Using a Curriculum Model to Enhance Friendship-Making Skills in Elementary Education

Abstract

This study aimed to design and validate a personalized curriculum model based on the art of friendship-making to enhance elementary students’ social and communication skills. This applied qualitative study was conducted using a descriptive-survey approach. The research population consisted of experts in curriculum planning, educational sciences, and elementary education, who were selected through purposive sampling. A total of 15 experts participated in the interview and validation phases. Data were collected through the analysis of upstream educational documents and semi-structured interviews. The interviews were conducted in an exploratory and progressive manner, and after each interview, the extracted data were analyzed through the constant comparative method. Grounded theory coding procedures, including open, axial, and selective coding, were used to identify categories and develop the final curriculum model. The trustworthiness of the qualitative process was assessed through credibility, transferability, confirmability, and dependability criteria. Interview reliability was also confirmed by comparing two parallel interviews with selected respondents. The inferential findings derived from coding indicated that the proposed friendship-making curriculum model was organized around several core categories: identifying and reducing barriers to friendship-making, such as shyness, fear, anxiety, and poor regulation of negative emotions; strengthening positive personal and interpersonal characteristics, including self-esteem, empathy, tolerance of failure, forgiveness, apology, and acceptance of others’ mistakes; teaching effective conversation, communication, expression of thoughts and feelings, creativity, analysis, and sharing of interests; assessing children’s psychological characteristics and referring children with fear, anxiety, anger, or depressive symptoms to school counselors; and using group games, educational cartoons, and films as key tools for forming friendship groups. The final model included curriculum objectives, content, learning activity characteristics, implementation considerations, and evaluation procedures. Expert validation indicated that the proposed curriculum had desirable acceptability, with a mean validation score of 4.24 out of 5. Friendship-making education in elementary schools should move beyond textbook-based instruction and be implemented as a play-based, psychological, participatory, and learner-centered curriculum. A weekly two-hour class led, where possible, by teachers familiar with child psychology may help reduce children’s social isolation, strengthen interpersonal interaction, and improve communication skills during the early years of schooling.