The effect of social skills-based activities on primary school students' critical thinking and empathic tendencies

The effect of social skills-based activities

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the effect of activities conducted based on social skills on primary school students' critical thinking and empathic tendencies. In the research, a quasi-experimental design with a pretest-posttest experiment-control group (one experimental and two control groups), which is one of the quantitative research methods, was used. Critical Thinking Perception Scale and KA-SI Empathic Tendency Scale for Children and Adolescents were applied as pretest-posttest to measure the change in critical thinking and empathic tendencies of primary school students before and after the activities on social skills. Data were analyzed using ANCOVA and dependent groups t-test, and the effect size (eta-square [ή²]) was calculated according to the variances between the scores.  In the research, when the pretest mean scores of the experimental and control group primary school students in the social skill-based activity process were examined; it was concluded that the difference between the critical thinking skill posttest means scores was not statistically significant (p>0.05), however the empathic tendency mean scores posttest mean scores was statistically significant (p<0.05). Additionally, the difference between the pre-posttest critical thinking mean scores and empathic tendency means scores of the experimental group primary school students was statistically significant (p<0.05).