Teaching Social Skills and Its Impact on the Classroom Management Style of Novice Teachers

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to examine the effect of teaching social skills to student-teachers on their classroom management after entering the teaching profession. For this purpose, 32 final-year students from Farhangian University were randomly selected and assigned to two groups: experimental and control. The research began by administering the Yazdi and Ali (2008) Classroom Management Style pre-test to both groups. The experimental group underwent social skills training for eight weeks. After the training period, a post-test on classroom management style was conducted for both groups. According to the analysis of covariance, the F-value was 19.08, with a significant interaction between group and pre-test at the level of P = 0.001. The mean score for the experimental group was M = 72.37, and for the control group, it was M = 63.47, indicating that the experimental group demonstrated higher classroom management skills. Therefore, it can be concluded that social skills training has changed the classroom management style of student-teachers.