The effectiveness of educational games based on social-emotional learning on empathy and social competence in preschool children

The aim of this research was determine the effectiveness of educational games based on social-emotional learning on empathy and social competence in preschool children. This research was a semi-experimental with pretest, posttest and two-month follow-up design with control group. The research population was a preschool children of 4th district of Mashhad city in the 2020-2021 academic years. The research sample was 48 people who were selected by available sampling method and randomly by lottery replaced in two equal groups and the experimental group was trained for 20 sessions of 45 minutes with the method of educational games based on social-emotional learning and the control group did not receive training during this period. Data were collected with using two subscales of empathy and social competence in the social-emotional assets and resiliency scale for preschool (Ravitch, 2013) and analyzed by tests of chi-square, independent t and analysis of variance with repeated measures. The findings showed that in the pretest stage the experimental and control groups there was no significant difference in any variables of empathy and social competence (P>0.05), but in the posttest and follow-up stages there was a significant difference in both variables (P<0.05). Other findings showed that the intervention by method of educational games based on social-emotional learning significantly increased the empathy and social competence in preschool children and the results of the intervention were maintained in the follow-up stage (P<0.05). The results indicated the effectiveness of educational games method based on social-emotional learning on increasing empathy and social competence in preschool children. Therefore, to improve the social-emotional assets of preschool children can be used the method of educational games based on social-emotional learning along with other methods.