The purpose of this study is in elucidating effects that self-expression training has on improving interpersonal relationships and self-efficacy of elementary school children from broken homes. The following hypothesis have been established for this s...
The purpose of this study is in elucidating effects that self-expression training has on improving interpersonal relationships and self-efficacy of elementary school children from broken homes. The following hypothesis have been established for this study regarding specific effects of the training.
Hypothesis 1. The experimental group that received self-expression training will show an improvement in interpersonal relationships immediately following the training compared to the control group, and the training effect will last up to 8 weeks.
Hypothesis 2. Total score for self-efficacy will improve significantly in the experimental group in comparison to the control group, and its effect will last up to 8 weeks.
Hypothesis 3. The experimental group will show significant improvements in sub-categories of self-efficacy, which are self-confidence, self-regulated efficacy and content -difficulty, and the effect will last up to 8 weeks.
The subjects for the present study were 5th and 6th graders from N and D elementary schools in H district, South Gyeongsang province, who are from broken homes. A total of twenty children who scored low on self-efficacy and interpersonal relationship tests were selected, ten from each of the two elementary schools. The children from N elementary school were designated as the experimental group while those from D elementary school formed the control group.
The self-expression training program administered in this study is a restructured version of the program used by Sung-hyun Lee (1997). The new version consists of a total of 12 sessions in order to fit the purpose of this study. Interpersonal relationship scale developed by Sun-mo Moon (1980) who adopted and modified Gurney's (1977) relationship change scale was used in this study to measure interpersonal relationship, and as for self-efficacy, test used by Hye-jin Han (2002) was adopted.
In measuring effects of self-expression training on improvement in interpersonal relationships and self-efficacy of elementary school children from broken homes, tests were administered before, right after the training sessions, and at 8 weeks after the last session. Data from the experimental and control groups were subjected to ANOVA using SPSS and Kwakstat (Ho-wan Kwak, 1993) programs for Windows.
The following conclusions have been reached based on the results and discussion of the present study.
First, self-expression training was effective in improving interpersonal relationships of the children from broken homes, but its effect did not last up to 8 weeks.
Second, self-expression training was effective in improving the children's self-efficacy, and its effect lasted up to 8 weeks.
Third, among the sub-categories of self-efficacy, self-expression training was effective in improving self-confidence, and its effect was lasting. Self-expression training, however, did not improve self -regulated efficacy and content-difficulty.
As the subjects of this study were limited to twenty 5th and 6th grade broken home children from N and D elementary schools in H district, South Gyeongsang province, there exists a limitation in generalizing the findings of the study to all broken home children. Thus, in order to improve interpersonal relationships and self-efficacy of broken home children, it is imperative to develop more and varied training programs in future.