The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of small group cooking activity on prosocial behavior and peer competence of 5-year-old infants.
In this study, 42 children aged 5 years old in A kindergarten in Daegu city were selected for the study. Of these, 21 were randomly assigned to the experimental group and 21 were randomly assigned to the comparative group. The experimental group conducted a small group cooking activity program and the comparative group conducted an individual activity cooking program. Each program consisted of 14 sessions, with 50 minutes of activity per session.
In order to measure prosocial behavior of young children, the skill situations measure of McGinnis and Goldstein(1990) was used by Lee won-young, Park chan-ok and Noh young-hee(1993).
Peer competence measures developed by Park ju-hee and Lee eun-hae(2001) were used to measure the peer competence of infants.
Data analysis of prosocial behaviors and peer competences were conducted with a MANCOVA, a paired t-test to determine the difference in scores before and after the experiment.

The research results are as follows.
1. There was a significant difference in the prosocial behaviors of infants between the experimental group that conducted the small group cooking activity program and the comparative group that performed the individual activity cooking program.
2. There was a significant difference in the peer competence of infants between the experimental group that performed the small group cooking activity program and the comparative group that performed the individual activity cooking program.
Based on the findings, the small-group cooking program developed in this study proved effective in promoting prosocial behavior and peer competence in 5 year olds.
Therefore, organizing small group cooking activities in early childhood institutions and working with young children means that they can help to improve prosocial behavior and peer competence.