THE ENHANCEMENT OF SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING AMONG PRIMARY STUDENTS THROUGH GROUP ACTIVITIES

Abstract

The purpose of this study is 1) to investigate the SEL of primary school students; 2) to compare the SEL of primary school students before and after participating in group activities; and 3) to compare the SEL of students in the experimental group and the control group after participating in group activities. The study adopts a quantitative quasi-experimental research design, with the control group and the experimental group as the research subjects. Through pre-intervention and post-intervention evaluations, the impact of group activity intervention on the development of students' social and emotional learning is compared. The research sample consists of 200 third-grade primary school students from 4 classes. After screening out 2 classes with low scores and no differences, 50 students were randomly assigned to the experimental group and the control group. The research tool is group activities, aiming to promote the development of students' SEL. The SEL of the students was evaluated using the primary school students' social and emotional learning situation questionnaire. Descriptive analysis was used to provide information on the participants of the intervention group and the control group. Independent t-tests were used to analyze and compare the differences between the intervention group and the control group. The results of data analysis showed that 1) after participating in group activities, the SEL scores of the experimental group were higher. The total SEL score of the experimental group significantly improved after participating in group activities (pre-test: 113.96 ± 23.25 → post-test: 130.96 ± 18.26), with an average increase of 17 points (t(49) = -6.220, p < 0.001; Cohen's d = -0.88); 2) After participating in group activities, the SEL scores of the experimental group were higher than those of the control group. After the intervention, the total score of the experimental group (130.96 ± 18.26) was significantly higher than that of the control group (117.40 ± 21.35), with a difference of 13.56 points (t(98) = -3.414, p < 0.01; d = -0.683). In summary, the results indicate that through group activities, students' social and emotional learning can be improved.

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