A Study on the effect of Friend-praise activity program of Elementary students for Self-esteem and Personal Relationship

초등학생의 또래 칭찬활동 프로그램이 자아존중감 및 대인관계에 미치는 효과

Lately, the rapid social and family system change, the entrance examination-centered circumstance in education have a negative influence not only on making up the affirmative self-esteem but also on building up the personal relationship through mutual communication with friends of the same age. Making children adapt well to school life and develop a good relationship in the class is an important subject in educational field. Thus, various school activities should offer lots of opportunities to increase their affirmative self-esteem and more specified performance-centered programs are required toform a harmonious relationship among parties of students. The purpose of this study is to improve an affirmative self-esteern and a desirable personal relationship of children through developing friend-praise program and adapting it to children. Based on the above purpose, the following subjects for this study 'are suggested. Firstly, is the friend-praise program effective in forming an affirmative self-esteem of elementary students? Secondly, is the friend-praise program successful in improving a desirable personal relationship in an elementary school? In addition, two hypotheses of study are decided on the basis of theoretical background and the former study. Hypothesis 1. The friend-praise program will have a meaningful effect on improving an affirmative self-esteem. Hypothesis 2. The friend-praise program will have a meaningful effect on improving a desirable personal relationship. In order to improve the above hypotheses, the experiment was carried out with two classes on the fourth grade in M elementary school in Wonju with being divided into one experimental group and the other comparative group. The friend-praise program which was adapted to the experimental group was composed with four steps as 'introduction', 'preparation', 'operation' and 'closing'. This program which has twelve categories was executed once or twice in a week and each class was continued for forty or sixty minutes. Contrastively, comparative group had no application of the main program. For the purpose of proving the hypotheses after adapting the program to students, I have executed both self-esteem test and personal relationship test. The tests were performed with using SPSS/Windows V10.0 and the statistic was conducted through independant sample t-test for the difference between groups and contrastive sample t-test for the individual difference in each group. The results of this study can be summarized like the followings: Firstly, from the result of previous and after tests, there was no meaningful change in the comparative group, but the experimental group showed meaningful difference in all categories of self-esteem(t=-4.496, p=.000). Especially, the general self-esteem(t=-3.216, p=.003), social self-esteem(t=-2.680, p=.012), homely self-esteem(t=-3.732, p=.001), and school self-esteem(t=-3.902, p=.000) showed a meaningful difference. At the same time, the experimental group also showed meaningful difference with the comparative group in self-esteem(t=-4.758, p=.000). Especially, the general self-esteem(t=2.581, p=.017), social self-esteem(t=3.160, p=.003), homely self-esteem(t=4.283, p=.000), and school self-esteem(t=4.110, p=.000) showed a meaningful difference. As a result of this experiment, the friend-praise program will have a meaningful effect on improving an affirmative self-esteem was proved. Secondly, there was no meaningful change in the comparative group, but the experimental group showed meaningful difference in all categories of personal relationship(t=-4.131, p=.000). Specifically, satisfaction(t=-2.113, p=.045), communication(t=-3.381, p=.002), confidence(t=-3.517, p=.001), intimacy(t=-3.958, p=.000), sensibility(t=-2.955, p=.006), openness(t=-4.318, p=.000) and interest(t=-2.941, p=.000) showed a meaningful difference. In the same instant, the experimental group also showed meaningful difference with the comparative group in all categories of personal relationship(t=3.897, p=.000). Especially, satisfaction(t=2.257, p=.003), communication(t=3.527, p=.001), confidence(t=3.704, p=.001), intimacy(t=3.904, p=.000), sensibility (t=4.382, p=.000), openness(t=2.648, p=.013) and interest(t=2.944, p=.006) showed a meaningful difference. Accordingly, the friend-praise program will have a meaningful effect on improving a desirable personal relationship was proved. Judging from all these results, we should provide primary students with various opportunities to take part in active programs which help them to set up their righteous sense of value, to solve their own problems and to develop their potentials. Consequently, many kinds of practice-centered program like the friend-praise program should be developed more systematically and teachers should apply all those programs to students according to their individual level and developmental stage.