Effectiveness of a peer-facilitated social skills program for college seminarians

• Main Author: Singarayar, Arockiam
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2003
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/3107
• Institution: De La Salle University

This study determines the effectiveness of a peer facilitated social skills program for 78 selected male college students of Christ the King Seminary, Manila, of whom six were trained as facilitators, while 36 participants were randomly chosen for the experimental group and the other 36 participants were the control group. In this study of experimental randomized pretest-posttest control group design, Interpersonal Relationship Rating Scale (IRRS) was used to measure the perceived social skills. For a qualitative assessment of the facilitators' function and impact, a set of questions from a model of facilitating styles of Lieberman, Yalom and Miles (1973) was used. This study had two phases. Phase I consisted of pretest and training of top six scorers (in pretest) as facilitators by the researcher. Phase II consisted of random selection of experimental and control groups, division of smaller experimental groups, implementation of facilitation program for the experimental groups, posttest for all the subjects and data gathering from the facilitators for the qualitative assessment of the facilitators' function and impact. For the statistical treatment, Mean, t-test and ANOVA were used to determine if there was a significant difference between the pretest-posttest scores of Self-Rating and Significant Others' Rating and if there was a significant difference between the posttest scores of the experimental and control group in Self-Rating and Significant Others' Rating. The findings showed that there was a significant difference between pretest-posttest scores of Self Rating of the experimental and control group, t(35) = -6.133, p < .01 and t(35 = -4.855, p < .01, respectively there was a significant difference between the pretest and posttest scores of Significant Others' Rating of experimental and control group, t(35) = -5.800, p < .01 and t(35) = -2.835, p < .01, respectively. The findings also showed that there was no significant difference between the posttest scores of experimental and control group in Significant Others' Rating, t(35) = -2.473, p > .01, respectively. Based on these findings the researcher concluded that peer-facilitated social skills program enhanced the learning social skills and the group which participated in the peer facilitation program gained more social skills than the group which did not participate.