The Impact of Co-Curricular Method on Students’ Character Education in Higher Education

Abstract

Education, Polytechnic ____________________ ABSTRACT ____________________________________________________________________ Co-Curricular is considered to be able to build students' character. However, the study which describes it in higher education is very limited. The aim of this study is to acquire deep knowledge about the co-curricular program as a method in character education, so the concept and strategy to operate it efficiently and effectively can be obtained. Data is collected by using a questionnaire instrument of the Social Skill Improvement System Rating Scale or SSIS-RS (Gresham et al, 2011) distributed to students who participate in co-curricular activities belonging to various fields. Thus, 131 students were the sample of the study. The data result is analyzed by using the factor analysis technique to find out which factor is dominant and to determine the variable rank. The analysis shows that co-curricular participation has 68% impact on students’ character building. They