Developing emotion regulation and social competence: A practitioner research study of primary-aged students in a daily conflict-resolution process.

摘要

This practitioner research study examines the social and emotional growth of a class of first and second graders as they participate in a daily social problem-solving circle. The purpose of the study is to discover the role of emotion regulation in conflict strategy selection. The guiding research questions are: How does students' use of conflict tactics develop in the context of implementing Social Circle? How does students' use of conflict tactics in Social Circle match the Sillars framework of coding categories? What is the relationship between emotion regulation and the use of conflict tactics?; Data was collected through audio and video tape recordings, participant observation and field notes of children's naturally occurring behavior and conflict resolution discourse during the structured daily process known as Social Circle over the course of one school year. Case study and ethnographic methods measured growth in emotion regulation through students' use of verbal and nonverbal emotion expressions and displays. Analysis of transcripts of student dialogue using Alan Sillars' typology of verbal conflict tactics and Robert Selman's model of interpersonal negotiation strategies measured development in the use of distributive, avoidant or integrative conflict tactics and social perspective taking. The Social Skills Rating System was also used as a measure of students' social and emotional development.; Four students were used as “telling cases” to describe typical emotional and social behavior and discourse of children in the context of discussing their social problems during the whole class conflict resolution process of Social Circle. Two female and two male students were evaluated according to guidelines for the social and emotional development of seven year olds. One child of each gender was classified as developing normally and one of each was rated as having immature emotional development and challenging social behavior.; Results of the study showed that emotion regulation was socialized and conflict resolution tactics improved overtime for all four children and was especially effective for the challenged cases.