Enhancing National Identity and Self-Concept among Students with Mild Intellectual Disability: The Effectiveness of an Extracurricular Activities-Based Program

National identity has received little empirical attention among students with mild intellectual disability, despite growing recognition that self-concept and identity development shape their educational and psychosocial outcomes. This pilot study explored changes in national identity and self-concept following a twelve-week extracurricular activities-based program in this population. A single-group, pre-test, post-test, and follow-up exploratory design was employed with seven students with mild intellectual disability from three schools in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, assessed at pre-test, post-test, and one-month follow-up using the National Identity Scale and Self-Concept Scale, both preliminarily validated on an independent psychometric sample (n = 45). Given the small sample and ordinal data, Friedman and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were used for analysis, and results were interpreted against a Bonferroni-adjusted threshold (? = .0056). Scores were higher at post-test across all dimensions of national identity and self-concept, but the pre-test to post-test Wilcoxon comparisons (p = .016 to .028) were significant only at the uncorrected level; none met the corrected threshold, which cannot be reached with seven participants (minimum exact two-sided p = .0156). Seven of the nine Friedman tests remained significant after correction. Total national identity scores nearly tripled and total self-concept scores more than tripled between pre-test and post-test, and follow-up scores remained descriptively above baseline, although maintenance cannot be established statistically. These findings are exploratory. Because the study had a very small sample, no control group, and an unblinded assessor, the changes cannot be attributed to the program, and demand characteristics and overlap between program content and scale items may have contributed. The study offers preliminary, hypothesis-generating data and underscores the need for larger, controlled studies with independent assessors to establish effectiveness and generalizability. Received: 12 August 2026 / Accepted: 17 October 2026 / Published: November 2026