The Comparison of the Effectiveness of the Behavioral Cognitive Play and Child-parent Interaction Based Play Application on Anger, Anxiety and Emotional Cognitive Regulation in Aggressive Students

The purpose of this research was to compare the effectiveness of the behavioral cognitive play and child- parent interaction based play application on anger and anxiety in aggressive students.

In this study, a quasi-experimental method (pretest-posttest with control group) was used. The sample of this study included 48 aggressive students (16 in experimental group 1 for behavioral cognitive play application, 16 in experimental group 2 or child- parent relationship based play application and 16 in the control group) who were selected by systematic sampling. Data gathering tools included the Nelson Anger Questionnaire, Spence Anxiety Questionnaire and Garnefski, and Kraaij’s Emotional Cognitive Adjustment Questionnaire. For data analysis, Multivariate analysis of covariance MANCOVA, ANCOVA and independent groups’ t-test were used.

Findings revealed that using behavioral cognitive play and parent-child interaction based play reduced anger, anxiety, negative emotional cognitive regulation, and increased positive emotional cognitive regulation in aggressive students in the experimental groups (1) and (2) in comparison with the control group. It was found that the effectiveness of behavioral cognitive play and parent-child interaction based play on reducing anger, anxiety, negative emotional cognitive regulation, and increasing positive emotional cognitive regulation in aggressive students were not the same.

To sum up, it can be stated that parent-child interaction based play is more effective compared to behavioral-cognitive play.