The Effectiveness of Social-Emotional Skills Training on Behavioral Disorders and Academic Performance of Female Students

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of YCDI (You Can Do It) socio-emotional skills training on behavioral disorders and academic performance of students.  

The research method was quasi-experimental with pretest-posttest design with control group. The statistical population of this study consisted of 40 female students in the 1st district of Tehran who were in the eighth grade in the academic year 2017-18. Sampling was done using available sampling method. Then, two schools were randomly selected from among the schools in this area and 40 eighth grade students who used the Social Behavioral Blackness Form (CBCL) on the Achenbach and Blackbeard tests using the social skills tests of Inderbitzen and Foster (1992). The Pham and Taylor (1999) Academic Performance Questionnaire was identified and randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups, and the experimental group was trained in eleven sessions of socio-emotional skills using the YCDI method. The analysis of covariance was performed at the significant level 0.05 using spss21 software.  

The results of analysis of covariance showed that YCDI educational intervention reduced behavioral disorders and increased academic performance (P <0.001). Also, among the components of academic performance, socio-emotional skills training had the highest effect on motivation and the least effect on emotional effect and lack of outcome control.  

In addition to teaching cognitive skills to teachers, students should also be trained in social-emotional skills.