Effectiveness of peace education on personal growth initiative increase in middle school students

Background: Action for personal growth is a complex structure that consists of various dimensions and due to the multidimensional nature of peace education, examining its impact on increasing action for personal growth is the main issue of the present study that no research has been done in this field. Aims: The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of peace education on the Personal Growth Initiative of junior middle school students. Methods: The method of the present study was quasi-experimental with a pretest-posttest design with a control group. To conduct the research, among all the male middle school students in District 3 of Tehran who were studying in the academic year 2009-2010; 60 people were selected as a sample through multi-stage random sampling and They were randomly divided into experimental (n = 30) and control (n = 30) groups. The students in the experimental group were then trained in peace in 8 sessions of 2 hours in 8 weeks. The instrument used in the study was the Personal Growth Initiative Questionnaire (PGIQ) Which were performed in three stages of pre-test, post-test and follow-up (two months) in both experimental and control groups and were analyzed using mixed design analysis method in SPSS software. Results: In the developed model, the implementation of peace education in comparison with the control group, the components of action for personal growth were significant at the level of 0.01%.Due to the significant impact of peace education on action for students' personal growth, this method can be used in their academic success. Conclusion: Due to the significant effect of peace education on students' Personal Growth Initiative, this method can be used in their academic success.