THE ENHANCEMENT OF SOCIAL SKILLS OF PRIMARY STUDENTS THROUGH EXPRESSIVE ART IN GROUP COUNSELING

Abstract

This study aims for the enhancement of social skills among primary students through expressive art in group counseling. The sample consisted of 12 fourth-grade students from Chiwan School, Nanshan District, Shenzhen, who were randomly assigned into experimental and control groups. The experimental group received expressive art group counseling, and the control group adopted traditional teaching. The research tools were a social skills questionnaire and expressive art in group counseling program. The data analysis was conducted using a computer-based intelligent system. The research results found that after participating in expressive art in a group counseling program, the experiment group had higher social skills mean than before participating in expressive art in a group counseling program at a statistically significant level of .05. Furthermore, after participating in expressive art in a group counseling program, the experimental group had a higher social skills mean than the control group at a statistically significant level of .01. The results showed that the students in the experimental group who received the expressive art group counseling improved significantly in their social skills, while the students in the control group made limited progress. Therefore, the expressive art group counseling effectively improved the social skills of primary school students.

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