The effect of caricature based activities on preschool children's emotional intelligence and communication skills

The aim of this dissertation is to determine the effect of caricature-based activities on preschool children's emotional intelligence and communication skills. Methodologically, this dissertation used a triangulation method. In this study, the dominant-less dominant mixed method design was used and the criterion sampling method from the objective sampling method was used. The participants of this study were children aged 5 in two preschools in Tatvan district of Bitlis. The number of the children were 40 and were divided into groups; control and experimental. The experimental group was in the Sahil nursery where the researcher teaches, and the control group was the Cumhuriyet nursery. For qualitative data, data collection methods were semi-structured observational form, and observational from for examining emotional intelligence and communication skills. For findings collected through the observational form were examined by the Shapiro-Wilks test. Mann Withney U-test was used to compare the points of the children in both groups, and Wilcoxon was used to analyse the points from each group. In addition, Cohen's d effect size was used to determine the effect of experimental applications. Descriptive and content analysis were used to analyse the qualitative data that were collected through semi structured interview form. The qualitative data were digitized, and its frequency and percentage were calculated for the reliability of it. The findings from the observational form were digitized and their frequency and percentage were calculated. Findings from the semi-structured observational from were analysed by the descriptive and content data analysis methods. The quantitative findings of this study showed that there was a significant difference between the first and last tests of intelligence, emotional intelligence and communication skills of the children in the experimental group. It was observed that lessons that were taught according to the achievements and indicators of the preschool education programme affected the emotional intelligence and communication skills of the children in control group. This dissertation concluded that according to the last tests of the control and experimental group, caricature-based learning had a positive impact of the emotional intelligence and communication skills of the children in the experimental group. Key words: Preschool education, Caricature, Emotional Intelligence, Communication Skills