This study administered a peer counseling program as a means of increasing peer acceptance and empathy ability in peer relationships, which are the most important in interaction types in school. Under the assumption that the peer counseling program wo...
This study administered a peer counseling program as a means of increasing peer acceptance and empathy ability in peer relationships, which are the most important in interaction types in school. Under the assumption that the peer counseling program would be effective when it targeted class leaders, the program was applied to six class leaders. The purpose of the study was to investigate if the peer counseling program was effective in increasing the peer acceptance and empathy ability of the class leaders toward their fellow classmates through peer counseling activities after the program.
After theoretical considerations and reviews of previous studies, the investigator noted that peer counseling activities would have more influences on interpersonal interactions than individual characteristics and exert positive effects on prosocial interactions in school. In an expectation that the program would help to increase peer acceptance and empathy ability among prosocial interactions, it was hypothesized that the experiment group that participated in the peer counseling program would make a significant increase in peer acceptance and empathy ability compared to the control group. In an attempt to test the hypothesis, the class that the investigator was in charge of as the homeroom teacher made the experiment group, and a class whose homeroom teacher was about the same age as the investigator and which studied in groups around the class leaders made the control group. The class leaders of the experiment group joined the peer counseling program for elementary school students developed by Korea Youth Counseling Institute and then were asked to provide peer counseling to their classmates.
Using the SPSS/WIN 12.0 statistics program, two-way ANOVA was carried out with group and test timing as independent variables in order to examine the influences of the peer counseling program on the students' peer acceptance and empathy ability. Measured in the study was peer acceptance level since it tried to find significance in how much a student would improve in his or her ability to accept other certain students through the peer counseling program. Also measured in the study were the cognitive and affective element of empathy with an empathy measuring tool and the communicative element with an empathetic response rating scale.
According to the analysis results of the subjects' responses on each test, the experiment group whose class leaders took part in the peer counseling program made a significant increase in the peer acceptance level, the cognitive and communicative empathy ability of the empathy ability elements, and having a perspective and imagining of the subarea of cognitive empathy ability. In the affective empathy ability, they made a significant increase in empathetic interest but no such a significant increase in personal pain. Thus there was no significant improvement in the affective empathy ability of the experiment group.
The investigator also analyzed the opinions of the peer counselors, the activities of each session, and the logs of peer counseling activities to include the activity process not reflected in the statistical analysis results in the research findings. As a result, it was revealed that the class leaders gradually expanded the scope of their interest to the entire class beyond themselves and their close friends as the program progressed and were willing to help their friends as peer counselors and class leaders. After the program was ended, the investigator provided the peer counselors with follow-up instructions for the difficulties and questions they wrote down on the counseling logs after each session. There were voluntary interactions on the topics related to their actual worries during the counseling activities, which promoted intimacy among the student clients and increased their trust in their peer counselors who were the class leaders, thus creating an atmosphere of understanding and accepting each other and recognizing diversity.
In short, a peer counseling program targeting class leaders can be effective in increasing elementary school students' peer acceptance, cognitive empathy ability, and communicative empathy ability, which suggests that such an application in elementary school can have positive impacts on peers. Therefore, administrative and financial bases should be established along with an educational atmosphere so that the operation of peer counseling will expand through program researches to introduce peer counseling in the curriculum and apply it to each grade aptly and through education of instructors.