Assessment of a program to identify expression of emotions by primary school students

Objective: to assess the efficacy of a socioemotional education program on recognizing and distinguishing emotions among 2nd and 3rd cycle primary education students and analyze the influence of sociodemographic variables. Methods: This was a before-after intervention study including a sample of 101 students (58.4% girls) divided into two groups. The first groups age ranged from 9 to 11 years-old (mean: 10.34 years; SD = 0.59) and in the second group from 12 to 15 years-old (mean: 13.37; SD = 0.99). We applied the Emotions and Feelings Identification Awareness Inventory (IIES- Moreira, R, Oliveira, J.T., Crusellas, L., Lima, A., 2012) before and after socioemotional education program based on Costa's (2012) program "6 basic emotions and facial expression by the little wisps of wisdom". Results: Students were aged between 9 and 15 years, and most of them (27.7%) were attending the 8th school year. The ability of recognizing and distinguishing emotions and feelings varied significantly by sex and age. The comparison of means in the global sample was not statistically significance in the identification and differentiation of feelings before and after the intervention. Considering students by age group, the Student t-test for mean differences showed significant differences in the ability of identifying positive emotions (t = -2.813; p = 0.007) and a decrease in identifying neutral emotions (t = 2,258; p = 0.029) in the 9-11 yearsold group. Conclusion: Findings indicate that competences in identifying and differentiating emotions change after exposition to educational strategies, especially among younger individuals. These strategies have also an effect on emotional self-regulation and on daily emotional experiences with others, mainly when they are intentional and systematically introduced into a school environment.