Browsing by Subject "character strength education"

This qualitative research addresses a three-week pioneering intervention which is based on positive pedagogy and was conducted in a day-care centre in Eastern Finland. A pre-school group of nine children took part to the intervention but four of them attended as research participants and were given pen names. Adam and Bella were studying according to the general education plan, Carrie had intensified support and David received special support. During the intervention, the pre-schoolers were taught about the character strengths of self-regulation and honesty via various stories, poems and pictures which transitioned to reciprocal conversations among the child group. Through different kinds of child plays the pre-schoolers had the opportunity to train those skills in action and in touch with creative documentation exercises they built perceptions of the terms themselves. The material was collected through semi-structured interviews and a concentration questionnaire called pikkuKESKY. As a result of analyses each participant got personal profiles which illustrate their skills and development. The results indicate that the students who needed the most support in learning about self-regulation and honesty showed individual improvement during and after the intervention. Many themes in the teachers last interview often came back to the feeling of success which seemed to be widely in a key role when strengthening the pre-schoolers self-esteem.