The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of activity to improve social relations using picture books on the peer interaction and social emotional behavior of 2-year-old children. For this, 28 children aged 2 were recruited to explore...
The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of activity to improve social relations using picture books on the peer interaction and social emotional behavior of 2-year-old children. For this, 28 children aged 2 were recruited to explore the effect of activity to improve social relations with picture books, and the following research problems were established to verify the changes in this research:
Research problem 1. What is the effect of activity to improve social relations using picture books on children’s peer interaction?
Research problem 2. What is the effect of activity to improve social relations using picture books on social emotional behavior?
To achieve the research purpose, the researcher recruited 14 children aged 2 who had been going to Day Care K and R located in Sejong City and randomly divided them into the experimental group (7 male children and 7 female children) and the control group (7 male children and 7 female children). The both day care centers had followed the national standard childcare curriculum and passed evaluation accreditation, and the selected children were from households that lived in the same region and had similar social and economic levels. For the children in the experimental group, a total of 16 sessions of activity to improve social relations using picture books were carried out for a period of 9 weeks. To investigate the effect of activity with picture books for improving social relations on the children’s peer interaction and social emotional behavior, the peer interaction scale called the Penn Interaction Peer Play Scake (PIPPS) that was developed by Fantuzzo and his co-researcher (1998), translated and revised by Jeong Dae-hyeon (2006) and then revised and supplemented for children by Lee Soon-sun (2015) was employed to test peer interaction, and “social emotional behavior assessment and evaluation scale” developed by Sim Sook-young (2012) was used as a tool to test social emotional behavior. For analysis of the collected data, the independent samples t test was used to secure homogeneity of the pre-test scores of peer interaction and social emotional behavior between the two groups with SPSS 24.0 program, and post-test scores were also analyzed with the independent samples t test for the effect between the two groups.
The results of this research are as follows:
First, activity to improve social relations using picture books showed effect on the 2-year-old children’s peer interaction; the activity revealed that the sub-factor of play interaction increased, while sub-factors such as play disruption and play disconnection decreased. Therefore, activity using picture books for social relations improvement is necessary for children to form social relations among peers in daily life, as it helps improve helping, sharing, conflict mediation, considering, suggesting play, verbal interaction, positive emotions, and initiative.
Second, activity to improve social relations using picture books also showed effect on the social emotional behavior of the children aged 2. Conceptual factors of the sub-factor of social emotionality such as attention and concentration, self-perception, and emotional awareness were improved, and social-relational conceptual factors including pro-social behavior and social behavior were also enhanced. Decreases in internal and external problem behaviors such as separation anxiety, depression and withdrawal, defiance, and peer aggression revealed the effect of activity with picture books for improving social relations. It is required to provide activity to improve social relations with peers as well as teachers to pay more attention to children’s internal problem behavior such as self-perception, emotional awareness, depression and withdrawal, and separation anxiety.
Third, the research results on sub-factors of social emotional behavior such as sleeping and eating problems revealed that they slightly decreased. Therefore, picture books showed no effect on social relations improvement. Eating and sleeping problems varied according to children’s temperament and characteristics and did not show effect in a short period. It is required to provide a long-term guidance by connecting various activities in educational institutions and parents at home. This research suggest the following for applications of the research results to actual education institutions for children and for follow-up studies:
First, this research was conducted with children living in an apartment complex in Sejong City in 16 sessions for 9 weeks; it is necessary to increase the number of research subjects and verify the effect with a long-term experiment.
Second, this research used teacher rating scales as its test tools; it is necessary to carry out qualitative research where teachers’ subjective assessment and long-term observation for children are performed so that more detailed evaluation can be performed for children’ emotional expression for internal expression and emotions and behavior for external expression.
Finally, it is necessary to study the correlation between the verification of the effect on peer interaction and the verification of the effect on social emotional behavior.