Abstract:

The purpose of this research was to reveal the current status of studies on character and values education, which have been published in Turkey between 2000-2014. Within the content of this study, 192 articles that have been indexed in both The Turkish Academic Network and Information Centre (ULAKBIM) and Akademia Social Science Index databases and 84 dissertations which have been listed in Council of Higher Education were reviewed using content analysis by using "Article/Dissertation Classification Form" based on the following grouping criteria; i.e., publication year, author number, research design, research topic, research aim, data collection tools and data analysis program. The results indicated that the number of master's thesis are predominantly higher than the number of PhD dissertations and the researches done in the department of Elementary Education ranks first. The majority of papers were published at international peer-reviewed journals and most of them were written by either one or two authors. It is seen that studies conducted on character and values education in Turkey date back to nearly ten years, and have increased in number. It can be said that according to their aims; measuring perceptions, attitudes and opinions had the highest percentage and the most frequently studied research topic is character and values education. Regarding the research methods; more than half of the research studies employed qualitative approach, whereas the most favored research design has been the document analysis. Thus, the most frequently used data collection tools were documents and regarding the sample groups studied the most common subjects were course books and literary texts. The results of the analysis, in fact, conveys the message of suggestion for the researchers and academicians working in this field.

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