The effect of Philosophy Program for Children (P4C) on oral communication skills of secondary school students

The purpose of this research is to examine the effects of Philosophy Program for Children on the verbal communication skills of secondary school students. The study group of the research consists of 57 7th grade students studying in a public school in Osmaneli district of Bilecik province in the 2021-2022 academic year. There were 28 students in the experimental group and 29 students in the control group. Communication Skills Inventory and Personal Information Form were used as data collection tools in the research. Demographic information of students and their parents was obtained with the Personal Information Form. There are two groups, an experimental and a control group, in the study in which the pretest-posttest paired control group design was used. In the first week of the study, which lasted for a total of 10 weeks, The Communication Skills Inventory developed by Ersanlı and Balcı (1998) was applied as a pre-test to the students in the experimental and control groups. For the next 8 weeks, two lesson hours a week, students in the experimental group were given philosophy education for children by the researcher. The students in the control group, on the other hand, did not receive any intervention, and the students continued their normal coursework. In the last week of the study, the Communication Skills Inventory was administered to the students in the experimental and control groups as a post-test. The data obtained from the research were analyzed using the parametric test methods, independent groups t-Test, dependent groups t-Test, one-way ANOVA and Tukey Post-Hoc tests. According to the results of the independent groups t-Test, which was conducted to compare the pre-test and post-test scores of the experimental and control groups; It was found that there was no significant difference between the pre-test scores of the experimental and control groups, and there was a significant difference between the post-test scores. According to the findings of the research, Philosophy Education Program for Children has a positive effect on the verbal communication skills of secondary school students. Keywords: Philosophy for Children, Oral Communication, Turkish Teaching.