The purpose of this study was to examine whether small group discussion about prosocial Picture books was effective for promoting young children's prosocial behaviors. It attempted to seek successful strategies and teaching methods to enhance the pros...
The purpose of this study was to examine whether small group discussion about prosocial Picture books was effective for promoting young children's prosocial behaviors. It attempted to seek successful strategies and teaching methods to enhance the prosocial behaviors of preschoolers.
The research questions were proposed as follows:
1. Does small-group discussion about prosocial picture hooks encourage young children to help others?
2. Does small-group discussion about prosocial picture books encourage young children to share things with others?
The subjects in this study were 36 preschoolers at the age of five who attended a kindergarten in the city of Daegu. They were 18 boys and 18 girls, then experiment was conducted for eight weeks from October 24 through December 12, 2003.
The small-group discussion about prosocial picture books was develped by the researcher.
The instrument for prosocial behaviors was revised by researcher on the basis of Iannotti(]985)'s study. After pretest and posttest were implemented, ANCOVA was carried out with pretest results as a covariable. The findings "f the study and their implications were as follows:
First, the experimental group that was engaged in small-group discussion about prosocial picture books offered more helping hands to others than the control group did. This indicated that the discussion activity served to facilitate children's empathy and gave them a chance to be responsible for specific roles, and that experience fostered the growth of their prosocial behaviors. This result inplies that discussion in small group had a better effect on inference up internalization of prosocial behaviors than just reading prosocial picture books.
Second, the experimental group that had a small-group discussion about prosocial picture books shared things with others more than the control group did. They learned to share with others in the course of exchanging their opinions regarding conflicting situations and information.