The impact of empathy education programme which was performed on 10-11 year old children from different socioeconomic levels on the aggression level

Abstract

The aim of this research is to determine the impact of empathy education programme which was performed on 10-11 year old children from different socioeconomic levels on the aggression level. Through this aim, the research is carried out as an experimental work based on one of the effective trial models, "pretest-posttest model with placebo control group". 3199 children going to 10 different schools from different socioeconomic levels in Bursa were subject to Aggression Scale (Sahin, 2004) and 28 girls, 62 boys, a total of 90 students with high aggression points were chosen from among these 3199 children. As data gathering tools; Aggression Scale was used to measure the aggression levels of children, Empathy Scale was used to measure the empathy skills of children. Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA), variance analysis and t-test were used during the process of analysing and interpreting the data gained from the research. At the end of the research, it was determined that the empathy education programme makes difference on the aggression levels of children by decreasing it. It was ascertained that, at the end of empathy education programme, students from low socioeconomic levels are affected more positively than the students from higher socioeconomic levels. (C) 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd.