Investigating the Effectiveness of Life Skills Training Using Synectics Method on Social Tolerance, Wisdom, and Emotion Control in Junior High School Male Students

Teaching life skills to children and adolescents is one of the key responsibilities of the education systems and families. Synectics teaching method is a new training approach to enhance creativity in individuals. These exercises are designed to enable the person to use creativity to understand metaphors and analogies for creating new (“groundbreaking”) alternatives. The present study aimed to assess the effectiveness of life skills training using the Synectics method on social tolerance, wisdom, and emotion control in junior high school male students.

The statistical population in this quasi-experimental study included all the first-year high school male students (n=5,000) in Hamadan, Iran, of whom 50 students (2 groups of 25 students) were selected using a multi-stage cluster sampling method. Social tolerance, wisdom, and emotion control questionnaires were used to collect data. The multivariate analysis of covariance and Scheffé’s post hoc test were used to analyze the collected data.

Based on the obtained results from Scheffé's test, the mean post-test scores in the group who were trained in social tolerance, wisdom, and emotion control for anger control, positive emotion control, depressed mood control, and adolescent anxiety control, using the Synectics method, were higher than the control group by 10.08, 28.16, 12.32,1.8, 11.64 and 96.13 scores, respectively.

Teaching life skills through Synectics method is considered an effective method in improving social tolerance, wisdom, and emotion control of adolescents, and it is suggested to use this method in designing educational interventions.