Socially skilled - successful students : improving children's social intelligence through social education programs

Purpose: The current study investigated the effects of a social education program on the development of children’s social competence (SC). The social education program titled, ‘Socially Skilled – Successful Students: The 4S Program’ was implemented in one Sydney Metropolitan coeducational preschool. Design/methodology/approach: A mixed factorial design, using a pretest-posttest control method was employed to determine if the 4S Program could increase children’s SC. The Behaviour Assessment System for Children – Second Edition, Parent Rating Scale- Preschool (BASC-2 PRS-P) was completed by parents at pre and post intervention phases to obtain a measure of their child’s SC. It was hypothesised that the 4S Program would increase children’s SC thereby fostering the development of their social intelligence (SI). Findings/results: Findings indicated that there was a significant difference in the SC of the experimental group from pre to post test. It was unclear whether this difference was attributed to the 4S program however because the control group also showed a significant growth in SC.