Investigation of the Relationship between Academic Competencies and Social Information Processing of 60–72 Month-Old Children

Abstract

Starting from the preschool period, children need to grow up as individuals with high academic skills, academic enablers and respond positively to their social situations. Academic skills and academic enablers together constitute academic competence. The positive reaction of children to the problems they face constitutes social information processing. This study aimed to examine the relationship between the academic competencies of 60–72-month-old children and their social information processing. The study was designed with the relational survey method. The study group consisted of 132 children aged 60–72 months with normal development who attend preschool education. The data collection tools of the study are as follows: Personal Information Form, The Social Information Processing Interview–Preschool Version, and Teacher Rating Scales of Early Academic Competence. Spearman's rank-order correlation test was used to evaluate the relationship between the scales. The findings of the study revealed that there is a relationship between the interpretation of cues and response decision, which are subdimensions of the social information processing model, academic skills (numeracy, early literacy, thinking skills, and comprehension) and academic enablers (social-emotional competence, approaches to learning, and communication).