| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 教育研究所 === 90 === The Study on Death Concepts and Attitudes among Students
Who Lost Their Parents through the Administration of
a Death Education Program
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate death concepts and death attitudes among students who lost their parents, and to assess the effectiveness of a death education group conducted by the teacher-researcher. In addition, it is expected that the researcher’s professional knowledge on death education can be improved, and a comprehensive death education curriculum can be applied to all students who lost their parents, in order to relieve their grief and bereavement.
The twenty-two research participants are purposefully sampled from students at Tsztung (莿桐) Junior High School, half of whom are in experimental group receiving death education. The group program includes ten 1-hour sessions conducted once a week. Based on death education programs designed and carried out by Liu Ming-song (1996), Liao Xiu-xia (2001) and the Education Agency of Kaohsiung City Government for students at senior high and vocational schools, this study makes further attempts to revise the content and materials to meet the research participants’ learning needs.
The Death Attitude Profile and the Death Concept Profile are administered to all the participants as the pretest, the posttest, and the follow-up test, in order to detect the immediate and long-terms effectiveness of the program. Data collected by means of tests and interviews are put into non-parametric statistic analysis and qualitative analysis.
The main findings are as follows:
1. The concepts and attitudes towards death:
(1) The death concepts: The participants in two groups have no significant difference in their death recognition and death conception.
(2) The death attitudes: The results of qualitative analysis show no difference between the two groups in their death care and death acceptance. However, significant difference is found on the results of statistic analysis.
2. The effectiveness of the death education program:
(1) Based on the participants'' own evaluation, the program is much satisfactory. Nine out of eleven participants in the experimental group express their gratification to the researcher and the program.
(2) Based on the co-researchers’ observations, the program is found to be able to meet the participants’ learning needs, improve their attitudes towards death, cooperate well with the whole group, and become more acceptance of their parents’ death.
(3) Based on the observation by their parents at home, the participants are said to get better with their families, and be willing to discuss the issue of death with them.
(4) Based on the statistic analysis of quantitative data, it is showed that the death education program has made positive immediate and long-term effects on the participants’ death knowledge, death concepts and death recognition. However, the qualitative analysis cannot show any change in their attitudes towards death after the completion of the program.
3. The researcher’s self-growth and professional development:
(1) The researcher has paid more attention to her own life issues, attempted to live well at every moment, and cared more about others’ grief and difficulties.
(2) The researcher has improved her own attitude toward death, and regarded death as a life event in nature.
(3) The researcher has well prepared for applying a death education program to her students at school.
In the light of the research results, several suggestions are offered as follows: death education should be incorporated into high school curricula; proper in-service training should be provided for teachers who are interested in conducting death education programs; as well as productive activities and materials should be contributed to the improvement of students’ positive attitudes towards death.
Key Words: parental lost, death concept, death attitude, death education, action research
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