The study seen below has the purpose of seeking out the effects of self-esteem and pro-social behavior in children during natural meditation activities. This is to provide the base line data for the vitalization of natural meditation activities in the...
The study seen below has the purpose of seeking out the effects of self-esteem and pro-social behavior in children during natural meditation activities. This is to provide the base line data for the vitalization of natural meditation activities in the childhood education field.
The research questions for the attainment of the objectives from this study are as follows.
1. What are the effects that natural meditation activity have on a children’s self-esteem?
2. What are the effects natural meditation activity have on a children’s pro-social behavior?
In this study, the following processes has been gone through for the verification of the research questions. The study subjects selected for this research were through random sampling were by 30 children of age five located in Yonging-si, Gyonggi-do Province of S Pre-School divided into an experimental group of 15 and a controlled group of 15.
The research process was conducted into a preliminary test, a preliminary inspection, experimental handling, post-inspection and data analysis. The experimental handling of the experimental group were subjected to the natural mediation activity a total of 16 times, twice for 8 weeks in the S Pre-School and the controlled group were subjected into classes about projects associated with life themes under the guidance of a teacher.
In this study, based on the character and development of the children, the following programs have been taken into reference as a match up with the natural meditation activity with the preschool curriculum: Natural Meditation with Lee Su-Kyeong (2006), Walking Meditation of Thich Nhat Hanh Monk (2006), Mind Gardening Cultivation of Thich Nhat Hanh Monk’s Plum Village (2013) and other literature and advanced researches.
The testing tool used for the self-esteem referring to Harter & Pike (1984) was the edited image by Lee Young-Suk (2012) from the ‘Perception of the Self Measure for Children’ revised and supplemented by Kim Young-Suk (1997). For the pro-social behavior, the testing tool was McGinnis and Goldstein’s ‘Technological Situation Measure’ and the ‘Testing Tool for Children’s Pro-Social Behavior’ made through the revision and supplementation of ‘Skill Situations Measure’ by No Young-Hee, Park Chang-Ok and Lee Won-Young (1993).
The collected data was analyzed through the usage of the Hangul SPSS WIN 18.0 Program, and a Paired T-test was used to verify the significant differences between the experimental and controlled groups of the pre-tests and post-tests.
The summarized results of this study are as follows.
Firstly, the children’s self-esteem of the experimental group, of which were conducted with natural meditation activities, had a higher improvement than the controlled group that did not have any natural meditation activities. In addition, it has shown that the natural meditation activity is statistically relevant thanks to the analysis of the children’s cognitive abilities, physical peer-acceptance ability and self-acceptance ability–which are the subordinate scopes of self-esteem–. The motherhood acceptance, being a subordinate scope, did not have much of a difference in overall but it can be seen that it has improved through the counting of the overall mean value.
Secondly, the pro-social behavior of the children from the experimental group that has received natural meditation activities has improved more than the controlled group. Also, it has shown that the natural meditation activity is statistically relevant as their private emotion regulation ability, personal relation development ability and preschool adaptation ability –which are the subordinate scope of pro-social behavior- has shown meaningful differences.
Based on these findings and results, natural meditation activities efficiently supports and helps the development of the children’s self-esteem and pro-social behavior.