The effectiveness of leisure education and classroom recreation participation on social and communication skills, community living skills, and problem behaviors of students with mental retardation

This study employed a triangulated mixed quantitative-qualitative design to examine the effectiveness of leisure education and classroom recreation participation on social and communications skills, community living skills, and problem behaviors of students with mild and moderate mental retardation. The quantitative portion of the study employed a quasi-experimental pre- post-test with a control group and randomization design. Forty-eight elementary school students with mild and moderate mental retardation (29 males, 19 females) participated in the study. Experimental group A (n = 17) received 12 weeks of leisure education, Experimental group B (n = 16) received 12 weeks of classroom recreation, and the Control group (Group C: n = 15) received no intervention.;The dependent variables, social and communication skills, community living skills, and problem behaviors, were measured using the Inventory for Client and Agency Planning (Bruininks, et. al., 1986) which was administered to the teachers as a pretest and posttest. Quantitative data was analyzed with a Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance which used the pre- to post-test difference scores as the dependent variables.;The qualitative examination consisted of observations of students once each week during the one-hour intervention sessions and in other school settings, as well as semi-structured interviews with teachers and parents after the intervention. Analysis of observation data occurred during the data collection phase and was a process of categorizing behaviors observed and recorded in the field notes and using enumeration strategies to tally the number of times specific behaviors were observed. The researcher taped and transcribed the interviews and searched for themes consistent with the dependent variables.;Krukal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance and observations revealed no significant differences in the three groups (leisure education, classroom recreation participation, control) from pretest to posttest in social and communication skills, community living skills, or problem behaviors. However, interview data indicated an increase in social and communication skills and a reduction in problem behaviors over the 12 weeks in both the leisure education and classroom recreation participation groups. These findings provide limited support that educational outcomes can be enhanced in elementary school students with mild and moderate mental retardation within the context of leisure education and recreation participation.