The value of a developmental approach to evaluating character development programmes: an outcome study of Facing History and Ourselves

An outcome study of the Facing History and Ourselves (FHAO) programme is us ed to illustrate a developmental evaluation methodology developed by the Gr oup for the Study of Interpersonal Development (GSID). The GSID approach to programme evaluation of character development programmes embeds the evalua tion into a theoretical framework consonant with the theoretical underpinni ngs of the programme, using measures sharing the same theoretical assumptio ns as the practice. The subjects in this study were students in eighth-grad e social studies and language arts classes in public schools located in sub urban and urban communities in the United States. The sample included 346 s ubjects in 14 FHAO classes (212 FHAO students) and eight comparison classes (134 comparison students). A 10-week Facing History and Ourselves curricul um was taught in the FHAO classrooms either in late winter or spring. The s tudy demonstrated that eighth-grade students in Facing History classrooms s howed increases across the school year in relationship maturity and decreas es in racist attitudes and self-reported fighting behaviour relative to com parison students, although these findings were complicated by interaction e ffects with gender. The gains Facing History students made in moral reasoni ng and in civic attitudes and participation were not significantly greater than the comparison students, although there was a significant difference b etween the groups on the civic measure at post-test. The study highlights t he benefits of using a developmental measure of social competence to evalua te character development programmes that are based on similar assumptions.