The University as a Space for Developing Social Competence: Dimensions of Student Development and SWOT Analysis

The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between four to five year old children’s social competence levels and their ability to communicate with their mothers. Social competence has an important role in developing positive relationships in children's lives. One of the most important factors in the development of social competence in children is the communication they have with their mothers. In the study, one of the general survey models, “relational survey model” was used. The study group consisted of 323 children attending public kindergartens in Istanbul. General Information Form, Social Competence and Behavior Assessment Scale and Parent-Child Communication Assessment Tool were used as data collection tools. In the analysis of the data, descriptive statistics were calculated via examining the data distribution. In order to determine the relationships between preschool children's mothers’ communication and social competence, Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated. At the end of the study, it was observed that children’s social competence average was high, and the mean of inward and outward oriented problems were close and low. Besides, there was a negative and high-level correlation between total social competence scores and inward oriented and outward oriented problems. Considering mothers’ communication with their children, there was a positive and high-level relationship between the empathy and speech dimensions. While there was no significant relationship between the total scores of children's social competence levels and their relationship with their mothers, some significant relationships were determined regarding sub-dimensions. These results of the present study show that mothers’ communication skills such as empathy, speaking, listening and conveying messages are effective in increasing children's social competence skills and reduce behavioral problems.

Baccalaureate occupational therapy students' development of social and emotional competencies

The article substantiates the peculiarities of the development of social competence of students in school education in the Czech Republic. Different methods of scientific research were used: the study of scientific research on the development of social competence of students in school education - to identify the factors of the development of social competence; analysis, generalization, systematization of psychological and pedagogical literature - to determine the theoretical and methodological principles and main approaches to solving the specified problem, definitional analysis of the concept of «social competence»; inductive-deductive methods and the method of generalization - to determine the features of the development of social competence of students in school education; systematization - to identify areas of educational activity in schools that contribute to the development of social competences of schoolchildren. It was determined that in the school education system in the Czech Republic, it is special to take into account the opportunities for the development of social skills and competencies of a social nature, which are key competencies that determine specific educational goals and tasks in the context of educational programs. School, education, upbringing, education, and socialization are interrelated concepts. Levels and general prerequisites for the development of social skills are proposed: personality development in the conditions of the natural and educational environment of the school, communication, and interaction with the environment based on interpersonal relations and relationships. It is emphasized that an important aspect of understanding social competence is its relationship with a person's moral development. Adaptation to a specific social environment cannot be a criterion of personal effectiveness. It was concluded that the development of social competence of students in the school educational environment involves the design of the content and deployment in the educational process of socially significant situations that set the social context of the future life and activities of students and that have educational potential.

The article deals with some productive approaches to studying the development of social competency of water transport workers on the personality level in the process of continuous professional education and professional activity. It has been ascertained that social competency of water transport specialists is an important factor of forming some successful models of realizing professionalism, professional institutions and other elements of the market procedure, and social aspects in the structures of productive coordination become a social constructing object on the side of professional groups themselves, which requires understanding these processes and working out a model of analysis and construction of strategies of the development of professional groups social competency and its approval. On the basis of the sociological concept of social collective coordination, a connection of fixing the role personality self-identification in social practices in the contexts of influences of their realization technologies is established. Some principal factors of making influence on the development of social competency in the course of effective professional activity and the availability of society’s purposeful influence on personality by means of socio-cultural surroundings, in which personality continues and develops professionally and socially, determined. The results of research interviewing of acting sea transport experts are presented. Some sociological characteristics of social competency of water transport specialists are made more exact by means of the qualitative investigation of the factors of this expert group social coordination. According to the expert interview with sea transport specialists, four groups of basic competencies of a water transport specialist, connected with the efficiency of labour activities, are determined: professional training; disciplined state; command work skills; loyalty to an employer’s company. On the basis of the analysis of the received data, some structural components of the water transport specialist’s competency are distinguished; they are connected with attitude to administrative authorities, management or subordination; with tolerance; with moral aspects of the crew coordination actualizing the aspects of moral competency and mutual confidence; with communicative and interactive aspects of the crew cooperation. According to the data of the author’s research interviews, a connection of activation of the processes of the expert personality’s socio-professional self-identification with the social and professional surroundings and increasing the level of his social and value adaptation in the environment with the social competency level is established. The availability of steady features, reflecting the demands of water transport specialists to the sea profession, regardless of a speciality (moral maturity, sociability and comradeship, firmness to stresses, behaviour normativeness, courage, self-control, adequate self-apprisal) is discovered. The necessity of working up adaptive and communicative components of social competence in small professional groups in the conditions of the closed surroundings and development is proved.

Early childhood is a crucial period for the development of social and emotional competencies. Researchers point out that teachers need to have a high level of social and emotional competencies to enhance these competencies in their students but the number of programs to promote these competencies in pre-service teachers is small. The objective of this study was to design, conduct and evaluate an intervention to promote social and emotional competencies in pre-service early childhood education teachers. The study used a non-randomized pre-test, post-test intervention-control design. The intervention included competencies such as emotional awareness and understanding, emotional management, social competence and responsible decision making. Results showed that the level of social and emotional competencies increased after the program, although statistically significant differences between the intervention and control group were found only in some dimensions. It is recommended to include similar programs in pre-service and in-service teacher education in general.

The process of formation and development of social and communicative competence of students in the process of studying the discipline "Psychology of social communications" is considered. The role of humanitarian academic disciplines in the process of formation and development of social and communicative competence of students is emphasized. The essence of "social and communicative competence" is analyzed. The components that make up this competence are discussed in detail. It is emphasized that the most effective way to form social and communicative competence can be directly at the university in the process of professional training. The conditions for the effective formation and development of this competence are listed. It is concluded that students in the humanities have a higher level of formation of social and communicative competence, since their curriculum includes disciplines of the socio-psychological cycle, aimed the formation of competencies included in the researched competence. It is noted that in the curricula of technical specialties, developed on the basis of Federal State Educational Standard 3 ++, many universities of the Russian Federation began to include disciplines of the social and humanitarian cycle, which make it possible to form social and communicative competence at a high level. The experience of the Samara State Technical University on the inclusion in the curriculum of all technical specialties the discipline "Psychology of social communications", aimed the formation and development of universal competencies, which are components of social and communicative competence. Methods and forms used by teachers in the process of teaching this discipline, contributing to an increase in the level of formation of social and communicative competence, are analyzed in detail. The urgency of the problem of the formation of social and communicative competence is noted. It is concluded that the discipline "Psychology of Social Communications" contributes to the effective formation and development of social and communicative competence of students of technical specialties.

This study compared levels of social competence and language development in 74 young children with hearing loss and 38 hearing peers aged 2.5-5.3 years. This study was the first to examine the relationship between oral language and social competence using a dynamic systems framework in children with and without hearing loss. We hypothesized that, due to deficits in oral language, children who were deaf would display lower levels of social competence than their hearing peers. Furthermore, language age would predict social competence scores. Social competence was measured with a general and deaf-specific measure. Results showed that children with hearing loss performed significantly worse than hearing peers on the general measure but better than the norms on the deaf-specific measure. Controlling for maternal education and income, regression analyses indicated that hearing status and language age predicted social competence in both groups. Among children with hearing loss, correlations were also found between age at diagnosis, age at amplification, and two of the general social competence measures. Results supported our hypothesis that deficits in language would have cascading negative effects on the development of social competence in young deaf children. Development of early intervention programs that target both language and social skills are needed for this population.

Purpose: To explore the association between participation and social competence for preschool aged children with and without disabilities. Methods: The sample was drawn from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (n = 4983) which included children aged 4–5 years reported to have hearing problems (n = 164), vision problems (n = 146) and other physical disabilities (n = 114). Chi-square, correlation and logistic regression analyses were used to describe the participation and social competence of children with and without these conditions, as well as examine the association between these constructs. Results: Children with disabilities had similar levels of participation but lower social competence than children without these disabilities. Further analyses revealed a small negative correlation between the two variables (ranging from −0.120 to −0.300 for the three groups) and that children who have low participation are more likely to have abnormal levels of social competence than children with higher participation. Conclusions: The association between participation and social competence may not be as strong for this age group as anticipated in the literature, additional factors may be influential. Examination of the social competence scores identified two factors which may assist in explaining the variance in scores: (1) the experience of disability and (2) the quality of interactions.Implications for RehabilitationChildren with disabilities who participate in similar activities to their typically developing peers may not necessarily develop commensurate levels of social competence.As well as focusing on increasing the participation of children in activities other factors that may have a stronger influence on social competence should be considered, such as supporting (1) the social experience of disability and (2) the quality of interactions that children with disabilities experience.

Students with General Learning Difficulties present low levels of social competence. In order to increase them, students participate in school psychological support programmes. There are no research data available in Greece regarding social competence in students with General Learning Difficulties in the first grades of elementary school. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the efficiency of an intervention programme, which focused on strengthening their social competence, in the first grades of primary school. The levels of social competence of the students were evaluated before and after the implementation of an 8‐month social empowerment programme, following a mixed‐methods approach with the use of semi‐structured interviews and observation in the school context. The participants were 21 students with General Learning Difficulties, 18 education professionals, whose classes the 21 students attended, together with the 21 parents of these students (one parent per student). The results showed that the social competence of the participants was low before and that it increased after their participation in the intervention programme. In addition, girls had higher social competence than boys both before and after their participation in the intervention programme. These results highlight the benefits of classroom intervention programmes for children with General Learning Difficulties.

For some youth, early puberty is accompanied by peer exclusion. Yet early developers may experience less peer exclusion if they have social competence, which would bolster their ability to develop and maintain positive relationships with their peers. Accordingly, the present study tests whether pubertal timing and tempo predicts decrements in children's social competence and whether decrements in social competence account for associations between puberty (timing and tempo) and peer exclusion over time. Longitudinal data were drawn from 1364 families (48% female; 76% White; M = 9.32 years, SD = .48, at Wave 3) who participated in Waves 3-5 (i.e., grades 4-6) of Phase III of the NICHD-SECCYD. The results from latent growth curve models indicated that earlier pubertal timing and more rapid pubertal tempo among girls were associated with high initial levels of peer exclusion. Moreover, mediation analyses revealed that early developers' susceptibility to peer exclusion was associated with their initial level of social competence. In boys, pubertal timing and tempo were not directly associated with peer exclusion; instead, indirect effects of pubertal timing on peer exclusion (intercept, slope) occurred through initial levels of social competence. On average, early developers' who had low levels of social competence also had high initial levels of peer exclusion but experienced decrements in peer exclusion over time. The association between the intercepts for puberty and peer exclusion and the slopes for social competence and peer exclusion were stronger for boys than girls. Overall, our findings suggest that early developers' susceptibility to and experiences of peer exclusion are associated with their development of social competence.

Research is well established to indicate that the presence of competencies reflecting social and emotional learning is beneficial to students (and teachers) as they seek success in their academic development as well as life within the community (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning [CASEL], 2008; Durlak, Domitrovich, Weissberg, and Gullotta, 2015). The benefits of implementing programs schoolwide are also well documented (Brackett a Rivers, 2011; Zins et al., 2004). There are also well-researched indications that the implementation of a positive behaviour program such as Schoolwide Positive Behaviour Support provides students with a framework of behavioural expectations and support that helps to minimise negative behavioural incidences, which are distractions from learning (Sugai et al., 2010). It follows that the simultaneous implementation of both a positive behaviour program and a social and emotional learning program would maximise the opportunities for students to develop those skills required to be successful in academic learning and daily life. This thesis, grounded in the literature of social and emotional learning and positive behaviour support presents successful strategies used to teach social and emotional learning competencies in two environments, School A and School B. A key and common feature of the chosen schools is that they both implemented Schoolwide Positive Behaviour Support. School A also implemented the schoolwide social and emotional learning program You Can Do It! Education. School B mainly taught these skills to students on a perceived needs basis, as identified by their teachers. To identify the successful strategies, three case studies were conducted involving six teachers, three from each of Schools A and B. The teachers who participated in the study were nominated by either the Principal or the Deputy Principal of the relevant school and were representative of the upper, middle and lower primary. Case Study One included two Year 6 (upper primary) teachers, one from each school. Similarly, Case Study Two included two Year 4 (middle primary) teachers and Case Study Three included two Year 2 (lower primary) teachers. The teaching participants in this study, as well as the administration members from both schools, were interviewed to identify their understandings and implementation of the internationally accepted social and emotional learning competencies as documented by CASEL. Teaching participants were also observed in their classrooms. Studentsr development of social and emotional learning skills, as perceived by their teachers, were recorded through completion of a survey at both the commencement and conclusion of the study. Behavioural documentation relating to office discipline referrals and student disciplinary absences were reviewed by the researcher for each of the participating teachersr classrooms. As well, a focus group of four students from each of the classes involved in this study were interviewed. However, because of difficulties initiating discussion from the younger students, only the data collected from Year 6 students were included in the study. Administration and teacher interviews, classroom observations, surveys completed by teachers to reflect their perceptions of their studentsr development of social and emotional learning competencies and behavioural documentation were reviewed to code data. Interviews were coded to identify perceived understandings and importance of social and emotional learning competencies, as well as intervieweesr perceptions of not only how they helped students develop each of the competencies, but also school/classroom changes. Transcripts of observations of teachers were coded to identify social and emotional learning language used in their classrooms and to measure classroom climate through the presence of respect in the classrooms, studentsr motivation and morale, and tone of the teacher. Other behaviours such as non-verbal communications were also identified. Teachersr perceptions of the development of their studentsr social and emotional learning competencies combined with records relating to behavioural infractions in their classrooms completed the coded data. From this the researcher ascertained emerging themes and successful strategies relating to the development of social and emotional learning competencies, as demonstrated by the teachers. To assist with this analysis, Year 6 focus group interviews were analysed to identify the studentsr understanding and use of language reflecting feelings, their ability to identify emotions appropriately and to provide possible solutions to situations with which they could be familiar at school to demonstrate development or otherwise of the relevant competencies. The overall finding from the present study was that in classrooms implementing the behaviour framework, Schoolwide Positive Behaviour Support, students develop more social and emotional learning competencies when there is also implementation of a schoolwide social and emotional learning program such as You Can Do It! Education. This strategy, the formal schoolwide teaching of social and emotional learning skills, over and above the implementation of Schoolwide Positive Behaviour Support: 1. facilitated more development of studentsr social and emotional learning competencies; 2. provided more opportunities for student learning because there were few student disruptions in classrooms where students demonstrated well developed social and emotional learning skills; 3. provided teachers and students with a common language; and 4. facilitated a school/classroom environment more conducive to learning. This thesis makes an important contribution to the research on student development of social and emotional learning competencies. The implementation of a schoolwide social and emotional learning program which addresses all the identified competencies of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision making gives students considerable opportunity to develop the required skills. However, additive benefits are evident when a schoolwide social and emotional learning program is implemented within a schoolwide behaviour framework. This study provides preliminary research which could be used to inform a more extensive study involving a wider range of classrooms and schools, in the future. e

This article presents the results from research into the development of social and intercultural competence in student teachers through peer assessment. The purpose of the study is to identify and describe the degree to which peer assessment can influence the development of competencies. Also, to formulate recommendations for the integration of peer assessment in the education of students towards the development of social and intercultural competence. The theoretical analysis is based on a review of the scientific literature on social and intercultural competence and peer assessment, and it is followed by a quantitative and qualitative analysis. Twenty-five students, training to be teachers at Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski", Faculty of pedagogy, participated in the study. Each of them wrote an essay on intercultural competence and each of the students reviewed three of their colleagues' essays. The research confirms that providing feedback helps the development of social and intercultural competence in two directions: students form skills for providing constructive feedback and criticism; and they develop their abilities for accepting feedback, reflecting on their strengths and weaknesses, which leads to striving for self-improvement. Another conclusion, based on the analysis is, that by providing detailed instructions prior to peer assessment, by organizing a subsequent discussion and reflection, students would improve their skills in providing feedback, constructive criticism, considering the ideas of others with respect, understanding different perspectives. Hence, the study confirms that peer assessment provides educational opportunities for the development of social and intercultural competence.

The aim of the research presented in the article was to recognize the level and diversity of social competences due to gender, age and length of stay of socially maladjusted youth staying in youth educational centers. The research was carried out using the diagnostic survey method using a standardized tool for testing social competences – the Skills Questionnaire (ART) by A. Goldstein.The research was conducted in 2019 and covered 530 pupils from 12 randomly selected speech-type rehabilitation institutions from Polish. The results obtained indicate that minors rate their social competences highly; they consider the ability to control stress, aggressive behavior and the skills associated with establishing and conducting a conversation to be the most developed. The lowest respondents rated their competences related to asking for help, apologizing, persuading, the ability to cooperate, following orders or providing feedback. There was no statistically significant relationship between the level of social competence and the age and length of stay of minors in speech. A significant variable differentiating social competences turned out to be gender. Girls rate their skills higher than boys.On this basis, recommendations were formulated that should be taken into account in resocialization practice when organizing educational interactions, i.e.: it is considered necessary to develop the social competences of pupils by organizing planned training in social skills outside the rehabilitation institution and independent, autonomous participation of pupils in natural life situations. More space should be left in rehabilitation for the development of youth's communication competences and motivation to cooperate with other people.

This study aims to analyze and describe the development of teacher’s social competency based on local wisdom at Al-Hilal Islamic Junior Secondary School in Tehoru Village. The values of local wisdom community in Central Maluku district was integrated in the development of teacher social competence. This study employed the qualitative approach. The data source consisted of primary and secondary data. The data were collected through observation, interview and documentation. The data were analyzed using interactive model of Miles and Huberman.The focuses of this study were: (1) the values of local community wisdom, (2) the integration of the local wisdom values in the development of teacher’s social competence, (3) supporting and inhibiting factors in the development of teacher-based social competence of local wisdom. The study reveals three findings. First, the local wisdom value of the people of Central Maluku is Hidop orang basudara which has philosophical value of ale rasa beta rasa, sagu salempeng pata dua, potong di kuku rasa di daging. The values are implemented in societal life like ;masohi, badati, maano. There are also some belief symbols which is convinced by the society like batu kramat. Second, the values of local wisdom in the development of teacher social competence at Al-Hilal Islamic Junior Secondary School in Tehoru village refer to the values of social attitudes and social systems. The social attitudes are brotherhood, responsibility, mutual caring, and cooperation. Whereas the social system is every activity carried out together. Third, there are three inhibiting factors in the development of teacher social competence: the lack of human resources (HR), both educators and educational staff; lack of facilities and infrastructure, and limited of information. In contrast, there is a supporting factor in the development of teacher social competence, namely: the role of community to have active participation regarding the progress of education quality.Keywords: local wisdom, teacher’s social competence

Social competence is a crucial developmental task for preschool children that involves higher neurocognitive processes. Research has revealed the significance of parenting stress and parenting behavior influencing the development of social competence during the preschool period. Nonetheless, the mechanism of relationship between parenting stress, parenting behavior, and child's social competence development has not been well explored. Furthermore, limited studies have investigated the mediating role of parenting practice in the relationship between parenting stress and child's social competence. This research aims to explore the role of parental autonomy support as one of parenting behavior as a mediator in the relationship of parenting stress and 4-6 years old child's social competence during COVID-19. Children aged 4-6 years old (N=56) and their parents participated in the current study. Children's social competence and parents' level of parenting stress were measured through two different parent-report questionnaires, and parental autonomy support was observed during the dyadic interaction. Data collection and observations are conducted online. Results indicate that parent autonomy support fully mediates the relationship of parenting stress and preschool children's social competence. This research extends previous studies about the indirect effect of parenting stress on preschool children's social competence mediated by parenting behavior in a pandemic condition.