An action research on developing first grade primary school students' emotional literacy skills

This study aimed to develop first-grade primary school students' emotional literacy skills regarding four negative emotions, namely "sadness," "fear," "anger" and "anxiety." In line with this general purpose, the study sought to answer the following four questions: (1) What are the emotional literacy skill levels of first-grade primary school students? (2) How can their emotional literacy skills be developed? (3) How did the teaching activities contribute to students' emotional literacy skills? (4) What are students' and parents' opinions about the contribution of the teaching activities? The research was conducted in the action research design, one of the qualitative research approaches. It included 16 first-grade students in a private primary school in Yenimahalle district of Ankara province in the spring of 2021-2022 academic year. The study first determined students' emotional literacy skill levels using the "Emotion Regulation Skills Scale." Then, 14 action plans consisting of 62 teaching activities for the three components of emotional literacy (recognizing, expressing, and regulating emotions) were developed and implemented for 14 weeks. The teaching activities were prepared with the theme of "Lili and Zozo's Journey to Emotions Galaxy." During implementation, qualitative data were gathered through camera recordings, the researcher's diary, participant observations, and interviews with the students. In addition, post-measurements were gathered by re-applying the "Emotion Regulation Skills Scale." The qualitative data obtained in the research were analyzed and interpreted with the content analysis technique. The data analysis and interpretation were carried out simultaneously with the implementation process. The analysis and interpretation of the quantitative data (pre- and post-measurements) were carried out following the directions provided in the scale. According to the findings, significant improvements were observed in students' ability to recognize, express, and regulate emotions. Regarding the pre- and post-measurement results in recognizing emotions, all students acquired the skill of recognizing all four emotions, except for one student for sadness, one student for anxiety, and two students for fear. Regarding the pre- and post-measurement results in expressing emotions, the most significant improvement happened in feelings of fear and anxiety. While only five students could express the feeling of fear in the pre-measurement, this number increased to 15 in the post-measurement. Similarly, while only one student could express anxiety in the pre-measurement, this number increased to 11 in the post-measurement. Regarding the pre- and post-measurement scores in regulating emotions, there was a complete improvement in regulating all emotions. All the students acquired the ability to regulate all four emotions. In addition, using different teaching activities and strategies in action plans enabled students to focus more on the activities, increased their interest in the activities, made the learning environment more enjoyable/fun, and contributed positively to developing students' emotional literacy skills. Some suggestions were provided based on the experiences gained from the study.