A lifeskills programme for twelve male grade six learners

Abstract

A lifeskills intervention programme, drawing on cognitive-behaviour theory, was carried out with 12 grade six boys who displayed aggressive and disruptive behaviour. The aim of the programme was to improve the behaviour of these selected boys. All of the participants were between 10 and 13 years old who came from average or low-income households in the "Coloured" community of a small town in the Western Cape. Aggressive behaviour was defined as being physical (hitting, kicking or destroying of property) or verbal (yelling, swearing and temper outburst). Disruptive behaviour was defined as walking around in the classroom disturbing other learners, speaking out of tum in the classroom and disobedience. The author administered the intervention programme for one hour twice a week for three weeks. Assertiveness, problem solving, learning of social skills and anger control formed the basis of the programme. An analytical-empirical approach was followed in a repeated measures two-group design. The experimental school and the control school both serve the same community. The grade six educators and the principals of the two schools did the selection. Three measures were used to obtain the data for the research and at-test was calculated manually to analyse the data. An observation schedule, the Aggression Observation Schedule was devised by the author. Two independent observers observed the behaviour of participants for one hour. The other two measures used were a modified 22-item version of the Conners Teacher Rating Scale and standardised self-report questionnaire, the Aggression Scale.