The effect of the social skill training program on social skill levels of the 3rd grade students

This research was carried out to assign the effect of social skills training program on social skills level of 3rd grade students and to establish whether the social skill levels of the students attending the 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade of primary school differ according to gender and family variables. Research group consists 180 students who were attending 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade of Maltepe District Istanbul Private Istanbul Medeniyet Primary School at 2018-2019 school year. The Personal Information Form developed by the school guidance unit was used to assign the demographic characteristics of the students and the Social Skill Scale prepared by Kocayörük (2000) was used to assign the social skill levels of the students. The research is an experimental study with pretest and post-test control groups. Among the 20 students with the lowest scores from the applied scale, 10 experimental groups were randomly assigned to 10 control groups. Social Skills Training Program was applied to the experimental group for 45 minutes for 8 weeks and no procedure was applied for the control group. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 23. IBM) software was used in the analysis of the data. In the study, p value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. As a consequence of the research, it was found that while there was no difference in social skill levels of the students in the control group, the social skill levels of the students in the experimental group were different. In other words, it was found that Social Skills Training Program significantly increased students' social skills levels. In addition, it was found that variable of gender and the living with family elders did not have a significant effect on the social skill level, but it was found that parents' education level and family income level had a significant effect.