The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether certain leader variables contribute to the efficacy of children's social skills training (SST). Trainees were 59 grades 3, 4, and 5 boys chosen from a sample of 944 children who were identified as high on aggression using the Revised Class Play. Twelve male social skills leaders participated in the study. Leaders were third- and fourth-year undergraduate students (2 in criminology and 10 in psychology) who were selected from 39 volunteers based on sociability and hostility scores. Twelve groups of trainees (4 to 6 trainees per group) participated in 10 sessions of SST. Outcome measures included post-treatment scores from the Social Skills Training Mastery Test, pre- and post-treatment scores of aggression and sociability from the Revised Class Play, and pre- and post-treatment scores of self-control from the Social Skills Rating System-Student Form. Leaders completed the Interpersonal Behavior Survey, the Interpersonal Style Inventory, and the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised to obtain scores on various leader variables including empathy, sociability, hostility, and self-confidence. Leader in-session variables (including warmth, enthusiasm, and quality of feedback) were coded from video-taped SST sessions using the Modified McDaniel Observer Rating System. Children in groups led by leaders high and low on hostility, sociability, and quality of feedback did not differ significantly on outcome measures. While these results may suggest that therapist variables are less important in structured interventions such as children's SST, it is also possible that a more powerful study using more groups and investigating only a few therapist variables might have produced significant results. Implications of the results were discussed with reference to the limitations of the design of this study, and suggestions for future research were noted.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/4520 |
| Date | January 1997 |
| Creators | McCendie, Richard R. |
| Contributors | Ledingham, J., |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 188 p. |
Page generated in 0.3151 seconds