An evaluation of a school based social competence program

• Main Author: Savoie, Lynn A.
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/13428

The purpose of this study was to evaluate a new social competence program used in elementary school classrooms. The program was designed to enhance students' emotional resiliency by teaching information and knowledge related to diversity, peer competence, social problem solving, assertiveness, stress and coping and seeking social support. The students who participated in the study were 281 students who attended four elementary schools in a large, urban school district in British Columbia. The students were forty-nine percent boys and fifty-one percent girls, ranged in age from 11-13, were in grades six and seven, and their ethnic background was predominantly Asian. The program was evaluated using a repeated measures design, with systematically (non-random) assigned treatment and control groups. The measures used to evaluate the program included Harters Self Perception Profile for Children, The Class Belonging and Support Scale, The Coping Responses Inventory and several locally developed checklists. The results demonstrated that students who received the program improved in their feelings of social acceptance (p < .005), their ability to generate friend making strategies (p < .005), and their knowledge of local resources (p < .005). Their were no differences between the students' ability to generate coping techniques, feelings of belonging in the classroom, general and behavioral self competence and ability to generate more sources of social support. The results are discussed in relation to changes that need to be made to this specific program, the evaluation of this program, and implications for future school-based social competence programs. === Education, Faculty of === Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of === Graduate