And they lived happily ever after: Developing value-forming children's stories

• Main Authors: Icasas, Victor Raimond, Largoza, Fedelino, Javier, Regina Marie
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 1992
• Subjects: Values; Children's stories; Books and reading for children; Children's literature
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/15935
• Institution: De La Salle University

Three Filipino-language children's books were written by the researchers. These were bound by the common theme of environmental concern. They were written based on guidelines gleaned from research and analysis of existing materials on children's literature, cognitive psychology, and the current ecological situation. It was theorized that such materials would promote the formation of values among members of its target audience. To test this theory, a total of 118 subjects whose ages ranged from 6 to 8 were selected from the Grade 1 level of one public and one private school. They were initially given a pre-story situational test designed to measure their responses towards illustrations depicting environmentally relevant acts. Afterwards, the stories were presented to them, with a comparison test and a group interview accompanying each story. One week later, the situational test was readministered. Scores on the pre-story and post-story test were then compared. A directional Wilcoxon matched-pairs statistical test showed a significant positive difference between the two scores, for both public and private schools. This supports the researchers' contention that properly executed children's literature is an effective means of value formation.