Impact of prosocial classroom and home learning programs on preschool children's prosocial behavior

Graduation date: 1986This study investigated the impact of prosocial classroom and\ud home learning programs on children's prosocial behavior. More\ud specifically, it determined the influences of adult modeling and\ud encouragement in these programs on children's cooperating, sharing,\ud and helping behaviors immediately following the six-week intervention\ud programs, and six weeks after the programs' termination.\ud Subjects were 52 children enrolled in three preschools including\ud (a) Group I (n=18) - Classroom Program, (b) Group II (n=17) - Home\ud Learning Program, and (c) Group III (n=17) - Control Program. The\ud Modified Prosocial Behavior Questionnaire was used to assess teachers'\ud perceptions of children's prosocial behavior, while Situational Tests\ud were used to assess children's actual cooperation, sharing, and\ud helping behaviors. All subjects were tested prior to the six-week\ud intervention period, immediately following the intervention, and six\ud weeks after intervention termination.\ud A series of 3 (Group) X 3 (Testing Time) repeated-measures\ud analyses of covariance were used to analyze children's prosocial\ud behavior scores. Results revealed teachers in the Classroom Program,\ud in comparison to those in the Home Learning and Control Programs,\ud perceived significantly greater increases in children's total prosocial\ud behavior, and their cooperating, sharing, and helping behaviors,\ud immediately following the six-week intervention period. These\ud differences continued to significantly increase or were maintained six\ud weeks after intervention termination. In addition, the Classroom and\ud Home Learning Programs, in comparison to the Control Program, lead to\ud significant increases in children's actual cooperation behavior at the\ud end of the intervention period. These differences were maintained six\ud weeks following intervention termination. The Classroom Program had\ud a significantly greater impact on children's cooperation behavior than\ud the Home Learning Program immediately following the intervention. Both\ud Classroom and Home Learning Programs had no significant impact on the\ud actual helping and sharing behaviors of children.\ud Measurement problems related to the assessment of these behaviors\ud were evident. Repeated testing over time had a significant impact on\ud children's Verbal Sharing behavior. In addition, possible age\ud increases in the development of prosocial behavior may have occurred\ud during the experiment. No sex differences were found in the prosocial\ud behavior of children or as a result of participation in the intervention\ud programs