The effect of teaching ethical intelligence in storytelling on academic, social, and emotional adjustment of students

Entering educational centers is an important event in the life of every child that most times it is necessary for the person to adapt to the resulting changes and related requirements. During the transition from home to school, the child on the one hand strives to meet greater independence and autonomy and must adapt to new friends, tasks, tasks, and roles. Adaptation refers to the experience of students with special problems in the educational environment and the coping methods they used to intervene with stress because children's moods are strongly associated with important variables such as academic performance, social development, and their behavioral adaptation, Therefore, understanding the mood characteristics of children in childhood is of particular importance. Children who have difficulty adapting to the structure of the school environment, when they first enter the social or school environment, often face difficulties in school that affect their individual and social moods and behaviors. Therefore, creating a positive mood path in the early years of childhood, especially at school age, is very important. One factor that can affect the adaptation and help them grow is moral intelligence. Moral intelligence determines the moral trajectory of the individual in life and education and prevents the occurrence of delinquent and illegal acts and leads to the observance of ethics in decisions. Moral intelligence is considered a turning point for all intelligence and, in fact, vital intelligence for all human beings. Therefore, the present study investigated the effect of teaching moral intelligence through storytelling on the academic, social, and emotional adjustment of students.

The method of the present study was quasi-experimental with pretest and post-test design with a control group. The statistical population included all sixth-grade male students in District 4 of Ahvaz in the academic year 2017-17. To determine the sample suitable for psychoeducational interventions, 20 people were considered for each group and a multi-stage cluster sampling method was used. In the first stage, one district was selected from the four education districts of Ahvaz, and in the next stage, one school was selected from the schools of the selected district. Finally, two classes from the mentioned school were selected as the last sample. And witnesses were assigned that the number of each class was 20. To conduct the research, first, the necessary coordination was done with education in Ahvaz, and by referring to primary schools and selecting a statistical sample and identifying the two experimental and control groups, educational, social, and emotional adjustment questionnaires were administered as a pre-test for both groups. The experimental group then underwent a moral intelligence training program in a storytelling way and the control group did not receive any intervention. One week after the intervention process, academic, social, and emotional adjustment questionnaires were administered again for both experimental and control groups as a post-test. Inclusion criteria included: having informed consent to participate in the study. Exclusion criteria included: unwillingness to continue cooperation. In order to comply with the ethical principles, all participants completed the questionnaires with informed consent, and it was also ensured that the information obtained from the questionnaires would remain confidential. Data collection tools were Baker and Cyriac educational adjustment questionnaires, Bell social adjustment and emotional adjustment of Rabio et al., Which had appropriate validity and reliability. The obtained data were analyzed by descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (multivariate analysis of covariance) by SPSS software version 22.

Prior to data analysis, they reviewed to make sure that the data met the underlying assumptions of covariance analysis. Assuming that the level of significance of the relationship between pretest and post-test for academic adjustment was equal to r = 0.68, social the adjustment was equal to r = 0.53 and emotional adjustment was equal to r = 0.71. According to the got data, the assumption of linearity is established for the research variables. With multiple non-alignment, the correlation between academic, social, and emotional adjustment pretests in the range between 0.7 and 0.23 was obtained (p <0.005), so we can say that the assumption of non-all Multiple lines between auxiliary variables (covariates) are observed.
Results of multivariate analysis of covariance on subjects in experimental and control groups in the post-test stage show that there is a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in terms of dependent variables in at least one of them, at the level of P 000.001. To find out the difference, they performed an analysis of covariance in MANCOVA text.

Results of analysis of covariance in MANCOVA text on academic, social and emotional adjustment scores of experimental and control groups in the post-test stage show there is a significant difference between the subjects of the experimental and control groups in the dependent variables so that teaching moral intelligence through storytelling has been able to significantly increase academic, social, and emotional adjustment. (p <0.001) The experimental group was more effective than the control group in the post-test stage.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of teaching moral intelligence through storytelling on students' academic, social, and emotional adjustment. As the results showed, teaching moral intelligence through storytelling was able to significantly differentiate between the level of academic, social, and emotional adjustment of students in the pretest and post-test. This finding was consistent with the results of earlier research (Holder & Klassen, 2010; Salley, Miller & Bell, 2013). In explaining these findings, it can say that children with adaptation problems, especially in interpersonal issues; they deprived of having a proper behavior pattern and correct moral standards and could not learn the right way and conscience in interacting with others. Having strong moral convictions enables people to do the right thing, to keep their actions consistent with their values and beliefs, to do well, which paves the way for an academic adjustment.

Holder, M D., & Klassen, A. (2010). Temperament and happiness in children. Journal of Happiness Studies, 11(4): 419-439.
Salley, B., Miller, A., & Bell, M. A. (2013). Associations between temperament and social responsiveness in young children. Infant and Child Development, 22(3): 270-288.