The purpose of this study was to test the effects of the peer counseling training program on the self-concept and prosocial behavior of middle school students. The students in this study were divided into two groups according to their classification a...
The purpose of this study was to test the effects of the peer counseling training program on the self-concept and prosocial behavior of middle school students. The students in this study were divided into two groups according to their classification as peer counselors.Study question 1 : Does the peer counseling training program have an effect on the improvement of self-concept of both the group recommended by teachers and the group not recommended by teachers?Study question 2 : Does the peer counseling training program have an effect on the improvement of prosocial behavior of both the group recommended by teachers and the group not recommended by teachers?For this study, 27 middle school students enrolled in 'S' middle school, located in Incheon, were selected. Thirteen of these students had been recommended as peer counselors by their homeroom teachers and were allocated to an experimental group and the other fourteen students without teachers' recommendation were placed in a comparative group. Both groups had taken the Step-by-Step Peer Counseling Training Program for Middle School Students(2005), published by the Korean Youth Counseling Institute, once a week for 90 minutes, in all 10 times.To assess self-concept, the Self Concept Inventory(SCI) developed by Lee, Keong-Hwa and Ko, Gin-Young(2006), was used for peer counselors. To measure the students' degree of prosocial behavior, this study used the Altruistic Behavior Measurement, developed by Bar-Tal(1979), and used by Seong, Hae-Young(2000), Kwon, Seon-Hee(2006).To process their effectiveness, the tests were administered to both the experimental and comparative groups three separate times. The T-test was carried out to study the homogeneity of the experimental group and the comparative group before the program was provided for the subjects using SPSS 12.0. And the Repeated Measure ANOVA analysis was applied to find out the effects of the peer counseling training program on self-concept and prosocial behavior.The results of the study were as follows :First, there was a statistically significant difference in the effect of the peer counseling training program on the improvement of peer counselors' self-concept between the experimental comparative groups. The scores of self-concept in all groups increased, however the group not recommended by teachers had statistically more significant improvements than the group recommended by teachers. As a result, it showed that the peer counseling training program was more effective on peer counselors who had low self-concept and affected these students more positively.Second, as to prosocial behavior, there were no statistically significant differences between the experimental group and the comparative group after the training program was completed, but the overall scores of prosocial behavior in both groups increased. This means that the peer counseling training program was very effective in changing peer counselors' prosocial behavior.Thus, this study showed that the peer counseling training program had a significant effect on the improvement of the middle school peer counselors' self-concept in individual terms and on the improvement of their prosocial behavior.