your school or district ever wonder whether its character education initiative is having the intended effects? Do you see improvements in school climate and student behavior and desire to document them? Do you want to pin point what needs improvement in your initiative? Are those funding your initiative wanting to see hard data? The Character Education Evaluation Toolkit is full of practical, user-friendly evaluation methods that provides beginning evaluators with background information and step-by-step instructions for implementing a useful, accurate and cost-efficient program evaluation.

(The Character Education Evaluation Toolkit is book XI of the Character Education Partnership's Eleven Principles Sourcebook. It is no longer sold separately from the Sourcebook.) Why have the Eleven Principles Sourcebook? If you are a school or district in the initial stages of planning a character education initiative, this book provides the " big picture" necessary to build a roadmap and understand the process. Schools and districts seeking to improve on and sustain their initiatives will find that the content of the Sourcebook will help with evaluating what they currently have in place and suggest ways to build upon their efforts. The Eleven Principles Sourcebook contains eleven guidebooks and a DVD to bring each of the Eleven Principles of Effective Character Education to life. It provides examples from national Schools of Character, shares research and resources, and includes facilitation guides and summaries of key points for each principle. Click on the links above for more details and ordering information.

Character Education Quality Standards

This instrument outlines key components of effective character education and allows schools and districts to evaluate their efforts in relation to these criteria. It provides a means for educators, administrators, and community members to reflect on current practices, identify short and long-term objectives, and develop or improve a strategic plan. Character Education Quality Standards is based on CEP's Eleven Principles of Effective Character EducationTM and The Eleven Principles Survey by Tom Lickona and Matthew Davidson.

Character in Action Survey (CiAS)

The Character in Action Survey (CiAS) is designed to provide either a one-time assessment or over-time monitoring of students’ views and experiences of character development and relevant practices among faculty, staff, parents, and other community members. The instrument consists of parallel student and adult forms that triangulate several perspectives on students' pro-social attitudes, school social climate, students' experiences of caring community, ethical behavior, and experiences of character education, as well as adults' character development practices.

For questions on the CiAS and for the most recent version of the survey, please contact Cornerstone Consulting.

Coach's Character Development Self-Evaluation Checklist

This checklist is designed to provide information on coaches’ approach to character development. This information is not used to evaluate coaches. Rather, it collects important information that can guide future discussions about character development in sports.

Collective Responsibility for Excellence and Ethics (CREE)

The Collective Responsibility for Excellence and Ethics (CREE) instrument measures various aspects of the ethical learning community and the development of the strengths of character. More specifically, the student component measures students' responsibility for self and for others in the performance and moral domains, ethical learning community among students, and their experiences of learning the strengths of character (Lickona and Davidson, 2005). The teacher component measures teachers' practices promoting performance and moral character and their assessments of the extent to which students are learning the strengths of character.

For questions on the CREE and for the most recent version of the survey, please contact Cornerstone Consulting.

Global Portraits of Social & Moral Health

Developed and validated by Dr. Matthew Davidson of the Center for the 4th and 5th Rs at SUNY Cortland and Dr. Vladimir Khmelkov of the University of Notre Dame, there are two versions (parallel) of the survey: one for youth and one for adults. The survey has several scales and subscales that measure the overall social and moral health of a community and its schools. Although not designed to evaluate a specific program, it can be used in a variety of settings and with many different character development programs. Global Portraits has been used successfully throughout DuPage County, Illinois for three years and is now available for other schools and communities so that national normative data can be developed.

To request permission to use Global Portaits, please contact Dr. Matt Davidson.

Individual and Team Character in Sport Questionnaire (ITCSQ) Davidson, Khmelkov, & Moran-Miller (2003)

The Individual and Team Character in Sport Questionnaire (ITCSQ) is a 48 item survey questionnaire designed to measure character-related outcomes within a sport setting. The ITCSQ has three scales: a Values Rating Scale, a Community Climate Scale, and a Character Development Experiences Scale.

School as a Caring Community Profile-II (SCCP-II) Lickona and Davidson (2003)

This questionnaire is designed to assess stakeholder perceptions of the school as a caring community and contains 42 items in a 5-point Likert format. The entire 42-item survey may be completed by both students and adults. However, validation analysis indicates stronger validity and reliability when students complete the first 34 items only and adults complete all 42 items.

Twelve Component Assessment and Planning (TCAP) Davidson, Lickona, and Khmelkov (2004)

The TCAP is a planning and assessment tool constructed for use with the Center for the 4th and 5th Rs’s 12-Point Comprehensive Approach to Character Education. The instrument provides outcome indicators for each component of the comprehensive approach. It may be used in its entirety, or one component at a time.  Additional space is provided for supplemental items measure outcome indicators specific to particular program contexts.

For other assessment instruments and information, visit the Assessment Instrument Index of the Character Education Partnership.