The purpose of this study was to show how young children's abilities for peer interaction and interpersonal problem solution were affected by the empathy activity through the famous painting. The major research questions were as follows.
First, how do...
The purpose of this study was to show how young children's abilities for peer interaction and interpersonal problem solution were affected by the empathy activity through the famous painting. The major research questions were as follows.
First, how does the empathy activity through the famous painting affect on the peer interaction act for young children?
Second, is the interpersonal problem solving ability of the young children affected by the empathy activity through the famous painting?
The object of the research on this study was 42 children (21 children in experimental group, 21 children in comparative group), aged 5 to 6 who attended in S kindergarten in Geumcheon-gu, Seoul. This program of total 14 experiments was applied to the children for 8 weeks ( March, 2007 - May, 2007).
After the program, the same post-test as the pre-test was given to both the experimental and the comparative groups. To examine the effect of the empathy activity through the famous painting appreciation, a peer interaction test and an interpersonal problem solving ability test were given to the children. The collected data was analyzed by covariant analysis with SPSS 10.0 WIN program.
The result of the study is as follows.
First, the result showed that there was a significant difference between the experimental group and the comparative group in all fields: the total interaction act, the verbal interaction act and the non-verbal interaction act (Total: F=52.607, p<.001, Verbal: F:=65.965, p<.001, Non-verbal: F=23.927, p<.001).
Second, according to the change of the children who experienced the empathy activities through the famous painting appreciation, the children in the experimental group showed higher level of problem solving ability than the children in the comparative group.
Third, the children who were involved in the empathy activity through the famous painting appreciation showed a significant statistical difference in the response level of interpersonal problem solving ability. Among the response levels of interpersonal problem solving ability, the average score of the experimental group was (M=.40) and the average score of the experimental group was (M=.23) in the third level response, and this is a statistically significant difference.