ABSTRACT

The main purposes of this research were to investigate factors for the development of basic Dharmatraits (BDT) in preschool children and to promote the BDT which is one of a number of identified topicsconcerning ethics and morality targeted for urgent presentation to children and youth in Thailand. Thestudy was conducted in two phases using kindergarten students aged 5 and 6. In Phase 1, teachersevaluated the BDT in 1,088 preschool children throughout Thailand using cluster sampling. Theconfirmatory factor analysis found that the preschool children showed BDT in eight areas of Diligence,Saving, Honesty, Discipline, Politeness, Cleanliness, Unity, and Kindness. Most of the preschoolchildren could express examples of each area by themselves or with the assistance of teachers or friends.In Phase 2, a model for promoting the BDT of preschool children was developed through learningactivities using sets of fables. These learning activities comprised fable books, storytelling activities, andsupplementary Dharma activities and were used by the teachers with 326 students selected from thesample of Phase 1 by purposive sampling. The results showed that the model for promoting the BDTcould obviously promote higher scores both in general and for all the specific areas.

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