Impacts of a Cognitive Behavioral Approach Based Social Skills Training on the Social Skills of Freshman Students

Abstract

The present study aims to examine the impacts of CBT-based social skills training on the social skill levels of university freshmen. The sample of the study was comprised of 131 first year university students including experimental design with pre-test, post-test, and follow-up test with the control group. Social Skills Inventory (SSI) was applied to these 131 students and 20 students with scores below the standard deviation of the average were included in the study. The students were randomly assigned to the experiment and control groups in equal numbers. Mann-Whitney U Test, the Friedman test, and Wilcoxon Marked Rank Test was used. According to the results of this research, the SSI scores of the students in the CBT-based social skills group showed a significant increase after the social skills training and the effect of this increase continued in the follow-up study. An increase in the post-test scores of students in the control group received from SSI was also observed, and it was concluded that this increase was not statistically significant. As a result, it has been revealed that social skills training based on CBT is effective in increasing the social skill levels of first year university students.