The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of group discussion on the prosocial development of young children. To achieve this purpose, 122 kindergarten children aged four or five were sampled and randomly assigned to the experimental gr...
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of group discussion on the prosocial development of young children. To achieve this purpose, 122 kindergarten children aged four or five were sampled and randomly assigned to the experimental group and the control group. The experimental treatment were treated for eight weeks to experimental group. And the 'Prosocail Behavior Test' were administered to the children of experimental group and the control group.
The collected data were analyzed by t-test for the pre-test and post-test to compare between experimental group and the control group.
The findings of this study were as follows:
1. There were no statistically significant differences between the experimental group and the control group in the pre-test prosocial behavior scores[t(120)=1.21, p>.05]. But there were statistically significant differences between the experimental group and the control group in the post-test personal emotion control skills[t(120)=5.07, p<.01], inter-relationship skills[t(120)=3.18, p<.01], kindergarten adjustment skills[t(120)=3.33, p<.01], and total prosocial behavior scores[t(120)=5.10, p<.01]. It showed that the scores of the experimental group were significantly higher than that of the control group. This result means that the prosocial behavior increased by group discussion.
2. There were statistically significant differences between the children of four years and five years of experimental group in the pre-test prosocial behavior scores[t(60)=5.24, p<.01]. It showed that the scores of the 5 years of age were significantly higher than that of the four years of age. But there were no statistically significant differences between the children of four years and five years of experimental group in the post-test prosocial behavior scores[t(60)=0.29, p>.05]. This result means that the group discussion were more effective to the prosocial behavior of four years of age.
3. There were no statistically significant differences between the boys and girls of experimental group in the pre-test prosocial behavior scores[t(60)=1.64, p>.05]. And, also there were no statistically significant differences between the boys and girls of experimental group in the post-test prosocial behavior scores[t(60)=0.62, p>.05]. This result means that the group discussion were equally effective to the prosocial behavior of girls and boys.