Role of art programs in young children's social-emotional learning

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between arts participation and social-emotional development of 300 preschool children (4 to 5 years) in Wuhan (China). Children received improvisation classes, sessions where they were asked to listen to and discuss music, and typical art lessons. Children were administered the Emotional Matching Test and the Ages & Stages Questionnaires: Social-Emotional. This study demonstrates that arts education affects preschool-age children's knowledge of emotions and social-emotional competence. The results showed a direct strong correlation between emotional knowledge and arts education with the correlation coefficient ranging from 0.718 to 0.8923. The findings of this study may be useful in designing programs for kindergartens to prevent psychosocial development delays and behavioural problems in children that are related to insufficient knowledge of emotions. Future research will benefit from the comparative study of social and emotional learning (SEL) programs, extracurricular social-emotional skills training, and SEL integrated into lessons.