Avaliação de estratégias para a redução de comportamentos agressivos em crianças de 9 a 12 anos

Abstract

In view of the high levels of aggression in the educational field and the need to find intervention strategies whose effects in reducing aggressive behaviors in childhood were reliable, the effect of two strategies in reducing these behaviors, the affective-discursive and the informativediscursive techniques, were compared. 43 students at the 4th year of elementary level in a public school in Paraíba participated in the research-intervention, aged 9 to 12 years old (M = 9.84; SD = 0.84) who were distributed in 3 groups (affective-discursive, informative-discursive and control). In order to verify the effects of the interventions, the participants were evaluated in the pre-test, in the post-test and in the follow-up, through their scores on the Scale of Empathy for Children and Adolescents, on Buss and Perry’s Aggression Questionnaire and for their verbalizations in a Focus Group, after the end of the interventions. In addition, the participants were evaluated by a teacher, through scores attributed by her to a Questionnaire for the Evaluation of Aggressive Behavior of the Student, before and after the interventions. The quantitative data obtained with the scale and the questionnaires were analyzed with parametric tests (t test and analysis of variance). Regarding the data of the focus group, thematic content analysis was used. The results of the quantitative data indicated a significant increase in the average of empathy only in the affective-discursive group and a significant decrease in the average of aggression in the affective-discursive and informative-discursive groups, from the pre-test to the post-test. Analyzes of qualitative data from the focus group confirmed these results. It is noted that, in the control group, there was a significant increase in the mean aggressiveness, from the pre-test to the post-test. The results of the post-test for the follow-up indicated that there was a significant decrease in empathy in the affective-discursive group and a stability on the level of empathy in the other groups. As for the average score of aggression, it was found that it remained constant in the affective-discursive group, itsignificantly increased in the informative-discursive group and it decreased significantly in the control group. These results show, in general, both strategies used in the intervention were effective in reducing aggression, however, in the longer term, the affective-discursive strategy proved to be more effective than informative-discursive one.