Programa AEmoPropuesta de intervención para el desarrollo de competencias emocionales para mejorar las relaciones interpersonales

Resumen

School violence is considered one of the main interpersonal relationship problems many students have to face. Several studies have revealed that teenagers involved in both school violence or bullying show low levels of emotional competence. (Sánchez, Ortega and Menesini, 2012). Emotional competence is the way we are able to recognize and handle the emotions we feel, the way we express them and the way we connect emotionally with them in order to maintain healthy and satisfactory relationships. Thus, a programme which develops emotional competence will make positive interpersonal relationships within the school both easier and better. In the same way, having good emotional competence will mean improvement in the student’s welfare and quality of life. The design and procedure of the programme presented refers to a teaching innovation project which develops, applies and assesses an emotional literacy and emotional coping strategies. The objective of this study is to analyse the effects of the programme in its second year of implementation. The programme consists of conducting 10 sessions with students from 4 different secondary schools in Alicante, carried out by teachers who received the same training to lead the implementation of the programme. The study used a quasi-experimental design pretest-postest within control groups. The sample was formed of 294 secondary students from 2014/2015 academic year. The findings showed: 1) a decrease in violent behaviour and/ or bullying; 2) a significant improvement in the following dimensions of socioemotional competence: consciousness and emotional coping strategies (p<.01), empathy (p<.01) autonomy and parental relationships (p<.02), social support and relationship among equals (p<.01) and school environment (p<.01). The findings of the study have been analysed in order to explain the significant effects of the intervention.