The Effects of Using an Integrated Guidance Activity Package to Develop Forgiveness of Early Adolescent Students

Abstract

        The objectives of this research were 1) to study the components of forgiveness of early adolescent students; and 2) to create and evaluate results of using the integrated guidance activity package to develop forgiveness of early adolescent students.  The research process comprised two stages.  The first stage was a study of the components of forgiveness. The key informants were four experts, and the research sample consisted of 520 early adolescent students studying in Mathayom Suksa I – III levels.  The research instruments were an interview form and a scale to assess forgiveness.  The second stage was the creation and the evaluation of using the integrated guidance activity package to develop forgiveness of early adolescent students.  The key informants were three experts and 93 early adolescent students in two intact groups, who were studying in Mathayom Suksa I – III levels.  They were obtained by cluster random sampling, and then one group was randomly assigned as the experimental group; while the other, the control group.  The research instruments were a quality verification form for the integrated guidance activity package and a scale to assess forgiveness.  Statistics employed for data analysis were the percentage, mean, standard deviation, Confirmatory Factor Analysis and t-test. Research results were as follows: 1) the components of forgiveness of early adolescent students was composed of three components: (a) the cognitive component of forgiveness, (b) the affective component of forgiveness, and (c) the behavioral component of forgiveness; all components fitted well with empirical data, with high levels of weights which were significant at the .01 level; and 2) an integrated guidance activity package to develop forgiveness comprised 11 guidance activities that altogether could develop the three components of forgiveness and the evaluation results of using the integrated guidance activity package to develop forgiveness, it was found that after the experiment, the post-experiment forgiveness level of the experimental group students was significantly higher than their pre-experiment counterpart level at the .05 level of statistical significance; and after the experiment, the post-experiment forgiveness level of the experimental group students was significantly higher than the post-experiment counterpart level of the control group students at the .05 level of statistical significance.