The effects of affective education on classroom environment, self-esteem, grades, and sociometric relationships

The present study investigated differences among students who participated in the Innerchange/Human Development Program (Experimental groups), played educational games (Active Control groups), or remained in their regular classroom routine (Nonactive Control groups). The subjects were 130 seventh grade students enrolled in six classes in a middle school in East Tennessee.

Students who participated in affective education or played educational games did so twice weekly for approximately 30 minutes per session, for nine weeks. Data were collected on all subjects via the Classroom Environment Scale (CES), the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory (SEI), a sociometric measure, and grades. Students receiving affective education also completed objectives forms in which they indicated their feelings and to what extent they understood the day's discussion topic. Two observers conducted observations of both the affective education and educational games groups and rated 35 student and experimenter verbal behaviors.

Teachers of the students who participated in the study completed the Classroom Environment Scale (Form R) four times through the study. They also completed the Ideal Form of the CES as a pretest and a posttest.

No conclusive differences were found among the groups of students who engaged in affective education, played educational games, or remained in the classroom. However, observation results suggested that students in the Experimental (affective education) groups tended to make greater frequencies of positive self-statements, while students in the Active Control (educational games) groups made greater frequencies of negative statements about others. The results imply that (a) a more sensitive measure such as observations of verbal behavior may highlight differences among groups which would otherwise not be seen; and (b) differences in outcome in studies of affective education programs may be attributable to differences in leader behavior and thus in leader implementation of the affective education program.