The effect of values education program supported with persona dolls approach on the development of social values of preschool children including Syrian refugee children

The purpose of this research was examination of effects of values education program supported with Persona Dolls Approach on social values of Turkish and Syrian refugee children attending the same preschool classroom. This study was conducted through quasi-experimental design with pre-test and post-test with control group. The study group consisted of 27 children, 13 of whom were in experimental group and 14 of whom were in control group in the school year of 2020-2021 at two classes of an independent preschool affiliated with the Ministry of National Education of Turkey. In the process of research, 'Values Education Program supported with Persona Dolls Approach' developed by the researcher was applied to the experimental group in five days a week through six weeks. The data of research was collected through 'Personal Information Form for Turkish/Syrian Children', 'Preschool Social Values Acquisition Scale' and 'Implementer Fidelity Form for Education Program'. 'Personal Information Form for Turkish/Syrian Children' was filled by families before the application of education program. 'Preschool Social Values Acquisition Scale' was applied as a pretest to experimental group and control group. After the education program which was held in six weeks , 'Preschool Socail Values Acquisition Scale' was applied as a posttest to experimental and control groups. After four weeks following the implementation of posttest, the permanency test was applied to the experimental group in order to determine the persistent of education program. 'Implementer Fidelity Form for Education Program' was applied in every day by the classroom teacher. The distribution relating to demografic characteristics of children and families were presented as frequencies and percentages. Mann-Whitney U Test and Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test, which are non-parametric tests, were used for the data analyses because the data acquired from Preschool Social Values Acquisition Scale were not normally distributed. According to findings of research, values education program supported with persona dolls approach had positive effect on the attaintment of socail values of children and this effect was permanent. Suggestions in accordance with the results were given to educators and researchers.