Effects of training on pupils' social skills

Research in Education, May 2003 by Manger, Terje, Eikeland, Ole-Johan, Asbjornsen, Arve

The study examined the effects of social-cognitive training in school on fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds' social skills, assessed by scales derived from the Social Skills Rating System. Both self-ratings and teacher ratings of self-control, co-operation and assertion failed to reveal any significant improvement in trained subjects relative to nontrained subjects. As social skills or social competence training is introduced in several countries it is important to examine which skills will benefit from the programme and which skills are resistant to change.

Key word Social-cognitive training.

Introduction

Over the last twenty years there has been an expansion of intervention programmes aimed to increase pupils' social skills or social competence. Much of the expansion has come in the United States and Canada, but also schools in Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, the Scandinavian countries, and several other European countries have introduced the programmes (e.g. Beelmann et al., 1994; Schneider, 1992).

Social skills or social competence training programmes in schools have, however, an uneven record of success. Several studies show that assessments of competence fail to reveal any significant improvement in performance (e.g. Dawson and Spitzberg, 19871; Thompson et al., 1996) and that there are major fluctuations across various intervention techniques and client groups (e.g. Schneider, 1992). In their meta-analysis Beelmann et al. (1994) found that there were few effects on broader constructs (e.g. social adjustment), but significant effect sizes were found when direct goal criteria (e.g. social-cognitive skills) were evaluated. Their data show that the effects of social competence training vary across type of programme, age groups and pupil characteristics. Programmes with a high degree of complexity (multi-modal programmes) are particularly favourable for twelve- to fifteen-year-olds, while less complex programmes (monomodal programmes) have a strong impact on pre-school-age children, for whom multimodal programmes are less effective.

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effects of a multi-modal school-based social-cognitive training programme on fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds' social skills, as assessed by self-ratings (pupils) and teacher ratings. Recognition of the importance of assessing social skills has given rise to a number of rating scales with the aim of rating children's and adolescents' social skills or social competence. In their comparative evaluation of six published rating scales Demaray et al. (1995) concluded that the most comprehensive instrument is the Social Skills Rating System (Gresham and Elliott, 1990) because of its multi-source approach, intervention linkage and overall strong reliability and validity. In the present study the dimensions which are included in both the SSRS Student version and the SSRS Teacher version co-operation, assertion and self-control - were the main focus. The fourth dimension in the SSRS Student version, empathy, was included in a separate study. Significant shifts in the direction of higher empathy were found for trained pupils but not for non-trained pupils (Manger et al., 2001).

Multimodal social skills training programmes aim to increase pupils' general problem-solving ability in social situations, and the training includes increasing contrasting behaviours like assertiveness and self-control. The effects of training on specific skills like assertion and self-control, are, however, mostly studied within monomodal programmes. Pupils who behave assertively are showing 'self-expression through which one stands up for his or her own human rights without violating the basic human rights of others' (Kelley, 1979, p. 2). Thompson et al. (1996) found that trained pupils in fifth-grade elementary school acquired the symbolic basis of assertive behaviour significantly better than control pupils. In role-play situations, however, trained subjects did not have better post-test scores than control pupils. The authors suggest that an 'assertiveness curriculum should include ample practice in a variety of specific situations typical to daily adolescent encounters in order to facilitate the assertive response to these situations in daily life' (p. 518).

Thompson et al. (1996) found that boys and girls benefited similarly from the assertiveness training programme, while Beelmann et al. (1994) summarised that sex-related conclusions were difficult to draw. The authors supported tentatively, however, Crombie's (1988, cited in Beelmann et al., 1994) statement that it should be more difficult to increase boys' social competence, owing to sex-specific differences in, for example, developmental level and intrinsic motivation.

Self-control is a general skill or 'sets of behaviours needed in order to maintain goal-directed behaviour' (Rosenbaum and Baker, 1984) but also a skill that inhibits aggression and antisocial activity (Normandeau and Guay, 1998). Within social-cognitive training the latter aspect of self-control is emphasised. According to Boren et al. (1987) mastery of self-control occurs when children identify a goal and confidently manage their behaviour to accomplish their purpose. Self-control strategy training has proved effective in improving the self-control of disabled children (e.g. Morrow and Presswood, 1984), and positive effects of self-control training on externalising behaviour have also been found (Baer and Nietzel, 1991; Beelmann et al., 1994). However, the research base is too limited to allow an evaluation of the effect of self-control training as part of multimodal social competence training programmes. In their meta-analysis Beelmann et al. found no significant gender differences in effects on self-control, and several other categories also produced non-significant differences for gender groups.