The Effects of Interpersonal Cognitive Problem-Solving Programme on Turkish Pre-school Children

The high-risk behaviours of pre-schoolers, which may cause more serious problems in adolescences’ period, can be prevented or reduced by well-structured educational programmes. In the light of this approach, this study describes the effectiveness of the Interpersonal Cognitive Problem-Solving Programme (ICPS), on developing cognitive problem-solving skills of Turkish pre-school children. One-group pre-test–post-test design was used to examine the problem-solving skills of 45 children. The findings show that ICPS has a significant effect on developing problem-solving skills of pre-school children. Moreover, the ICPS-trained children were significantly effective to resolve problems with peers and adults. There was no significant difference between boys and girls regarding to their interpersonal problem-solving skills.


Introduction
Pre-school education is a crucial step for developing cognitive, social, emotional and physical skills of children.Acquired problem-solving skills may help youngsters to think flexible and cope with any real-life problems.Moreover, those skills prepare them for dynamic society of the 21st century.Preschool children can improve their social skills and competences within their school environment.In this context, to develop children's social and cognitive skills and to make them deal with real-life problems, Interpersonal Cognitive Problem Solving (ICPS) programme has been designed by Shure (1992) and adapted to Turkish by Ogulmus (2001).It aims to teach children how to think, rather than what to think and helps children to resolve typical interpersonal problems with peers and adults (Shure, 2001).Problem-solving skills can be gained and improved through well-structured educational programmes in schools.The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of the Interpersonal Cognitive Problem-Solving Programme (ICPS), on developing cognitive problem-solving skills in terms of 'alternative solution thinking and consequential thinking' of five-and six-year-old Turkish pre-school children.

The interpersonal cognitive problem-solving programme
ICPS (so-called I Can Problem Solve) for pre-school children contains sequenced games, puppets and dialogues around three levels of language and thinking skills (Shure, 1992).The ICPS programme accomplishes three objectives such as: 1. teaching children how to think rather than what to think, in ways that will help them to solve reallife interpersonal problems with peers and adults; 2. reducing and preventing early high-risk behaviours such as aggression, inability to wait and cope with frustration and social withdrawal that predict later, more serious problems such as violence, substance abuse and depression; 3. helping teachers and parents to apply a problem-solving style of communication, therefore, children can associate how they think with what they do, and how they behave.
It aims to develop a problem-solving thinking 'style' that would guide children to produce alternative solutions for everyday problems.Table 1 shows the content of the ICPS approach (Shure, 2001).

Courses
Problem-solving pre-skills 1-10 Teaching the vocabulary of the programme (is, is not, some-all, same-different) 11-18 Assisting children to know their and others' emotions [19][20][21][22] Encouraging the children to develop skills related to listening and paying attention 23-28 Introducing the concepts of why-because, maybe-perhaps to the children 29-31 Teaching to acknowledge individual differences and learn others!choices 32-33 Helping children to figure out what is honest or fair or not... Problem-solving skills 34-38 Alternative solutions: helping children to understand what the problem is and to learn to produce numerous possible solutions producing ways 9-50 Possible solutions: helping children to learn sequential thinking as the pre-requisite to understand cause-effect relationships 51-59 Matching the possible solutions with the possible effects: providing children with the possibility to practice to see the linkage between a possible solution and a possible effect problems.It facilitates positive social interaction within classroom and teaches children to be able to wait, while demanding or coping with their frustration (Shure, 1992).
In the light of this study, if children can learn to solve their real-life problems, they are less likely to become impulsive, insensitive, withdrawn, aggressive or antisocial.In addition to behaviour change, ICPS-trained children also do better in their academic curriculum.Those children can appreciate how people feel, decide what to do and whether the idea is or is not a good one (Shure & Digeronimo, 1996).

Implications
To examine the effectiveness of ICPS programme in Turkey, true experimental designs can be conducted with different kind of research groups.Besides, problem-solving skills can be relevant with other cognitive skills, to determine the effectiveness of the programme, it can be tested with related cognitive variables.