Changes in Discipline and Responsibility of Children Aged 5-6 Years after the Implementation of PING in Seroja Kindergarten

Abstract

Character development in early childhood requires habituation that is consistently integrated into children's daily learning experiences. One context that provides repeated opportunities to practice discipline and responsibility is the transition between learning activities. This study aimed to examine changes in discipline and responsibility among children aged 5–6 years following the implementation of the PING Habituation Model. PING is a structured habituation model consisting of three phases: Pre-Class Greeting, which prepares children to participate in learning; Inter-Class Transition Greeting, which guides children to stop previous activities, follow instructions, organize their belongings, and move orderly to the next activity; and End-Day Closing Greeting, which habituates children to complete activities and leave the learning environment in an orderly and responsible manner. The study employed a quantitative approach with a one-group pretest–posttest design involving 15 children aged 5–6 years. Data were collected through behavioral observation, daily implementation monitoring, teacher interviews, and documentation. The model was implemented for 34 days, with an overall implementation rate of 97.1%. The mean discipline score increased from 7.60 to 13.87, while the mean responsibility score increased from 7.67 to 13.07. The Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test showed significant differences between pretest and posttest scores for both discipline and responsibility (p = 0.0005). The findings indicate that the implementation of the PING Habituation Model was accompanied by improvements in children's discipline and responsibility, particularly through repeated and contextualized routines during learning transitions. Given the absence of a control group, these findings should be interpreted as evidence of pretest–posttest change rather than definitive causal effectiveness.