Kohlberg would be a good start. Look too at Freire, whose pedagogy of the oppressed explicitly includes moral education. In the field of social pedagogy - inspired by Freire - character development is an integral goal. Feel free to check out my RG publications on Social Pedagogy. Good Luck. Paul

I encourage you to explore the work of James Comer at the Yale Child Study Center (comerprocess.org). 

Dear Arun:

I think than Professor Marvin W. Berkowitz of  University of Missouri-St. Louis

is an excellent option in this field.

Arun, I feel that Harshvardhan's outline is a fairly good one.  Character development is basically a function of one's early childhood (Oedipal) and one's culture.  The very best references I know of are somewhat esoteric but entirely reachable and quite profound.  They include The First Three Stages of Life, and Not-Two Is Peace, both books by Adi Da Samraj.  The author's insight into the human character goes far beyond those encountered in the many books, tracts, researches and theories I have studied.  

Blessings in your search.

Thank you so much to everyone! I would like to know about any available character measuring method/tool. Actually I'm going to implement a character education programme and I would like to do pre and post test to understand the outcome of the Character ed program. PPlease help

Hei Arun

If you wish to do pre- and post tests in this multi-layered and highly complex field, then I would suggest that you stick to as few variables as possible. You might, for example, consider the effects of a particular intervention on helping behaviors among young children Best Paul

Thank you  Sir!

You are very welcome, Sir!

I don't know how helpful this would be but if you need any primary sources then I suggest you look at Erik Eriksson 8 stages of human development (psychosocial model) and Piaget's developmental theory on learning and teaching.