The effect of training grades 5 and 6 elementary school students in skillstreaming program on classroom survival skills -

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of training grades 5 and 6 elementary school students in social skills curriculum, mainly Skillstreaming the Elementary School Child , on classroom survival skills. For this purpose, an experimental control group design study for the duration of 10 weeks was conducted. The independent variable was the program itself and the dependent variable was the classroom survival skills of the students. Two randomly chosen sections, (one from grade 5 and the other from grade 6) constituted the experimental group (48 students), whereas two other randomly chosen sections (one from grade 5 and the other from grade 6) formed the control group (48 students). The instruments used were the Student and Teacher-Staff Skillstreaming Checklists provided by the Skillstreaming program. Each checklist comprised 10 questions related to the classroom survival skills taught to the experimental group during the intervention. The quantitative data obtained was analyzed using SPSS for windows. Classroom survival skills ratings were compared within and between the two groups, pre and post intervention using t-tests and analysis of covariance. Observations were conducted for both experimental and control groups pre and post-intervention. Results of the observations were compared in terms of frequency counts of the taught skills. Results of the t-tests revealed a significant change in classroom survival skills pre and post intervention as measured by both Student and Teacher-Staff Checklists for the experimental group but not for the control group. The ANCOVAs showed a significant difference between the experimental and control group on classroom survival skills post intervention as measured by the Teacher-Staff Skillstreaming Checklist but not by the Student Checklist. The results obtained from the qualitative data support the quantitative results in terms of improvement of the experimental group on most of the classroom survival skills post intervention.