Examination of the effect of life skills program on children's thinking skills and social skills

This research was conducted in order to investigate the effects of Life Skills Program on thinking skills and social skills of preschool children. The study group of the research in which the pre-test-post-test control group experimental model was used, consists of 42 children aged 60-72 months (21 Experimental group, 21 Control group) who attend an independent kindergarten affiliated with the Ministry of National Education in Meram district of Konya Province. "Demographic Information Form" was used as the data collection tools, "Critical Thinking Skills Test for 5-6 Year Old Children (ÇEDT)", "Problem Solving Skills Scale (PSS)", "Hybrid Creativity Test" to determine the effect of the Life Skills Education Program on thinking skills of children, and "Social Skills Development System-Rating Scale (Preschool Version for 3-5 Years Old) Teacher Form" to determine the effect of the Life Skills Education Program on social skills. Data collection tools were applied to both control and experimental group children before and after the Life Skills Program; and were also applied to the experimental group children 8 weeks after the post-test date to test the permanence of the study. While the "Ministry of National Education 2013 Pre-School Education Program" continued to be applied to the children in the experimental and control groups by their teachers, the "Life Skills Program" was additionally applied to the children in the experimental group by the researcher for 12 weeks, 3 sessions per week. The obtained data were analyzed using the SPSS package program with independent t-test, dependent t-test and repeated measures ANOVA test. When the findings were examined, it was found that there was no significant difference between the pre-test scores of thinking skills and social skills of the children in the experimental and control groups (p>0,05), there was a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test scores of thinking skills of the children in the control group (p<0,05), there was no significant difference between the pre-test and post-test scores of social skills of the children in the experimental and control groups (p>0,05), there was a significant difference between the post-test scores of thinking skills and social skills of the children in the experimental and control groups in favor of the experimental group (p<0,05). In addition, it was found that there was a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test scores of thinking skills and social skills of the children in the experimental group in favor of the post-test scores (p<0,05) and there was no significant difference between the post-test and follow-up test scores (p>0,05). As a result of the findings, it was seen that the Life Skills Program was effective and permanent in developing children's thinking skills and social skills. Key Words: Thinking Skills; Social Skills; Life Skills Program