An evidence-based Programme Evaluation on the Effectiveness of Traditional Chinese Martial Arts Training in Reducing Schoolchildren Aggression

Description

Aggressive behaviour and bullying in school has had a rapid increase, especially in Asian countries as shown in a recent study (Huang, Hong, & Espelage, 2012). It is an urgent task for educators to think of how to help and prevent schoolchildren from violence and victimization. Unfortunately, previous studies showed that existing anti-bullying programmes have reported poor treatment effects (Baldry & Farrington, 2004; Smith, Schneider, Smith, & Ananiadou, 2004). Moreover, all programmes were developed from the Western countries, which could not completely adopt it without modifications into the Chinese local context. It is really hard to find an indigenous effective prevention and intervention for reducing childhood aggression in Chinese society. Surprisingly, Japanese and Korean martial arts programmes such as Taekwondo, Karate, and Judo have been proved and shown to significantly reduce aggression for over the past three decades (Back & Kim, 1979). However, there has been no prior study on evaluating the effectiveness of traditional Chinese martial arts training (also known as Kung Fu or Guo Shu) as an intervention for reducing aggression among schoolchildren.Prevention is better than cure. Helping children with aggressive behaviour at young age is more important than when their aggression become stabilized at their teenage in secondary schools. Hence, the targets in this study are students in primary schools and would like to provide a positive and non-stigmatized Chinese martial arts training programme for them not only strengthen their physical health, but also reconstruct their cognition, affection, and behaviour in a socially acceptable way.Another research gap would be addressed in this study, is to identify the both subtypes of reactive and proactive aggression among schoolchildren. Based on pervious literature, aggression divided into two subtypes: reactive and proactive have been well proved (Dodge & Coie, 1987; Fontaine, 2006; Cima & Raine, 2009; Fung, Raine, & Gao, 2009) for over two decades. Reactive aggressors are characterized as impulsive and oversensitive, and described as hot-tempered, anger-driven and emotional aggressors (Raine et al., 2006). Proactive aggressors are seen as intentional, goal-oriented bullies who feel no empathy for their victims and are described as instrumental, cold-blooded aggressors (Brendgen et al., 2006).Yet, no specific intervention has been developed for both subtypes. It is a main reason that previous school anti-bullying programmes were not efficacious, due to the over-simplistic categorization of the schoolchildren involved as bullies or victims.This study aims at developing and providing a scientific, evidence-based evaluation of the effectiveness of a localized Chinese martial ethic and skill training programme for preventing and intervening young children with reactive and proactive aggression in schools. For children with reactive aggression, their levels of hostile attributional bias, impulsivity, and anger arousal will be finally decreased, while their emotional regulation will be increased. For those with proactive aggression, their levels of callous-unemotional traits and narcissism, representing interpersonal and affective domains of psychopathy, will be reduced respectively; whereas, their empathic competence is expected to increase (Lee, Vincent, Hart, & Corrado, 2003). This study has a longitudinal experimental research design that will compare outcomes among five groups, including two control groups (no treatment; physical activities only) and three experimental groups (martial ethics training only; martial skills training only; both martial skills and ethics training) at four time points of baseline (Time 1), mid-treatment (Time 2), end of treatment (Time 3) and 12 months post-treatment (Time 4).