Theoretical Framework Of Social Skills

2.4 Theoretical Framework of Social Skills

In the social skills literature, a wide variety of conceptually related terms are frequently used as if researchers shared a common understanding (e.g., social intelligence, social competence, social skills, interpersonal competence). But there are a wide variety of definitions and there is by far no consensus on what social skills are (Phillips, 1985). As a result of this inconsistency, researchers face a difficult task to develop accurate and reliable measures for social skills and integrate findings across studies. The aim of the study is to develop an organizational model which has direct implications for teacher social skills’ conceptualizations and measurements.

2.4.1 Operationalization of

The researcher operationalizes teacher social skills by selecting its measurement scale items and scale type which involve a series of scaled indicator items in a Likert scale format. In order to determine what skills are important to teachers’ interactions with their students for the research, a distinction need to be drawn between competence and skill as both have an ultimate bearing on performance behavior. Building on the work of McClelland (1973) and other scholars, Boyatzis (1982) defined competencies as the underlying characteristics of an individual causally related to effective or superior performance in a job. This is consistent with the view that competence should be viewed as a function of knowledge, skill, and motivation (Spitzberg, 1983). These definitions suggest that a competency framework is broader than a skill framework as it involves such elements as values, personality, motivations, and knowledge. In the context of the present study, skills are synonymous with an individual’s ability to perform an appropriate behavior in a given situation. Gilbert and Gilbert (1991) aptly draw a distinction between social competence and social skills. Social competence refers to “the ability to know about and deal with the social environment”, whereas social skills refer to “specific abilities

49). As seen from the various definitions, the variability in the ways in which “social” attributes have been conceptualized and operationalized has resulted in a less coherent literature. While these definitions differ in focus and specificity, two common themes emerged. Indeed, most conceptualizations in the research literature include two major components. The first component is associated with accurately sensing and identifying social cues in others, and understanding the complex dynamics of social situations while the second component is related to how an individual effectively interact with others. A dual-component definition of social skills is also consistent with research perspectives of Ferris et al. (2002), where they argued that “most of these constructs share in common that they each possess a cognitive understanding or savvy component, as well as a behavioral action component that allows one to act on that understanding in flexible and adaptive ways” (p. 50). Interestingly, this also appears to coincide with the definition of Thorndike (1920), with the first component corresponding to his original proposition of “the ability to understand men and women” and the second component corresponding “to act wisely in human relations” (p. 228). On the basis of these criteria, Social Skills can be defined as an individual’s ability to identify and use social cues to