Abstract

LIMA, Cláudio de Almeida; SOARES, Adriana Benevides  and  SOUZA, Marisangela Siqueira de. Social skills training for university students in situations considered difficult in the academic context. Psicol. clin. [online]. 2019, vol.31, n.1, pp. 95-121. ISSN 0103-5665.  http://dx.doi.org/10.33208/PC1980-5438v0031n01A05.

Upon entering a higher education institution, the student experiences substantial changes in the way he relates to learning, to new interpersonal relationships and to academic demands, which requires him to make numerous adjustments. Adapting to new friends, teachers, and staff has proven to be essential for good academic performance. The purpose of this study was to perform and evaluate the effectiveness of a Social Skills Training (SST) with university students in their initial period in the institution and to assess the relation of social skills to academic experiences and academic social behavior. Eleven university students from public and private institutions of higher education took part, all of them attending the first or second undergraduate period and aged between 18 and 25 years old. The SST was performed in 12 weekly sessions lasting 120 minutes each and developed topics such as speaking in public, dealing with authority, dealing with criticism, offering praise, among others. The Social Skills Inventory (IHS), the Scholarship Questionnaire in its reduced version (QVA-r) and the Inventory of Academic Social Behaviors (ICSA), applied before and after the intervention, were used as instruments. The results showed gains by all the participants in the acquisition of social skills and it was found that there is a positive associative relationship between social skills, academic experiences and academic social behavior.

Keywords : social skills; social skills training; university students; academic adaptation.

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