The effect of friendship skills psychoeducation on friendship quality of the students aged between 9-12 years

This research has two main purposes. The first is to adapt the Friendship Quality Questionnaire (FQQ) to Turkish, which was developped by Asher and Parker (1989) to assess the quality of the friendship students between 3rd and 6th graders. The second is to examine the impact of the friendship skills psychoeducation on the friendship quality of the students between 9-12 years old. The sample of the research consisted of 1792 students, who were in the city centre of Malatya. The scale was conducted on 1479 students in order to adapt the friendship quality scale, which was the first part of the study, into Turkish. An experimental process was implemented with 27 students to examine the effect of friendship skills psychoeducation on the friendship quality of the students aged between 9-12 years. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to determine the construct validity of the scale. As a result of exploratory factor analysis, it was detected that the scale was consisted of 33 items and a structure with six factor as in the original version. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed in order to test alignment of the data to the six-factor model obtained by the exploratory factor analysis. The correlation between FQQ and Loneliness Scale for Children's was calculated based on the criterion (Asher and Parker, 1993) showing in the literature regarding criterion related validity that the students having highly qualified friendship relation experienced less loneliness. The results obtained revealed that there was a moderately negative and significant relationship between the correlation of FQQ with the Children's Loneliness Scale (r = -0,486, p<.01). 33 items took place in the final form of the scale. Scale consist of six sub-dimensions. These six sub-dimensions are named as "Intimacy/Self Disclosure", "Conflict/Betrayal", "Validation/Support", "Companionship/Recreation", "Help Guidance" and "Trust". Cronbach's alpha coefficients of internal consistency were calculated for the each sub-dimensions of scale. In addition, test-retest reliability values were also calculated as an indication of reliability. The second aim of this study is to investigate the effect of the friendship skills psychoeducation upon the friendship quality of the students aged between 9-12 years. In this research, 3x2 (experiment, control and plasebo group x pre test post test) split plot design was used. For this purpose, during the first semestre of 2014-2015 School Year, the FQQ was administered to the students attending the 5th and 6th classes of Türkiyem Secondary School located in the Battalgazi district of Malatya province so as to determine those who would participate in the psychoeducation programme of Friendship Skills. 27 volunteer students, who met the criteria for the participation in the psychoeducation programme according to pretest results, were randomly assigned to the experiment, control and placebo groups (experiment = 9, control = 9, placebo = 9).An eleven-session psychoeducation programme of friendship skills developed by the researcher was applied in order to raise the quality of friendship of the participants in the experimental group, and a five-session group guidance application about efficient studying methods and techniques for the placebo group. Any applications weren't performed to the control group. Two-factor ANOVA results indicate that the psychoeducation programme of friendship skills has an influence on the quality of friendship. The results of this study suggest that the psychoeducation programme of friendship skills can be used as an effective approach to increase the friendship qualities of the students between the ages of 9-12. Keywords: Friendship, friendship quality, friendship skill