Strengthening Students' Responsible Character through Civic Education Learning: An Action Research in Indonesia

Abstract

Character education is one of the fundamental pillars of education because education not only aims to develop specific skills and knowledge but also fosters certain attitudes, norms, and values in students. One of the values that needs to be cultivated in students is the value of responsibility. The purpose of this study is to investigate learning strategies that strengthen and develop responsibility in civic education classes. To accomplish the objective, action research method was employed. In total, 120 students (70 males and 50 females) from one of popular universities in West Java, Indonesia, who were from various regions, participated in the study. The three steps carried out in this action research are the first, pre-action analysis, which is carried out to map initial conditions related to the values of responsibility. Second, implementation, this stage is an action effort given to achieve what is desired, accompanied by reflection. and third; evaluation , namely assessing the extent of success of the given action. This study presents five learning steps in developing students' responsibility through civic education learning. These five steps consist of conceptualization, identification, internalization, actualization, and evaluation. This study concludes that these five steps significantly increased students' responsibility in civic education classes by 62.50%. this study contributes by providing educators with didactic guidance in developing students’ responsibility through civics education. The main contribution of this research is to present practical methodological guidelines for academics and practitioners in instilling the values of responsibility in the civic education learning process.