The effect of the social decision-making skills curriculum on the emotional intelligence and prosocial skills of primary students (grade 1-3) in Lebanon

النوع : Mémoire

Children's exposure to undesirable and confusing social messages from their soci ety, has led to an increase in violence and poor self- concept among children in schools (Doty, 2001). A large body of research is encouraging teaching children to solve problems and make decisions in interpersonal relations to avoid resort ing to antisocial behavior. The purpose of this research was to study the effect of the Social Decision- Making Skills Curriculum (SDMSC) on the emotional intelligence and the prosocial behaviors of primary students in Grades 1- 3, in a private sc hool in Lebanon. The students will be trained in social problem- solving and social decision- mak ing skills through the implementation of the SDMSC. It was hypothesized that the re will be a significant difference in emotional intelligence and prosocial skil ls, respectively, between students (Grades 1 ? 3), who have been trained in soci al decision- making and problem- solving skills using the SDMSC, and those who h ave not been trained in these skills. The participants for this study were a tot al number of 80 students (29 students in the experimental group and 51 students in the control group). The SDMSC will be implemented in classrooms to students i n the experimental group. A rating scale from this curriculum was used to determ ine the students' strengths in social decision- making and social- problem- solving skills (Elias and Clabby, 1989). The subjects' emot ional intelligence was assessed using the Bar- On Emotional Inventory: Youth Ver sion and Parker, 2000a). Following a nine- week training in the Social Decision- Making (Bar-On) Skills Curriculum, ANCOVA results showed that there were signif icant differences in the emotional intelligence and prosocial skills of children in the experimental group, as compared to those in the control group.