The effect of play-based empathy program on children's empathy, friendship and emotion management skills

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of the Play-Based Empathy Program (PBEP) on five-year-old children's empathy skills, friendship relations and emotion management skills. This research was designed in mixed method experimental design. The study group of the research was determined by homogeneous sampling method. The study group consists of 69 (34 experimental, 35 control group) children, who are educated in the five age groups of the independent kindergarten affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in the Etimesgut District of Ankara Province in the 2021-2022 academic year, and their parents and teachers. PBEP was applied to the children in the experimental group for seven weeks by the researcher. The children in the control group continued their daily education routines with their teachers. PBEP, developed by the researcher, consists of fourteen integrated activities and six parent involvement activities. Data is collected by "4-5 Years Old Empathy Skills Scale", "Preschool Social Skill Assessment Scale Parent and Teacher Form Friendship Relations and Emotion Management Skills sub-scales", "Semi-Structured Interview Forms for Teachers" and "An Open-Ended Questionnaire for Parents". Quantitative data is analyzed by Dependent and Independent Groups t Test, ANOVA and ANCOVA tests, and qualitative data were analyzed by descriptive analysis method. In conclusion, it is found out that PBEP had a statistically significant effect and permanence in favor of the experimental group on children's empathy skills, friendship relations and emotion management skills and, that the opinions of teachers' and parents of the experimental group also supported this result.