Abstract
During the social process of the preschool period, the aim is to enable children to gain social skills which will help them to adapt to the classroom, and prepare them for their social life. Benefiting from cooperative teaching methods in the development of social skills supports children's interactions with each other. The carrying out of group work with new and different approaches, which incorporate collaboration in the activities, is significant for the development of the social skills and peer interactions of children. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to analyze the effect of collaborative learning with group mind mapping about social skills-related themes on the social skills performance of 60-72-month-old preschoolers. The Social Skills Assessment Scale was used as the data gathering tool in the research. A total of 35 children were included in the study as follows: 18 children in the working group and 17 children in the control group. Children carried out 5 large group mind mapping activities and 19 small group mind mapping activities by creating one mind map each week. In the study, it was concluded that mind mapping activities related to social skills have an effect on the development of the social skills of preschoolers.