• Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.371-389
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to investigate how the noble eight fold oriented meditation activities(NEFOM) interacts with young children's development of morality and sociability. This research has 56 participants aged 5 with a control group of 28 young children and another group with 28 kids. The instrument is a meditation program consisted with 10 training sessions; the noble eight fold was intensively applied and encouraged the participants to think of the behaviors that are desired in this theoretical framework. For the purpose, the research questions are as follows: First, are there effects of NEFOM on the morality of preschoolers. Second, are there effects of NEFOM on the sociality of preschooler. Main findings of this study can be summarized as follows: First, NEFOM can improve preschoolers' morality in a sense of making a decision based upon its right and wrong in intentions, rather than immediate gain and loss as a consequence of their actions. Second, NEFOM can facilitate sociability by providing some opportunities to feel joy, happiness, tranquility, and hopeful emotions, instead of negative feelings of depression, stress, and aggressiveness. Furthermore, it can suggest concrete behavioral directions for them. To summarize, the meditation activities designed by the eight principles of the noble eight fold have strong educational potential to facilitate seeking the foundations of mindsets and thus have positive impacts on young children's morality and sociability by encouraging them to think through the principles and concrete directions for the behaviors.