An investigation of the effect of sport and group work in social-emotional learning skills of social work students

Social emotional learning skills are considered as one of the most important skill groups for the socialization of children and adolescents and their integration into society in a healthy way. The failure of children to form the building blocks of these skills in the social and emotional learning process may reveal school failure, delinquency, and depression, trauma and stress disorders in the later stages of life. Social and emotional learning skills, which begin to develop from infancy, continue until adolescence. These skills that an individual acquires in this process are of great importance in the socialization process in his later life, in communication with other people, in expressing himself and his feelings. It is thought that it is important to reinforce and develop this process with positive experiences in adolescents who are considered disadvantaged in these respects, by using sports, which is generally thought to have a positive effect on socialization, communication and empathy, in social emotional learning skills and in the learning process. The study group of the study, which was planned in a full experimental design with a pretest-posttest control group design, consisted of volunteers from Ankara University Faculty of Health Sciences Department of Social Work students. Experimental groups of 19 and control groups of 19 were formed from male and female students of similar age and characteristics, who do or do not do sports. As a result of the research, it was found that social emotional learning group work improved the social emotional learning skills of the students of the social work department, and the social emotional learning skills of the students who did sports together with the social emotional learning skills group work improved more than those who did not do sports. It is thought that sports-based social work interventions and group work should find more place in the social work education curriculum and social work intervention processes, due to the results that positively affect the professional skills of social work students in the study.