The Effectiveness of the Children Philosophy Education on Self-determination and Responsibility of the Elementary Students

This study was conducted to determine the effect of the children's philosophy education program on the self-determination and responsibility of elementary students. Regarding the purpose, this study was an applied study and it was also semi-experimental (pre-test / post-test and control groups design) in nature. The population of this study consisted of all fifth- and sixth-grade elementary students in Ardabil (Iran) who were studying in 2020-2021. Thirty-two students were selected by the convenience sampling method and divided into the experimental and control groups (16 students for each group). They completed the Basic Needs Satisfaction, General version (BNSG-S) designed by Ryan, Couchman, and Deci (2000) and the Students’ Responsibility Questionnaire (SR-Q) designed by Kordloo (2010). Then, the experimental group had a 10-session (twice a week) philosophy education program (each with 60 minutes) over 5 weeks. The data were analyzed using SPSS-24 software. The results showed that, compared to the control group, philosophy education increased and improved the self-determination and the responsibility of students in the experimental group (p < 0.01). In a nutshell, the results reported a positive and significant effect of the philosophy education program on the students’ self-determination and responsibility.