Developing Communicative Action Skills in Sunday School Students: Extracurricular Education Programs

The cultivation of interpersonal communicative skills represents one of the pivotal objectives within contemporary pedagogical paradigms. This research developed, tested, and evaluated three extracurricular education programs aimed at developing communicative action skills in Sunday school students against the landscape of integrated secular and religious education. The empirical base included 302 students aged 8 to 16 years (M = 11.80; SD = 2.41). They were distributed into age groups: 8–10 years (n = 104; M = 9.1; SD = 0.6), 11–13 years (n = 118; M = 12.0; SD = 0.8), and 14–16 years (n = 80; M = 15.0; SD = 0.8). The experiment also featured 74 Sunday school teachers (M = 41.2; SD = 7.1), of whom 13 were clergy (M = 42.5; SD = 6.8). The methodology involved questionnaires, observation, semi-structured interviews, content analysis of essays, and expert assessment of group interaction. Three extracurricular programs were implemented by age groups. They exploited project forms, role-playing games, and academic events, as well as such digital platforms as Moodle, Sferum, and Nextcloud. The participants demonstrated a high level of communicative actions, which increased from 14.8% to 31.7%. The proportion of students with poorly developed communicative skills decreased from 58.0% to 22.5%. The students also improved their speech activity and empathy. While clarifying the terminology related to communicative skills, competences, and actions, the authors developed a diagnostic system of criteria and indicators adapted to the conditions of extracurricular religious education. The programs can be realized in Sunday schools as a tool for the targeted formation of communicative skills.