The Effectiveness of Group Storytelling on Empathy and Kindness in Preschool Girls: Report of a semi-experimental research

The purpose of this research was to investigate the effect of group reading of stories on increasing empathy and altruism of preschool children with a positive approach. The hypotheses of the current research were:Group storytelling has an effect on strengthening the empathy spirit of preschool girls in Kermanshah.Group storytelling is effective in strengthening the spirit of altruism of preschool girls in Kermanshah.

To conduct this research, a quasi-experimental method was used with the subject and control group. The statistical population consisted of all the girls who attended preschool in Kermanshah in the academic year 98-99. The investigated sample was of the available type, which included 20 children who were randomly divided into two groups of 10 people, test and control. The data collection tool was Ayung et al.'s (2009) empathy questionnaires (parent form) and Goodman et al.'s (1997) altruism questionnaires (parent form). Due to the fact that the questionnaires of empathy, analysis by Ayung et al. (2009) and altruism by Goodman et al. (1997) are standard. Therefore, their validity has already been established and does not need to be proven again. In order to test the reliability of the questionnaires used in this research, Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used, so that the Cronbach's alpha coefficient for empathy and altruism variables was calculated through SPSS statistical software and if If the obtained alpha value is more than 0.7, the questionnaires have good reliability. Table No. 1 shows Cronbach's alpha coefficient of both questionnaires. In this research, descriptive statistics of indicators such as frequency distribution table, mean, standard deviation, maximum difference, maximum and minimum, and inferential statistics from Yeoman-Whitney analysis method for empathy and altruism variables in SPSS software. used.

The findings showed that in the experimental group, there was a significant difference between post-test scores in empathy and altruism variables, but there was no significant difference between pre-test-post-test scores in the control group. The findings showed that in the pre-test and before the story-telling sessions, the altruism component was almost the same in both experimental and control groups, then after the storytelling sessions in the experimental group, there were changes in the mean variable scores. We are altruistic that these changes do not exist in the control group, hence we come to the conclusion that storytelling has an effect on the empathy variable in the experimental group and the hypothesis is confirmed.

According to the obtained results, storytelling can promote the sense of empathy and altruism of children and also improve their performance in this field, which can be used in educational and clinical settings as He used an educational and at the same time fun method. According to the confirmation of research hypotheses, it can be concluded that group storytelling is effective on empathy and altruism of preschool girls in Kermanshah. Therefore, based on Bandura's socio-cognitive theory, storytelling can be considered as a suitable and effective tool for improving children's morale and behavior, which should be used in indirect education since childhood.