The effectiveness of social skills training based on cognitive-behavioral principles in changing coping strategies of middle school students

Stress is undoubtedly a part of students’ lives and it may impact their ways of coping with the demands of life, as a result, social skills and coping skills can help students in these situations. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of social skills training in changing students' coping strategies. The research method was experimental with pre-test-post-test and a control group. The population included middle school male students studying in Tehran during ۲۰۲۰-۲۰۲۱. In a multi-stage clustering sampling, ۴۰ of them were selected and randomly assigned into experimental and control groups. To measure students' coping strategies in this study, Parker and Andler coping strategies questionnaire (CSQ) was used and the data were collected and analyzed using descriptive statistics and analysis of variance. The results showed a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in coping strategies after receiving social skills training. The results showed that among the coping styles, the problem-solving coping strategy scores increased and the emotion-oriented and avoidance styles decreased. The results showed the effectiveness of social skills training method on changing coping strategies of middle school students.

Keywords:

social skills , coping strategies , cognitive behavioral principles , Students