The Effect of the Values Education Programme on 5.5-6 Year old Children's Social Development: Social Skills, Psycho-social Development and Social Problem Solving Skills

The aim of this study was to examine the effect of the Values Education Programme (developed for pre-school children) on the children's social skills, psycho-social development, and social problem solving skills. The sample group consisted of 66 children (33 experimental group, 33 control group) attending pre-school. The Values Education Programme was applied in the experimental group of 33 students, with session time lasting 30 minutes in each 11 week session. In this research the following was used in order to measure the dependent variables: Family Registration Form, Values Education Programme Assessment Interview developed by the researcher, Social Skills Evaluation Scale, Psycho-social Behaviour Scale for Pre-school Children (developed by the Turkish Psychology Association Committee on Pre-school), and the Wally Child Social Problem-Solving Detective Game Test. In the analysis process, descriptive statistics, t-test for independent groups, paired-samples t-test, frequencies, descriptive statistics, and typology analysis techniques were used. At the end of the values education programme, it was seen that the experimental group's social skills, psycho-social development, and social problem solving skills points rose from the pre-test towards the post-test and, that it increased at a significant pace compared to the control group's social skills, psycho-social development and social problem solving skills points. Also, after completing the three month training programme, it was found that there were no significant differences between the points of the experimental group's and control group's pre-test retention test. Conversely, parents indicate that values education program increased children's appropriate behaviours and decreased undesired the behaviours of children.