The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a care program on youth care and youth activity competence. It's specifically meant to investigate the effect of a care program on the subfactors(consideration for others, sensitivity and positive...
The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a care program on youth care and youth activity competence. It's specifically meant to investigate the effect of a care program on the subfactors(consideration for others, sensitivity and positive response) of the care of middle school students and the subfactors of their activity competence(ego-competence, physical competence, conflict- regulating competence, problem-solving competence, achievement motivation competence, interpersonal competence, leadership competence and citizenship competence).
The subjects in this study were 64 students who were in their third grade in middle school. An experimental group and a control group were organized with 32 students each, and a care program was provided for the experimental group.
As for data analysis, objective and subjective data analyses were both conducted. To make an objective analysis, the collected data of youth activity competence and care were encoded and then analyzed by the statistical package SPSS 20.0. The level of statistical significance was set at p<.05. To make up the reliability of the quantitative analysis, a qualitative research was made by analyzing the writings of the students on how they felt and their post-experiment interview data.
To check the equivalence of the experimental and control groups in terms of care and activity competence, t-test was carried out, and paired t-test was utilized to look for any possible differences between the pretest and posttest results to verify the effectiveness of the program. The writings of the students on how they felt in each session and overall were analyzed to make a qualitative research, and their post- experiment interview data were analyzed as well.
The major findings of the study were as follows:
First, when an equivalence test was conducted in advance to see whether there would be any differences between the experimental group and the control group in the subfactors of care and youth activity competence, there were no significant differences. It implied that both groups could be regarded as the same, and the two groups turned out equivalent.
Second, when the experimental group took pretest and posttest in care and youth activity competence, this group showed a statistically significant improvement in all the subfactors of care that were consideration for others, sensitivity and positive response. And the group also showed a statistically significant improvement in ego- competence, physical competence, problem-solving competence, achievement motivation competence, interpersonal competence, leadership competence and citizenship competence that were the subfactors of youth activity competence. They didn't made any statistically significant progress in conflict-regulating competence, but showed a rise of scores in this factor.
Third, when the control group took pretest and posttest in care and youth activity competence, there were no statistically significant differences in care and seven subfactors of youth activity competence except for physical competence.
Fourth, when their writings on how they felt and the post-experiment interview data were analyzed, the care program was found to exert a positive influence on the improvement of the care and youth activity competence of the students.
The findings of the study illustrate that the care program conducted in this study is one of valid programs to be effective at boosting the care and youth activity competence of middle school students. The middle school students who participated in the consideration program showed improvement in consideration for others, sensitivity and positive response, which respectively belonged to the cognitive, emotional and behavioral domains, and they made progress in ego-resilience, physical competence, problem-solving competence, achievement motivation competence, interpersonal competence, leadership competence and citizenship competence, which were the subfactors of youth activity competence. This study is of significance in that it proved the effectiveness of the care program on the improvement of care and youth activity competence.