<![CDATA[Purpose of the study: This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of Respectful Mind Based Sociodrama Group Guidance in enhancing junior high school students' interpersonal communication. It also explored how integrating the Respectful Mind concept strengthens sociodrama as a theoretically grounded group guidance intervention for developing students' interpersonal communication skills. Methodology: This study employed a quasi-experimental one-group pretest-posttest design involving 40 junior high school science students selected through convenience sampling from four public schools in Bantul Regency, Indonesia. The intervention consisted of five 90 minute Respectful Mind Based Sociodrama Group Guidance sessions. Data were collected using a validated interpersonal communication scale and analyzed through the Shapiro-Wilk normality test and paired-samples t-test using IBM SPSS Statistics. Main Findings: The findings revealed a significant improvement in students' interpersonal communication following the intervention. The mean score increased from 96.33 at pretest to 134.08 at posttest. The paired samples t-test indicated a statistically significant difference between pretest and posttest scores (p < .001), demonstrating that the intervention effectively enhanced students' interpersonal communication. Novelty/Originality of this study: This study extends previous sociodrama research by integrating the Respectful Mind framework into group guidance, providing a theoretical explanation of how reflective role enactment, empathy, perspective taking, and respect for diversity facilitate the development of interpersonal communication. However, the findings should be interpreted with caution because the study employed a one group pretest-posttest design and a relatively small convenience sample, which may limit the generalizability of the results.]]>
