INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 1 THE NEED FOR THE INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS: AN EXAMINATION OF THE TEACHER PERSPECTIVE by Brittany Goddard A project submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF EDUCATION IN CURRIUCULUM AND INSTRUCTION WEBER STATE UNIVERSITY Ogden, Utah February 22, 2019 Approved ________________________________ Carrie Ota, Ph.D. ________________________________ Stephanie Speicher, Ph.D. ________________________________ Camie Bearden, MEd. INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 2 Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to say thank you to my second-grade students. If it were not for these students, I would not have come to the realizations that I have had after completing this study. They are the reason why I care so deeply about this topic and research project. They have impacted my teaching for the better. I would also like to thank my family. Thank you for listening to me when I needed someone to talk to and supporting me through this process. The encouragement that came from each one of you meant so much to me. Most of all, thank you mom. Without your unconditional love throughout the years, I would not be where I am today. Finally, I want to thank the College of Education professors for helping me understand my purpose in education. I was blessed with having an amazing committee throughout this process. Thank you Camie Bearden for always being my confidant and Dr. Speicher for seeing the true potential that my project had. Lastly, thank you Dr. Ota. Thank you for always pushing me to be greater than I was, even at the times where I thought that I could not do it. Each of you exemplify what a true educator is. INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 3 Table of Contents NATURE OF THE PROBLEM.......................................................................................................8 Literature Review.................................................................................................................9 Defining Social and Emotional Development and Social Skills .............................9 Programs ................................................................................................................12 The Leader in Me .......................................................................................12 You Can Do It ............................................................................................14 Growth Mindset .........................................................................................15 Relationship between Social Skills and Academics ..............................................16 Impact of Social Skills ...........................................................................................18 Teacher Impact on Social Skills Development ......................................................21 Summary ............................................................................................................................21 PURPOSE .....................................................................................................................................22 Qualitative Research Questions .........................................................................................23 Quantitative Research Questions .......................................................................................23 METHOD .....................................................................................................................................24 Participants .........................................................................................................................24 Instruments .........................................................................................................................25 Procedure ...........................................................................................................................25 Data Analysis .....................................................................................................................27 RESULTS .....................................................................................................................................27 Qualitative Findings ...........................................................................................................28 Self-Management ...................................................................................................28 INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 4 Communication Skills ............................................................................................29 Academic Related Skills ........................................................................................30 Relationship Skills .................................................................................................31 Responsible Decision-Making ...............................................................................32 Teacher Perception of Instruction ..........................................................................33 Teacher Perception of Reactions ...........................................................................34 Quantitative Findings .........................................................................................................35 Descriptives............................................................................................................35 Inferential Analysis ................................................................................................37 DISCUSSION ...............................................................................................................................38 Impacts of Social Skills Instruction ...................................................................................38 Learning Paradox ...................................................................................................40 Teacher Reflection .............................................................................................................40 Academic Time ......................................................................................................41 Social Skills Reinforcement ...................................................................................42 Teacher Limitations ...............................................................................................43 Limitations and Recommendations....................................................................................44 REFERENCES ..............................................................................................................................47 APPENDICES ...............................................................................................................................52 Appendix A: Researcher Journal Template .......................................................................53 Appendix B: Original Social Skills Survey ......................................................................55 Appendix C: Modified Social Skills Survey .....................................................................59 INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 5 List of Tables Table. 1 Descriptive Statistics for Three Survey Results ...............................................................36 INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 6 List of Figures Figure 1. Mean Separated by Gender Across All Assessment Collections ...................................36 Figure 2. Mean Separated by Student Type Across All Assessment Collections .........................37 INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 7 Abstract Communities and parents have identified the desire for students to be gaining social skills from their education; however, the research that has been conducted around this topic has had varied results and has not examined the role that an educator has in the students’ social skills development. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify the perceptions of an elementary teacher regarding (a) her explicit instruction of social skills and (b) to reflect on the reactions to the social skills situations that arose in the classroom. A mixed-methods approach was used to examine the growth of the participants social skills identification based on their survey results and a reflective researcher journal was completed by the educator. The general education teacher completed a daily reflective journal regarding her social skills instruction and responses to situations that happened with her second-grade students. Students completed three social skills surveys to identify their own progress and perceptions of their social skills abilities. Based on the students’ survey results, there was a positive gain in the students’ social skills identification. However, the researcher noticed a Dunning-Kruger effect with the students and their survey results. She also identified areas of weakness in her explicit instruction regarding (a) academic time, (b) consistent social skills reinforcement and (c) her own faults when teaching and interacting with students. Educators are encouraged to participate in reflective teaching practices regarding their explicit social skills instruction and how they are impacting their students’ social skills development. INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 8 NATURE OF THE PROBLEM Social skills development is critical for students’ success; however, U.S. children, as a whole, are lacking in prosocial skills (Civic Enterprises, Bridgeland, Bruce, & Hariharan, 2013; Denault & Dery, 2015; Lo, Correa, & Anderson, 2015). In the United States the education emphasis from departments of education and school districts is on academic achievement and college readiness which is rooted in specific content mastery; specifically, students are told to put their focus in earning high scores on standardized tests, such as state required end of year tests, the ACT, and the SAT. (Betts, Zau, & Bachofer, 2013; Utah State Board of Education, 2016). However, parents and communities have identified that social skills instruction is critical (Marques, 2013; McMahon & Solomon, 2015). With this growing interest in research literature, forthcoming research is now looking at the importance of socials skills and the impacts of social skills on academics (McKown, Russo-Ponsaran, Allen, Johnson, & Warren Khot, 2016). Currently, reliable measures for social skills are not available (Jennings & DiPrete, 2010) because there are inconsistencies in definitions of social skills in the research (Merrell & Gimpel, 2014). The research conducted to identify the impact on social skills in regard to overall development and academic achievement has had varied results, including little to no discussion for how an educator affects the development of social skills for his or her students and how he or she helps students acquire these skills (Jennings & DiPrete, 2010; McKown et al., 2016; Zhai, Raver, & Jones, 2015). Most research exploring social skills in children used teacher surveys; however, research fails to examine how the educator impacts the students’ development of social skills. The exclusive focus on academic achievement to the exclusion of social skills and the educators’ impact may contribute to the achievement challenges that is seen in the U.S. today. INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 9 Students’ development of socials skills is becoming widely desired, not only from parents and educators, but communities as well. Greater emphasis must be put on educators’ explicit and hidden instruction of socials skills within the classroom and school day. Therefore, research must be conducted identifying the relationship between an educator’s instructional impact on a student’s social skills development. Literature Review The first part of this literature review will examine the opposing definitions revolving social and emotional development and social skills and will provide a singular definition that will be used throughout the rest of the study. Next, an examination on potential programs and a curriculum that promotes social skills development that has been identified by the research. After, the relationship of social skills on academics will be explored and how the impacts that social skills have on student development. Finally, the literature review will explore the impacts that teachers have on students’ social skills development. Defining Social and Emotional Development and Social Skills Current research studies conducted around social and emotional development and social skills provide inconsistent definitions and terminology and vary in the set of social skills being researched. Terms often used include social and emotional development, social and emotional learning, social skills, and social and emotional comprehension. Gresham and Elliott (1987) identified the issue of defining social competence specifically pertaining to adaptive behavior and social skills. They defined social skills as “behaviors which, in specific situations, predict social outcomes for children and youth” (p. 167). These skills include interpersonal behaviors, self-related behaviors, academic related skills, assertion, peer acceptance, and communication skills. INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 10 Curby, Brown, Bassett, and Denham (2015) defined social and emotional competence as a set of skills and abilities that children have to interact with the environment that result in positive and effective social interactions. These researchers specifically looked at emotional expressiveness, emotion regulation, social problem solving, and emotional knowledge. Zhai, Raver, and Jones (2015), on the other hand, targeted the socials skills of cooperation, assertion, and self-control. McKown et al. (2015) stated “Social-emotional comprehension” includes mental processes enlisted to encode, interpret, and reason about social-emotional information (Lipton & Nowicki, 2009). The ability to recognize emotion from facial expressions is one example of encoding. The ability to take another person’s perspective is an example of interpreting social-emotional information. Engaging in effective problem-solving is an example of reasoning ability. These factors and self-control are critical for social-emotional comprehension. (p. 120) McKown’s definition accentuates the one provided by Gresham and Elliott (1987) due to having similar social skills: peer acceptance and communication skills. Gresham and Elliott (1987) argue that peers are more likely to accept an individual who is able to look from their point-of-view and who can problem-solve through communicating their emotions and ideas. Therefore, these two items should be included within the definition of social skills (Gresham & Elliott, 1987). The five-core social and emotional competencies outlined by the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (Ashdown & Bernard, 2012) included: well-being, self-awareness, social-awareness, self-management, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 11 The five areas that Ashdown and Bernard identified are substantially different than those Gresham and Elliott defined (1987). The difference in definitions could be due to the 25-year time difference between the publishing of the research causing the definition to become either clearer or murkier within that amount of time. There is much overlap within the studies about the definitions and skills identified; yet, despite some overlap, the lack of a singular definition of social skills has made research in this area confusing. For the purpose of this project, based upon the combination of research already conducted, social skills are defined as behaviors and skills that help children in social and academic situations that are also developed through the use of leadership opportunities. These skills include: self-management, communication skills, academic related skills, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making (Ashdown & Bernard, 2012; Gresham & Elliott, 1987). This definition was chosen due to the combination used from the provided research. Based on the provided definitions, a common theme includes interaction with the social environment. Social skills cannot take place without the social environment, which is why it is critical to the definition of this research paper (Ashdown & Bernard, 2012; Curby, Brown, Bassett, & Denham, 2015; Gresham & Elliott, 1987; McKown et al., 2015). However, the academic environment was included because of the strong presence within the research with many researchers examining how social skills impact academic achievement (Cooper, Moore, Powers, Cleveland & Greenberg, 2014; Guhn, Gadermann, Almas, Schnoert-Reichl, & Hertzman, 2016; Zhai, Raver & Jones, 2015). Academic situations do include social interaction; thus, must be included within the definition. The skills that were selected were combined together from the different definitions. Self-management was selected because of the inclusion of any skills that required the self, including INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 12 self-awareness, emotional regulation, and well-being. Each of these skills require the self which can be found in the skill of self-management. Communication and relationship skills were selected due to the social environment that takes place when developing social skills (McKown et al., 2015). Programs Two programs and one support curriculum for social skills instruction have been identified in the research. The programs were The Leader in Me and You Can Do It! Early Childhood Program (YDCI) and the growth mindset curriculum. Both programs provide practical strategies for how schools and teachers can use social skill traits to help students increase social skills development. The growth mindset curriculum (Dweck, 2015) demonstrates how to change students’ mindsets in order to help them develop resilience. The Leader in Me. The Leader in Me (TLM) was created in response to the rising concerns about academics, school culture, and life skills (Covey et al., 2008). The current issue with life skills is that “there is an increasingly urgent call for more personal and interpersonal skills to be taught in schools” (Covey et al., 2008, p. 6). The heart of the program centers around the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People which are: 1) Be Proactive, 2) Begin with the End in Mind, 3) Put First Things First, 4) Think Win-Win, 5) Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood, 6) Synergize, and 7) Sharpen the Saw. Habit one focuses on being proactive, which demonstrates to individuals that they are in charge of themselves. Habit two is all about beginning with the end in mind and that individuals should have a plan to get to the desired goal. Habit three furthers habit two by putting first things first, where individuals work on required tasks before they play. Habit four is a mindset about thinking win-win, that no matter the outcome, everyone in the situation won in one way or INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 13 another. Habit five demonstrates that individuals must seek first to understand, before they can be understood by listening before they talk. Habit six of synergize is all about working together because of the better solutions created. Habit seven is all about sharpening the saw by finding the balance in life. The Seven Habits’ purposes are to help individuals become leader, to know how to effectively interact with other individuals, and to problem solve (Covey et al., 2008). TLM is implemented in a school-wide program (Covey et al., 2008). Faculty, staff, students, and the community are involved. Students are given more leadership opportunities within their own classroom and the whole school; they are included in important school decisions. The whole staff and faculty receive training to help emphasize the importance of the program and working as a team so that it will motivate students to come to school and take part in the collaborative activities. TLM program was first implemented in a North Carolina school in 1999. At the end of the school’s first year, the average score on the end-of-level tests went from 84% to 87%. By the end of the second year the passing rate of the students rose to 94%, and then to a peak of 97% (Covey et al., 2008) Defining student leadership. A major component of TLM program is the implementation of student leadership within each classroom as well as throughout the entire school. With this program being fairly new, particularly with the introduction into elementary schools, there is little research on what student leadership looks like in elementary schools and the impact that it has on students. However, the research that has been done on student leadership has been in secondary school settings. McGregor (2007) identifies that student leadership has often been viewed as students being pupil librarians or members of student councils, yet this only allows a small number of students to develop leadership skills. On average, six percent of students reported having any INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 14 involvement in these ‘formal’ leadership positions while 76 percent of students described never holding a lead role. In informal settings, however, only 68 percent of students recognized that they had a leadership role in small group class work but that these activities were not recognized nor discussed in this manner (McGregor, 2007). In regard to TLM program, it encompasses the whole school, including all students and staff (Covey et al., 2008). When defining student leadership within schools, a paradigm shift must take place in order to recognize that student leadership is not only about formal positions and that leadership possibilities can be found right in the classroom. Yet, when leadership opportunities were distributed throughout the school environment, student outcomes improved (McGregor, 2007). Based on student comments taken by MacBeath (1998) about their perspective on leadership, one student explained, “Quite often the leadership in schools is determined by teachers, with minimum input from students. This needs to be changed so that the students have a lot more say” (p. 84). Even behaviorally tough students express that there are few leadership opportunities. Dempster and Lizzio (2007) identified that student leaders differ significantly from their adult counterparts. They found that when students are in leadership positions, they focus more on goals and the needs of a group, whereas adult leaders tend to use more powerful language and contribute many ideas without a real focus on goals (Dempster & Lizzio, 2007). Therefore, student leadership involves the development and implementation of social skills in situations where all students are involved in some form of leadership, whether it be formal or informal. You Can Do It. You Can Do It! (YCDI) for early childhood was developed in Australia as a social and emotional learning curriculum consisting of several structured lessons with activities centered on emotional, behavioral, and attitudinal components of “confidence, INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 15 persistence, organization, and emotional resilience” (Ashdown & Bernard, 2012, p. 400). The program was first published in 1987 by Michael Bernard when examining what students and parents should know about success and happiness (Bernard, 2017). Since that first examination, Bernard has extended the program to being implemented in schools around the world. The program developers have created their own songs and posters to help demonstrate desired behaviors and positive self-talk. Both explicit and direct instruction are incorporated in activities such as: define social and emotional skills in concrete terms, describe observable behaviors, model role play, give specific feedback of social and emotional learning behaviors, and steps of self-talk. Puppets, songs, posters, and other classroom practices are used as reinforcements of the lessons taught. Ashdown and Bernard (2012) used the YCDI program to identify the impacts that the social skills instruction had on young children. The two classes that received professional development to use this curriculum, compared to the two classes that did not, showed a positive impact on the students’ social skills and academic achievement. Growth Mindset. Growth mindset was a theory discovered by Carol Dweck when she was researching how students cope with failure. Through this, she discovered two sets of mindsets: fixed and growth mindset (Dweck, 2016). As Dweck (2015) states, “we found that students’ mindsets-how they perceive their abilities-played a key role in their motivation and achievement, and we found that if we changed students’ mindsets, we could boost their achievement” (p. 1). By encouraging students through their failure and the path of learning that they are on, they are more susceptible of developing a growth mindset. Through this concept, Yeager and Dweck (2012), reviewed research that demonstrates the impact of students’ mindsets on their resilience when addressing academic and social challenges. Through this compilation of research, they concluded that based on the type of praise INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 16 that students receive, changes how they will approach future challenges and failures. Students who receive praise that signifies the processes that students went through lead them to be more accepting of difficult tasks. On the other hand, students who received praise based on their intelligence or talents, were more hesitant to approach and try difficult tasks in fear of failure. Overall, students who have a growth mindset will embrace learning, welcome the challenges, mistakes, and feedback they receive, and will understand how effort is a vital role in creating and forming talents (Dweck, 2009). Dweck (2015) emphasizes that to develop a growth mindset is dependent on educators following through with their classroom practices. She reinforces this by citing a study completed by Kathy Liu Sun that demonstrated math educators using the vocabulary of a growth mindset, but negatively reacting to their students mistakes rather than emphasizing the learning process that they have done. Therefore, the follow through of teachers reinforcing the learning effort that their students are using is vital in the development of skills that display resilience. Relationship between Social Skills and Academics Early childhood educators are taught about the importance of developing the whole child, which includes social and emotional development (Cooper et al., 2014; Pagani, Fitzpatrick, Archambault, & Janosz, 2010). These researchers have identified early childhood as a crucial developmental stage that has the most potential of impacting the lifelong outcomes of an individual. One of the important impacts of early childhood is the development of social skills (Cooper et al., 2014). Key social and emotional skills that young children need to have developed before they enter schools include self-confidence, ability to develop positive relationships, concentration and persistence, effective communication, and problem-solving skills (Ashdown & Bernard, 2011). As the definition of social skills states, the skills focused on INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 17 are ones that impact a student’s relationships and academic achievement. These skills that must be developed before entering schools help the students achieve the impacts that social skills provide. Research has been conducted to study how social skills impacts a child’s academic achievement in subsequent grade levels (Guhn et al., 2016; Zhai, Raver, & Jones, 2015). Theories have been suggested that children who can develop and maintain social relationships and can regulate their behaviors and emotions have a higher rate of accessing important academic resources such as positive attention and help from classmates which leads to them having a better outlook on the school and classroom environment (Curby et al., 2015). However, there has been mixed evidence regarding the effect early social skills development has on later achievement (Cooper et al., 2014; Curby et al., 2015). As of right now, the impact of social skills is more of a theory due to the mixed evidence. Duncan et al. (2007) suggested that social skills do not have any significance on later academic achievement. However, even though Duncan et al. reported that some early attention skills do predict some later academic achievement, the overall study did not show any predictive power with the development of social skills. Guhn et al. (2016) believed the reason for the mixed results were due to the different approaches taken by researchers when examining the impact of socials skills on academic achievement. Despite the different approaches undertaken, social skills have not been isolated to identify whether they do have an impact on academic achievement (Guhn et al., 2016). The investigations on social competence have relied more on creating a classification system about the actual adaptive behaviors and social skills (Gresham & Elliott, 1987). INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 18 Predictors of Academic Achievement. Literacy and math skills are often conjoined with achievement in social skills research (Ashdown, & Bernard, 2012; Cooper et al., 2014; Curby et al., 2015). Duncan et al. (2007) studied reading and math achievement alongside social behaviors to identify what area(s) predict later academic achievement. They discovered that literacy and math skills show either as a predictor for academic achievement or as the results of the impact that instruction of social skills has on a child. Successful social skills instruction improves participants’ literacy achievement (Ashdown & Bernard, 2008). Math concepts were the most powerful predictor of academic achievement, followed by reading skills. Impact of Social Skills Duncan et al. (2007) found that social skills had minimal effect on academic achievement. The focus of six longitudinal studies on school-entry skills were constant with the participants’ preschool cognitive ability and behavior. It then showed that early math skills were identified of having the greatest impact on later academic achievement. However, the study was replicated by Pagani et al. (2010) who agreed that kindergarten math skills was the greatest impact on second grade achievement, but also found that the social skill of attention had the second largest impact. Attention and control are developed in the prefrontal and frontal cortexes. Attention continues to develop in middle childhood which could indicate why it is associated with academic achievement (Pagani et al., 2010). Guhn et al. (2016) extended Pagani’s study by separating the domains of child development and conducting two studies with one focused on social competence and emotional maturity and the other on language and cognitive development. They specifically hypothesized that “within-domain measures of development are more strongly related over time than across-domain measures” (p. 81). Essentially, the conducted research shows to be less problematic INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 19 when finding impacts on socials skills when the focus is just on the social and emotional domain rather than the social an emotional domain and the cognitive domain. They found that social competence did cross domains and had a small amount of statistical impact in regard to academic achievement, which is similar to the findings by Pagani et al. (2010) about how social competence has significant impact. When higher levels of social skills instruction were given to the students with low to average reading scores, children performed better on academic assessments than those with similar reading scores but lower levels of social skills instruction (Cooper et al., 2014; McClelland, Morrison, & Holmes, 2000). Children who have low to average reading skills perform significantly better on academic assessments when they receive a higher amount of explicit social skills instruction (Cooper et al., 2014; McClelland, Morrison, & Holmes, 2000) Students who were very strong early readers performed similarly on academic tests regardless of social skills instruction. Children who have lower reading skills benefit significantly from explicit instruction in social competence to improve academic achievement. Ashdown and Bernard (2012) found that the two of the four classes who received professional development in the YCDI program had an impact on the students’ social skills and academic achievement. Between the pretest and posttest, it was difficult to isolate what effects the curriculum specifically had. However, with the explicit support of the social and emotional learning skills, there were stronger effects than the classes who received it in a less structured way. Of the 50% of students with the lowest reading levels, the students in the YCDI classes showed the biggest improvement. Overall, this finding is consistent with the growing research that social and emotional learning does impact academic achievement (Ashdown & Bernard, 2012). INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 20 Zhai, Raver, and Jones (2015) examined the effects of school-based social and emotional learning (SEL) programs on children when they reached the third grade. The children with more exposure to the SEL programs had a positive association with their social and emotional and academic skills in the preschool class. The link between the programs given in preschool and its effect in third grade showed that there was no evidence of sustained benefits. There was also a decrease of the children’s impulsiveness. The reason for the null findings was because the short-term gains in preschool years are very fragile unless supported with more intensive efforts in the elementary years (Zhai, Raver, & Jones, 2015). Findings from Zhai et al. (2015) and Duncan et al. (2007) support that academics are not affected from teaching social skills in social and emotional lessons. However, in Pagani et al.’s (2012) reexamination of Duncan et al.’s study, Pagani found that explicit instruction in social skills in preschool does have an impact in children’s second grade academic achievement. Yet, social skills did not have a strong impact as was hoped for, which could reinforce Zhai et al.’s belief for continuing instruction in the elementary years in SEL programs (Zhai, Raver, & Jones, 2015). Unlike other studies conducted, McKown et al. (2015) examined the 340 participants only for their current school year rather than a longitudinal study following through grade levels. From the data collected, structural equation models were created to show the relationship of social and emotional comprehension and reading scores and how it was mediated by social skills. They identified the pathways through which social and emotional factors are related to academic outcomes. In a domino effect, social and emotional comprehension impacts socially-skilled behavior, which then impacts both math and reading academic scores (McKown et al., 2015). INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 21 Teacher Impact on Social Skills Development One major aspect that has been ignored in the research thus far centers on the effect educators have on the development of social skills. Jennings and DiPrete (2010) recognized this deficit and examined teachers’ effects on social and behavioral skills development in early elementary skills by using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K). It has already been examined that students’ social skills do impact academic achievement. However, the development of these skills is completely dependent, in a school setting, of the teachers’ ability and promotion of social and behavioral skills. Many issues arise based on a teacher’s belief of important social skills, how much emphasize for teaching each skill, and which skills should receive more instruction due to its impact on academic achievement. Jennings and DiPrete (2010) identified a pattern of teachers who have more teaching years and/or higher levels of teaching certifications have a positive effect on students’ social skills throughout the year compared to first year teachers and those with lower levels of teaching experience. Even with this pattern, the effects educators have varied widely. A teacher can be effective at promoting social skills development but could not have the same impact on academic development. This then raises the question as to what educators should focus on, academics or social skills. With common core standards, there are many goals for every developmental area, but as Jennings and DiPrete discussed, there are more academic assessments that are considered more reliable and standardized than social skills assessments. Summary Explicit instruction in social and emotional learning and social skills has a beneficial impact on students’ academic learning (Ashdown & Bernard, 2012). Explicit teaching in social INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 22 and emotional learning and social skills is something that is wanted and needed in today’s current education system. The Leader in Me, You Can Do It! Early Childhood Education Program, and the growth mindset curriculum have showed increases in students’ social skills which impacted academic achievement. Teachers’ instruction of social skills also impacts students’ development of these skills which then either positively or negatively effects their academic achievement. PURPOSE Throughout teacher education programs, including early childhood education programs, preservice educators are repeatedly reminded of the importance of social skills development in regard to the social and emotional development of the students. However, when in the actual educator licensure setting, teachers are provided little to no time to spend on social skills, with majority of the time being focused on reading and mathematics for end of level testing. This mixed-methods research emphasized the importance of social skills instruction through the teacher perspective with regards to the participants’ growth throughout the study. With the varied research that has been conducted, this research solidifies what defines social skills and demonstrated the relationship between a student’s achievements with the social skills they demonstrated based on the teacher perspective (Guhn et al., 2016). The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of an elementary educator regarding (a) the explicit instruction of social skills and (b) to reflect on the reactions to social skills situations that arose in the classroom. Based on the data gathered regarding explicit instruction of social skills, this study determined the importance of this explicit instruction within the researcher’s general education classroom. The reflection of response to social skills situations verified the significance of constant reinforcement of social skills with students in and out of the INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 23 classroom setting and was also demonstrated by the social skills assessments taken by the participants and the reflection of the results. The student survey demonstrated the growth made by the students based on the constant reinforcement from the classroom teacher. Furthermore, this study was designed to answer the following qualitative and quantitative research questions. Qualitative Research Questions 1. How does the classroom teacher impact students’ social skills development? a. Based on my actions during social skills situations that arise in the classroom setting, how do students respond to my promotion or opposition to the social skills used in the situation? 2. What happens to students’ development when social skills instruction is continuously reinforced by the teacher in the classroom setting? 3. How does explicit social skills instruction help students in all academic content areas? Quantitative Research Questions 1. Is there significant change in children’s reported social skills application when emerged in a targeted curriculum to support social development? H0: There is no statistically significant difference in children’s report of social skills application after being emerged in a targeted curriculum to support social development. HA: There is a statistically significant difference in children’s report of social skills application after a targeted curriculum to support social development. This research was completed to represent the educator’s perspective regarding research around social skills instruction and the gains and consequences that developed. INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 24 METHOD This data for this research project was gathered via mixed-methods through reflective journaling, observational data, and pre/post survey. This approach was chosen because of the alignment to the purpose of the research to examine the educator’s perspective on social skills development within the classroom. Social skills are part of an individual’s social and emotional development and revolves around humans and the qualities and characteristic that demonstrate the better side of humanity. Therefore, classifying social skills only as quantities and numbers deviate from the definition and purpose. For 13 weeks, the researcher, who is an elementary educator, reflected after every teaching day on her experiences with explicit teachings of social skills and how she responded to social skills situations in the classroom. The reflections demonstrated a teacher’s perspective on the importance of social skills education and the criticalness of constant reinforcement from a teacher throughout the school day. The reflections provided insight to the possibility of daily social skills instruction alongside the already full teaching schedule. To further examine the impact of social skills development, the participants took a pre-, mid- and post-assessment survey that described their perceptions of their social skills. The results were then examined by the researcher and reflected on the responses and if they coincided with her personal reflections. Participants The participants of this study were 24 second-grade students who ranged between the age of seven and eight. These participants were students of the researcher, with 15 students who remained the same from their first-grade year. The gender demographic was 16 male students and 8 female students. Two students from the classroom were English Language Learners (ELL). Seven students had Individualized Learning Plans (IEPs). Two of the participants were students INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 25 from the school’s functional skills classroom, a classroom that is specifically created for students with severe learning disabilities. Instrument The first and major instrument used to collect data was a personal electronic journal. The journal included data entries each of the school days, excluding any holidays, substitute days, and school closures. This journal was created via word document and was updated throughout the school day and/or after school dismissal. The second instrument used was a student survey that was created by Brenchley (2017) to address social skills from the individual’s perspective based on questions found in a teacher survey. This survey, which was distributed on paper in a social skills booklet, was completed three times throughout the study by each participant where he or she scored him or herself on different social skills and social skills situations. There were 30 questions split in sets of 10. Students were given a paper copy in a whole group setting where the researcher read through each question. The students circled the corresponding picture if they agreed, disagreed, or partially agreed. The happy face represented agreed, sad face represented disagreed, and the indifferent face represented partially agreed. Procedure Starting August 22nd, the researcher reflected throughout the school day and/or end of the school day on her and the students’ experiences will social skills. The journal reflections included the explicit instruction for that day on social skills, including the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and Growth Mindset. The explicit instruction addressed any classroom problems or behaviors that were shown during the time of data collection. The journal entries also discussed social skills problems that happened between students in and outside of the INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 26 classroom, comments that the students made during the explicit lessons or class, and parent statements about their student and social skills. Each day, the researcher reflected on these questions: • What was the explicit social skills lesson for the day? o How did the students react to the lesson? o What discussions took place? o Was the lesson successful, why or why not? • What social skills situations arose today? o How were the situations handled? o How did the students react in the situations? • Were there any comments made by the students throughout the day that demonstrate social skills promotion or opposition? If so, what were they? On August 24th, the pre-assessment survey was distributed to students. Before distribution of the assessment, the researcher used developmentally appropriate practices to promote honest answers. That included explaining to the students that the classroom is safe place for them to be honest with their answer choices. The researcher modeled honesty when answering a question by displaying how she would answer three of the questions, including her metacognitive thought as to why she has selected the answer. After seven weeks, on October 8th, the formative survey was given which consisted of the same questions. The final assessment was given on November 20th. After each survey was given, the researcher analyzed in her journal the responses of the students. Reflections were done on (a) if the answers correlated with the researcher’s perspective of how the progression of social skills had gone, (b) if there was a discrimination in responses INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 27 compared to the social skill lessons that were taught, and (c) if the students made a gain in their social skills development. Data Analysis At the end of two weeks, the researcher reflected on the journal entries by writing an overall biweekly summary examining the situations that took place. Common themes were identified during that period with the use of the NVivo program. Throughout these themes, sub-themes were identified through the common terminology and vocabulary that was frequently used throughout the journal. For the surveys, a repeated measures ANOVA was selected because three different data samples were taken over a course of time within the same subject group. SPSS was used to compare the survey samples using this measure. Each student’s scores were represented through the pre-, mid-, and post-survey scores. To analyze the data, the picture responses were given a point value score. The happy face was coded as a three, the indifferent face was coded as a two, and the sad face was coded as a one. Question one and nine on page one, question nine on page two, and question four on page 3 required reverse coding. The surveys were first scored by the researcher. To ensure reliability, 20% of the surveys were then scored by an outside member which resulted in 100% correlation to the original scores. After scoring, the information was input in SPSS. RESULTS The researchers aim for this study was to examine both the teacher’s perspective of explicit social skills instruction and the students’ perspective of their social skills development. Journal entries were completed by the researcher to explore (a) how the teacher impacts students’ social skills development, (b) what happens to students’ social skills development when it was INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 28 continuously reinforced by the teacher, and (c) if the explicit instruction helped students in all academic content areas. Surveys were completed for this study by second grade students to examine if there was a growth in their perceptions of their social skills. Qualitative Findings The qualitative study aimed to examine the perspective of the teacher’s explicit instruction of social skills and the responses and demonstrations of social skills from the students. This was completed using a researcher’s journal. All entries were organized based on the three reflection questions using NVivo. Once the entries were organized, themes were identified throughout the reflection entries using the skills that I identified and my teacher perspective. The following themes identified were: self-management, communication skills, academic related skills, relationship skills, responsible decision-making, teacher perception of instruction, and teacher perception of reactions. Self-Management The theme of self-management was highly impacted from the explicit instruction of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People curriculum. Within this curriculum, the terminology of being proactive is heavily used. This was one term that I heavily used throughout my journal when discussing situations demonstrated by students. “The next explicit lesson I had was about the first habit, being proactive… We read the first story in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Kids… We were able, as a class, to come to the consensus of how we are in charge of what we do.” The examples included either a student demonstrating self-management or the lack there of. INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 29 “When we went to lunch, I held two students back. These two students have had off behavior from the start of school. They are constantly talking over my lessons, saying inappropriate comments, and being overall disrespectful.” “When M came to school, she handed me a letter. She apologized for not being proactive yesterday and wrote that she would do better. I didn’t ask for this letter and thanked her for it.” Not only did self-management include the habit of being proactive but was identified on the demonstrations of students’ ability to be responsible for themselves and being able to stay in charge of themselves without instruction from the teacher. Many examples that I wrote about dealt with students walking out of the classroom in search of me when I was running an errand regardless of the instruction of staying in the classroom. Communication Skills Many of the journal responses dealt with communication among the students, comments students have said to or about themselves, communication between the students and me, or the lack of communication skills. This does not include my perceptions of the comments that I have said to the students. Some responses dealt with students using their words to solve problems with one another and comments that they have made. Journal entries were also identified as communication skills when students chose to respond to verbal situations with their hands. “One student leaving the assembly today looked at the student council as our class was walking out and he told them that he hopes that they have a good day.” “I had a student at recess tell me that another child was pulling his arm and that it hurt him. My response to this was first if he talked to the child. He replied that he INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 30 did not. I asked him what we tell people when situations like this happens and he replied that we tell them how we feel.” “One half of the class was in the computer room and the other half was with me. I heard students talking about each other in a bad way for the ones who were not in the room. I was standing next to one girl and she knew I was there, but she was discussing how she didn’t like the two other boys who were gone at her table because she thought they were weird.” There were not very many entries indicating students using their communication skills to solve problems, rather these situations involved students coming to me to tell about a problem without even addressing those involved first. Many of the entries there were identified as communication skills but were also identified as relationship skills because relationships are built from positive and negative communication. Academic Related Skills Any entries marked as academic related skills either demonstrated motivation, concentration, prioritization, work management, organization, or the lack of demonstrating these skills. There were times when I wrote about students not prioritizing their work during the given time during class or those who complained about the work that was needed to be completed. Some instances did include those students who have had difficulty working towards the beginning of the year and slowly improving and getting right to work. “We then took a survey on mistakes. Our first question was on if they feel like if it was okay for them to make a mistake. Very little circled the agree and majority circled somewhat agree.” INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 31 “One of my functional skills students who has usually hated working on the ST math program, quietly worked the whole-time during class and was flying through lessons.” Often, academic related skills entries were made when students were not demonstrating these skills. Students who frequently demonstrated these skills in the classroom setting were not written about. However, students who had difficult times with academic related skills and displayed moments of growth were easily identified within the journal. Relationship Skills Relationship skills and communication skills often overlap each other. However, when entries were identified as relationship skills also included students building relationships with one another through their actions as well. Many entries did involve how the general education students interacted with the functional skills students. There were, at times, when the play between students became too rough to the point where they got into fights and were sent to the office, which mainly only effected my male students. “When it was time for one of my functional skills students to say what he was good at, he would not say anything and said that he cannot do it. I then started naming some stuff that I knew he was good at. What I was not expecting was for the class to jump in and shout out things they thought he was good at. Some examples included him being good at math and they thought he was funny. It was so awesome to see these guys wanting to build his confidence up!” “At the first recess, I had two students come late because they were in the office. Apparently one student was choking the other. The other student had sat on him and also scratched his neck. Both boys lost 20 minutes of art and we all had a talk INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 32 together to fix the problem. They talked it out and figured using words would be the best option. Odd thing is that they both talked about having a play date and ended up exchanging phone numbers.” The relationships between the students were always changing. Students were always playing with different individuals, which often relied heavily on where students were placed in seating charts. A few selected relationships were also made between the general education students and the functional skills students that lead to after-school play dates. I also noticed a change in relationships among my same students from the previous year and saw new relationships blossom among the same students but with different individuals. Responsible Decision-Making When a student demonstrates responsible decision-making, he or she have made choices about their personal and social behavior. Any situations that displayed ethical or unethical behavior were identified. There were two instances where students did not make the ethical choice. Two separate children had cheated on different tests during the time of data collection. One involving a boy and one involving a girl, with one testing being a reading comprehension test and the other a spelling test. “As our class was taking our spelling test for the week, I discovered that one of my students was cheating. She had written the words on a piece of paper inside her desk. I quietly took her papers and set them aside and finished the spelling part of the test… Then at recess, we sat down and talked. I asked her why she felt the need to cheat and her response was that the words were sometimes hard, and she has had a hard time sounding them out.” INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 33 Others were also able to demonstrate responsible decision-making when problems arose, and they knew that it was a problem that an adult needed to be made aware of. Others made choices when there were problems to retaliate in the inappropriate ways with either their personal or school behavior. “After lunch recess, I had three girls tell me about a situation that when on with my functional skills student, themselves, and some sixth-grade students. They first told me that a sixth-grade boy hit the functional skills student with a ball on the head because he would not leave the girls alone with the game he was playing This then caused the boy to try and leave school grounds but the three girls went and helped him stay at school.” “I had a student who had cut all of my erasers up that go on the end of pencils. He did this so that he could make a sleeve for his pencil. This was surprising to me because this child is usually rather responsible.” Those students who often demonstrated responsible decision-making were also very proactive regarding their behavior. Within the journal entries, there were a few students who were the repeated focus of not demonstrating these skills. These students were both general education students and functional skills students. Teacher Perception of Instruction Throughout the course of data collection, I frequently wrote down my perspective if the lessons were successful or not. To determine if a lesson was successful or not, I identified if the students understood the discussions that took place, if they enjoyed the lesson, and their overall reaction to the lessons. In these reflections, I also identified my own ability of teaching the lessons. INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 34 “I think for the most part the students understand that it is a good thing to keep trying even when something is very difficult. I have seen more of a positive attitude when working on stuff and when I have asked kids to redo their work. Even for those who are constantly being asked to redo things, I think are more willing to do that because they understand that they are using perseverance.” “The students have been just so excited about learning parts of the brain. The growth mindset has seemed to have made a better impact on students.” “Today was a very rushed day so I know my heart was not entirely into this beginning of this lesson. I know that the students did not get as much as they could have out of this lesson if I took my time.” Many lessons were hard to identify if they were successful or not, which I discussed within the journal, due to the nature of the topic. Some concepts required multiple weeks of discussion or were very abstract compared to the developmental age of the students. Teacher Perception of Reactions Not only did I use the journal entries to identify how the students reacted to the lessons and to the instruction, but I also identified how I reacted to the students in regard to social skills. Students overall perception to social skills were also identified in this theme, which included comments that have been repeated by parents about what the children have said involving their social skills development and the school. “When we were taking our last survey, I was a bit frustrated with a few boys. They were giving some silly responses that I know are not true.” “Today I became very upset with a child during a mid-assessment math quiz. This child has difficulty paying attention, which I knew because he was a student from INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 35 last year. However, he was not using the strategies that we had learned over the last few weeks.” “After school, I had received an email from a parent saying that her son came home saying how much he loved school and loved me being his teacher. This student is the one who has been tough behaviorally. I was very surprised by this email and just happy that he likes school even when I am tough on him.” What is apparent is that if there was a time where the researcher had a reaction, especially a negative reaction, to students and then reflected back within her journal, she always identified a reason for this occurrence. Every explanation given was a result of the students’ behaviors during the situation. She never identified any wrong doing or personal reasons for any outburst. Quantitative Findings The quantitative study aimed to identify if explicit social skills instruction made an impact on students’ perspective of their social skills development. Before analyzing the survey results, a comparison of means using a one-way ANOVA was completed to identify if there were any significant differences in the participants’ initial scores based on gender and/or if they were a continuing or new student. A repeated measures ANOVA was then completed to answer the primary quantitative research question. Descriptives To identify the main variables, descriptive statistics were completed and are presented in Table 1. Assessment score means increased over time; pre-assessment M = 72.50, range 62 -88; mid-assessment M = 74.00, range 62 - 88; post-assessment M = 78.23, range 62-90. INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 36 Table 1 Before continuing to test the hypotheses, two separate one-way ANOVAs were completed to determine if there were any differences in the scores between students’ gender and if they were a continuing or new student. Both tests indicated that the students, regardless of gender or type, were scoring themselves very similarly in the pre-assessment. Figure 1 and 2 show the average scores between gender and type over the course of the data collection. After identifying that there were no differences in the variable between groups, Mauchly’s test was completed to identify if sphericity was violated. Based on Mauchly’s test, sphericity can be assumed, x2(2) 1.026, p = .599 Figure 1. Mean separated by gender across all assessment collections. Descriptive statistics for three survey results. M SD Min Max Pre-Assessment 72.50 7.58 62.00 88.00 Mid-Assessment 74.00 7.24 62.00 88.00 Post-Assessment 78.23 8.22 62.00 90.00 66 68 70 72 74 76 78 80 PrePre Mid PostPost ScoresScoresScoresScores Survey PointSurvey Point Survey PointSurvey PointSurvey PointSurvey Point Males Males FemalesFemalesFemales FemalesINSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 37 Figure 2. Mean separated by student type across all assessment collections. Inferential Analysis A repeated measures ANOVA was used to answer the research question identifying if there was a significant change in the children’s reported social skills application when emerged in a targeted curriculum to support social development. The repeated measures ANOVA identified that there was a significance, F(1, 22) = 16.22, p = .001. To identify the gains and losses between each survey point, the pairwise comparisons were used from the repeated measures ANOVA. From the pre-assessment to the mid-assessment, there was a gain of 1.44 points with p = .945. When comparing the mid-assessment to the post-assessment, the gain of 4.04 points were made with p = .06. Furthermore, the comparison of scores of the pre-assessment to the post-assessment had an increasement of 5.48 points and p = .002. Between pre-mid and mid-post, there was no significance increase. However, when examining the relationship between the pre-assessment and the post-assessment, there was a significant positive change. 68 70 72 74 76 78 80 PrePre Mid PostPost ScoreScoreScore Survey PointSurvey Point Survey PointSurvey PointSurvey PointSurvey Point New New ContinuingContinuing ContinuingINSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 38 Children rated their social skills higher during the post-assessment compared to the pre-assessment. DISCUSSION Prior research has examined social skills development in young children from the teachers’ perspective by having them use a teacher checklist to identify the social skills behavior of their students. Research has not pursued examination of the teacher’s perspective of his/her own instruction while also investigating the students’ perspective on their own social skills development (Jennings & DiPrete, 2010; McKown et al., 2016; Zhai, Raver, & Jones, 2015). Having teachers utilize a reflective process in regard to social skills instruction has not been given more insight. Furthermore, when research has been conducted on students’ social skills development, they fail to account the individual within the process. Impacts of Students Social Skills Development There was an obvious growth with the overall class average of their social skills identification. The class average increase was nearly 6 points from the pre-assessment to post-assessment. This was also noted within the journal conducted by the researcher. She identified moments of students who demonstrated those skills within the classroom setting including: 1) moments that the students did not demonstrate social skills and became a teaching moment either for the students involved or for the whole classroom, 2) general education students working closely as peer mentors for the functional skills students within the room. It appears that explicit social skills instruction does make an impact on students’ social skills development. Throughout the course of the study, the instructor used curriculum from both a growth mindset and the Leader in Me. Every week, a different topic dealing with a growth mindset was discussed with different activities to support application of the specific topic. Topics like grit, INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 39 perseverance, and how the brain works were discussed with students. The teacher was also able to explicitly teach habits 1-3: a) Be Proactive, b) Put First Things First, c) Begin with the End in Mind. Not only was there this explicit instruction with different social skills instruction, the students also gained exposure to contemporary inequality issues and cultural differences within our social studies curriculum. Because of the abundance of social skills instruction, it would explain the increase in the students’ identification of their social skills. Based on the researcher’s observations of the students’ individual scores, there was a decrease in many students’ scores from either their pre-survey to the mid-survey results or from the mid-survey to the post-survey results. Even though there was an overall gain with the class average, there were some students who had decreased scores between surveys. On the days when the surveys were given, specially the mid- and post-survey, the researcher identified how some of the students chose to respond. For example, on the post-survey, two student disregarded what questions were being asked by not listening to what was being asked and going ahead of the researcher with answering every question as sometimes. Therefore, it is difficult to identify if the scores are an accurate reflection of every child at each time point. When the researcher first introduced the surveys to the students, she was extremely explicit about the students providing honest answers to the questions when the students took their first survey assessment. The researcher also observed within her journal that some students were being very generous with their answers by giving themselves scores for skills that they had never demonstrated in class for the pre-assessment. On the contrary, when students took the mid-survey, many were then scoring themselves harshly, which is shown specifically in the female students’ scores. Throughout the data collection, students were exposed to many social skills and topics that were discussed. In the explicit instruction, it was always noted that the skills learned INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 40 take time to be able to execute. Therefore, with the new information that the students were always learning, could correlate to the lower score due to a learning paradox. Learning Paradox When it has come to self-assessments about abilities and skills, a trend has been identified where individuals will often score themselves higher than they are (Duckworth & Yeager, 2015). This is known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. As outlined by Kruger and Dunning (1995), when a person is evaluating a skill, they are utilizing the same knowledge that produces the skill. This problem can lead to inflated self-assessment scores. As the researcher observed during the first implementation of the survey, many students were often scoring themselves higher. Yet, by the mid-survey, students had scored themselves lower. But by the end survey, students were scoring themselves higher than they had. Schlosser, Dunning, Johnson, and Kruger (2013) would explain this decrease to increase because the students were more educated about their abilities to then accurately rate them. For example, if a student identified that she always raised her hand when asking a question during the pre-survey but then, with the use of the social skills instruction, recognized that this was something that she was not doing a 100% of the time. During the researcher’s observations of the mid- and post-survey, many of the students could be heard making a common statement about how that is a skill that they sometimes did and would then mark the sometimes response. If the students were more cognizant of their abilities during the pre-survey assessment, then there would not have been the inflated self-assessment scores. Teacher Reflection One driving purpose of this study was to identify the teacher’s role and importance within social skills instruction. In research conducted on this topic, there has been little to no focus on INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 41 the teacher’s effect with this developmental area (Jennings & DiPrete, 2010). After reflecting on her teaching during this study, the researcher identified areas of her limitations. The areas of limitations were (a) finding the academic time to explicitly teach the different social skills curriculum, (b) reinforcing the skills in all academic areas during the day and (c) recognizing her own faults within the instruction and responses to the students. Academic Time There were several occasions where the researcher identified that she did not have enough time to give the social skills instruction that was planned for the day due to other academic responsibilities. Currently, teachers have had an incredible amount of instruction and curriculum that needs to be completed and master by the end of the year for standardized testing (Jennings & DiPrete, 2010). Typically, the researcher had, on average, 15-20 minutes for her explicit social skills instruction, which excludes any social skills discussions that took place during other learning areas. This is not an optimal amount of time to teach any subject, especially social skills (Heafner & Fitchett, 2019). The researcher had the intention of providing the instructional time for social skills at least once a day and was scheduled into the students’ classroom routine. However, there were days that the researcher identified within her journal that the instruction did not even take place. The biggest reason for this, as noted in the researcher journal, was that the researcher simply ran out of time and had other academic instructional responsibilities. When reflecting on the occasions of limited time or even not having enough instructional time, the researcher often gave the reasoning of needing to finish other academic related activities or tests. Due to all the stipulations that are put on teachers with standardized testing and INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 42 achievement scores, the researcher, even with an educated outlook on the importance of social skills, was also cutting or limiting the instructional time. From examining the literature centered around social skills studies, many of the results either indicated a null hypothesis or had mixed results (Duncan et al., 2007; Jennings & DiPrete, 2010; Zhai, Raver, & Jones, 2015). In each situation, the researchers gave their explanations as to why these results were found. However, it has not been examined if the teacher’s social skills instruction could have affected the results. From the researcher’s perspective, who was the general education teacher in the study, it was incredibly hard on days to fit in the time for social skills instruction. Therefore, this could be a possibility as to why the research in the social skills domain has had mixed findings. If students were able to receive the quality instruction in a reasonable instructional time, then more positive findings could have been seen. Social Skills Reinforcement One important goal of this study was to examine the effects that would take place on the students’ social skills development when the classroom teacher was reinforcing the social skills within and outside of the classroom setting. In an optimal setting, the teacher would always be demonstrating the skills discussed in class and reinforcing the skills that the students demonstrated. However, it has already been identified within the journal that there were many occasions where the researcher did not always reinforce the skills discussed in class. For example, one of the journal responses made by the researcher included the following: “Today I became very upset with a child during a mid-assessment math quiz. This child has difficulty paying attention, which I knew because he was a student from last year. However, he was not using the strategies that we had learned over the last few weeks.” INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 43 As part of the social skills curriculum that the researcher was implementing in the classroom included a growth mindset. In many of the study topics for the growth mindset included mistakes and failure. In the classroom discussions around these social skills concepts, students discussed how mistakes and failure were a needed part of the learning process. However, the researcher had lost sight of this within her teaching and became more focused on the test results rather than the amazing learning opportunity that this boy would be able to partake in. Overall, there were many missed opportunities for the teacher to reinforce and demonstrate social skills within the classroom. As Carol Dweck (2015) has identified, teachers are claiming a growth mindset but are failing to follow through. This becomes more harmful than helpful for students and causes them to develop a fixed mindset and do not develop appropriate social skills. Teacher Limitations The most significant part of this study was to identify the teacher’s impact on social skills development. Even within this research, there is key evidence that shows how the researcher had an impact on her students’ social skills development. Within the journal entries, there were times that the instructor discussed situations that took place in the classroom where she had difficulty keeping the demeanor that she usually displays. Each occasion that this happened, there would be a reason provided. Typically, the reasons for her reactions were because of the students’ behaviors. The researcher found it to be difficult when reflecting in her journal to take ownership of her own reactions to students, particularly in the negative situations. However, the topic of taking ownership of one’s actions and responses was discussed to the class. The teacher would always specify how the students are responsible for their behavior. Yet, when it came time for the teacher to take ownership of her actions, she failed to do so. INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 44 Educators are the prime example for students in any given situation. Students turn to their teachers to be given guidance on how to respond in given circumstances. Educators should not expect students to be able to demonstrate these social skills and problem-solving skills if the educators are not able to do so. One particular situation that resonated with the instructor deals with one of the students who felt the need to cheat on a spelling test. After this incident, there were many times where the child came in with her parent in the morning. The child would always be upset and crying, and the mother would state that her child was anxious about the upcoming spelling tests. This situation took place after the discussion topics of mistakes and obstacles. The teacher was very explicit on the benefits on making mistakes and identified that obstacles were situations that try to make individuals feel worried or scared. However, for this child to feel continuously anxious about the spelling tests, there must have been something that the researcher was doing that effected the child so strongly. Therefore, not only do educators need to be self-aware of their explicit social skills instruction, they also need to be reflecting on how they are interacting with the students regarding their social skills development. Limitations and Recommendations Throughout the discussion, many limitations were identified, and recommendations were made. At first, the researcher was concerned about the possibility of skewed answers with the students answers on their survey results. To try to ensure that this did not happen, the researcher was always explicit to the students about the benefits of answering honestly. It was also discussed of the possibility of the Dunning-Kruger effect of inflated responses at the beginning of this study because of the students not knowing exactly what the survey questions meant. Then, through the explicit instruction, the students learned what these social skills should look like and realized that, INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 45 in fact, they were not demonstrating these skills. In research, there needs to be a baseline score regardless of the data collection type. When it comes to self-surveys, there will always be this possibility of inflated scores. However, if this study was conducted for a longer amount of time, in both the surveys and the journal, would identify the growth the students would have made. When this study was started, the researcher had a significant bias towards social skills instruction. She recognized the importance of social skills instruction within the general education classroom and had been implementing it in her previous years. The researcher also had students who were exposed to her previous teachings of social skills in their first-grade year. There was also an unequal gender representation within the study. However, the results showed that there was no significant difference between the continuing and new students and the female and male students. Even though the teacher had a bias of importance of social skills instruction, her limitations were found within this study. Generally, teachers who have taught longer have a stronger positive impact on their students’ social skills development than compared to the educators with less years (Jennings & DiPrete, 2010). The researcher, who administered this study in her general education classroom, has only taught for three years. As she has identified, there were times that she felt her explicit instruction was ineffective or not the standard that it should have been. This was also her second year implementing the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People curriculum and her first year implementing a growth mindset. It can be hypothesized that the longer she implements the social skills instruction within the classroom, she will be more effective in her explicit instruction, her responses to students, and her demonstration of social skills within the classroom setting. INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 46 In future studies, it is encouraged that the surveys conducted take place in a classroom where the educator has more in-service years and who has had experience with social skills instruction. This will help identify the true growth that the students make. Along with this, this survey should take place over a course of a school year. One school term is not long enough to identify the true gains that the students make. It would also be beneficial to have a control group where a classroom does not receive explicit social skills instruction. This would help identify if explicit instruction does make a greater impact on students than hidden social skills instruction. Research conducted around social skills development will also need to take into consideration the impact that the educators have. It would be beneficial for these educators to take part in a reflective process that coincides with any studies about the students’ progress. INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 47 REFERENCES Ashdown, D. M., & Bernard, M. E. (2012). Can explicit instruction in social and emotional learning skills benefit the social-emotional development, well-being, and academic achievement of young children? Early Childhood Education Journal, 39, 397-405. doi:10.1007/s10643-011-0481-x Bernard, M. E. (2017). You can do it! 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Mindsets that promote resilience: When students believe that personal characteristics can be developed. Educational Psychology, 47(4), 302-314. doi:10.1080/00461520.2012.722805 Zhai, F., Raver, C. C., & Jones, S. M. (2015). Social and emotional learning services and child outcomes in third grade: Evidence from a cohort of head start participants. Children and Youth Services Review, 56, 42-51. doi:10.1016/j.childyouth2015.06.016 INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 52 APPENDICES Appendix A: Researcher Journal Template Appendix B: Original Social Skills Survey Appendix C: Modified Social Skills Survey INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 53 Appendix A Researcher Journal Template INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 54 INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 55 Appendix B Original Social Skills Survey INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 56 Recreated from Brenchley, J. F. M., (2017). Social-emotional development assessment: Scale development for kindergarten through second grade youth universal screening. Doctoral Dissertations, 1044. Retrieved from: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/1043/ INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 57 Recreated from Brenchley, J. F. M., (2017). Social-emotional development assessment: Scale development for kindergarten through second grade youth universal screening. Doctoral Dissertations, 1044. Retrieved from: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/1043/ INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 58 Recreated from Brenchley, J. F. M., (2017). Social-emotional development assessment: Scale development for kindergarten through second grade youth universal screening. Doctoral Dissertations, 1044. Retrieved from: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/1043/ 59 Appendix C Modified Social Skills Survey INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 60 Modified from Brenchley, J. F. M., (2017). Social-emotional development assessment: Scale development for kindergarten through second grade youth universal screening. Doctoral Dissertations, 1044. Retrieved from: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/1043/ INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 61 Modified from Brenchley, J. F. M., (2017). Social-emotional development assessment: Scale development for kindergarten through second grade youth universal screening. Doctoral Dissertations, 1044. Retrieved from: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/1043/ INSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SKILLS 62 Modified from Brenchley, J. F. M., (2017). Social-emotional development assessment: Scale development for kindergarten through second grade youth universal screening. Doctoral Dissertations, 1044. Retrieved from: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/1043/