Comparing children's self-esteem levels in Montessori versus traditional schools : an honors thesis (HONRS 499)

Abstract

This study has two main purposes. The first purpose is to investigate the impact of the Montessori method on one component of socio-emotive growth: self-esteem. Another purpose is to better educate parents, teachers, and potential readers of this thesis, about the impact of a different method of education, in this case Montessori. Participants were 10- to 12 year-old children attending either traditional (n=16) or Montessori (n=20) schools. The Culture-Free Self-Esteem Inventory Form B (Battle, 1992) was completed by the children in order to measure levels of self-esteem. The results support the hypotheses that children who attend Montessori schools have higher levels of self-esteem than children who attend traditional schools. Limitations to this study as well as a call for more research will also be discovered.