Evaluating the Effects of the Roots of Empathyon Young Childrens Emotional and Social Competence

1
Evaluating the Effects of the Roots of
Empathyon Young Childrens Emotional and Social
Competence

• Kimberly A. Schonert-Reichl, Veronica Smith,
• Educational and Counselling Psychology, and
  Special Education
• University of British Columbia
• We gratefully acknowledge the funding provided by
  the Province of British Columbia, Ministry of
  Education

2
Introduction

• Introduce a theoretical model of emotional
  competence which informed the evaluation of the
  Roots of Empathy program
• Share the preliminary results of the evaluation
• Discuss what these initial results have shown us
  and where we need to go from here

3
Essential Elements of An Evaluation

• Guided by theory
• Rigourous experimental design
• Evidence of significant deterrent effects
• Collection of descriptive data regarding
  participants experiences of the program
• Replication of these effects at multiple sites

4
Theoretical Model of Empathy and Empathy-Related
Development
5
Process/Mechanisms of Emotional Competence and ROE

• Experiences
• Discussion of emotions (Saarni, 1999)
• ROE from the first lesson onwards the concept of
  a literacy of feelings is discussed
• Opportunities to take others perspectives
  (Selman, 1980)
• ROE perspective taking activities invite the
  children to explore the babys, the mothers,
  their peers and their own perspectives
• Opportunities to understand ones own emotions
  (Harris, 1995)
• ROE many of the lessons include activities in
  which children are asked to reflect upon their
  own feelings.

6
Evaluation Hypotheses and Research Questions

• ROE Goal One To foster childrens emotional
  competence particularly their empathy, emotional
  understanding, and understanding of human
  relationships
• Evaluation Hypothesis When compared to controls,
  children in the ROE will experience significant
  positive changes in the ability to explain
  emotions, generate strategies for dealing with
  emotions in others, and emotional knowledge.

7
Evaluation Hypotheses and Research Questions

• ROE Goal Two To promote the development of
  more caring (i.e., prosocial) and less aggressive
  (i.e., antisocial) behaviours
• Evaluation Hypothesis Children in the ROE
  program, compared to controls will show positive
  changes in behaviour (i.e., more prosocial
  behaviour, less negative behaviour)

8
Evaluation Hypotheses and Research Questions

• ROE Goal Three To increase childrens knowledge
  of infant development and effective parenting
  practices.
• Evaluation Question What are the childrens
  experiences in a program that aims to inform
  students about babies and parenting practices?

9
Evaluation Design

• Two components
• Quantitative
• pre/post test, control group quasi-experimental
  design
• Qualitative
• descriptive and qualitative data that reflect
  childrens organization of their own experiences
  of the ROE program
• a photographic analysis of the implementation
  process in which teachers and facilitators make
  meaning of the program

10
Evaluation Participants

• 137 children participated
• ROE Program, n 76 (45 boys, 31 girls)
• Control Group, n 61 (37 boys, 24 girls)
• Mean age 6.93 years
• 60 ESL (majority Chinese)
• Comparison classrooms that matched the program
  classrooms as close as possible with respect to
  grade, gender, and race/ethnicity composition
  were selected.

11
Evaluation Measures Components of Emotional
Competence

• Discern and understand others emotion
• Capacity for empathic involvement
• Crying Baby (Yau, 1999)
• Allows children to both spontaneously explain
  emotions and produce a number of strategies for
  responding to an emotional displays.
• Responses were content analyzed number of
  explanations and strategies produced, nature of
  the content (physical, emotional, or other.
• Socio-perspective coordination (Developmental
  Levels)
• The Relationship Questionnaire Interpersonal
  Understanding (Schultz Selman, 2000)

12
Evaluation Measures (contd) Components of
Social Behaviour

• Reduction or desistence of antisocial behaviour
  and aggression
• Increases in prosocial behaviour
• Modified version of the Child Behaviour Scale
  (Ladd Profilet,1996)
• Aggressive Behaviors (proactive, reactive, and
  indirect)
• Prosocial Behaviours
• Social Withdrawal

13
Findings

• Emotion Explanations
• ROE children, at posttest, produced significantly
  more spontaneous explanations than did comparison
  children.

14
Findings (contd)

• Strategy Knowledge
• ROE children, at posttest, produced significantly
  more strategies for coping with emotions than
  comparison children. ROE gt comparison on
  emotional strategies.

15
Findings (contd)

• Development of Social Perspective Coordination
• ROE children, at posttest, were at significantly
  higher levels of social perspective coordination
  than comparison children

16
Findings (contd)

• Social Behaviours reductions in aggression
• ROE children, at posttest, were significantly
  lower in proactive aggression than comparison
  children.

17
Findings (contd)

• The Childrens Voices Childrens Organization of
  their own Experiences of the ROE Program
• What did you think about the Roots of Empathy
  Program?
• Excellent 77
• Good 18
• Do you think this program would be good for
  other children?
• yes 97
• no 3

18

• The Childrens Voices (contd)
• What did you like best?
• Meeting the baby/touching the baby 38
• Seeing a developmental achievement 21
• Activities in the program 17
• The ROE program is a program about babies and
  how to take care of them. What did you learn
  about babies?
• Facts about babies, what they can learn and
  do 40
• How to keep them safe 28

19
Future Directions

• Evaluation of program implementation
• Longitudinal data collection
• Behavioral observations
• Multi-sites
• Examine extreme groups
• HLM
• Connection to NLSCY