ARTICLE INFO

Article Type

Descriptive & Survey Study

Authors

Abedini Baltork   M. (*1)
Rezapour   M. (2)






(*1) Department of Education, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Mazandaran, Babolsar, Iran
(2) Department of Education, Ardakan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ardakan, Iran

Correspondence

Article History

Received:  October  22, 2019
Accepted:  June 20, 2020
ePublished:  December 20, 2020

BRIEF TEXT


When adolescents are unable to overcome the developmental crises and challenges, successfully, they will experience psychological distress and significant disruption in their daily life and emotional, social, and cognitive aspects. As a result, their personalities will be disturbed [1], which can overcome social problems by empowering their behaviors in different contexts.

...[2-5]. Behavioral empowerment reflects active (rather than passive) tendencies concerning role-playing [6]. According to Spritzer's point of view, the main factors affecting empowerment include individual, group, and organizational factors [7, 8]. Flanner et al. believe that social empowerment consists of four components: A) cognitive skills; B) behavioral skills; C) emotional skills; and d) motivational skills [9]. Two personality traits, "self-esteem" and "control center", are assumed to be predictors of self-empowerment; because they are concerning the living environment as well as shape how people think about themselves [10]. One of the issues in promoting personal self-empowerment is paying attention to the needs and shortcomings of individuals. A person with social skills can choose and present appropriate behaviors at a specific time and situation. This characteristic of a person is not separate from the culture and social context of the individual [12]. Another skill that affects people's lives is individual skills, which are effective in various aspects of people's lives, including cognitive, emotional, spiritual, and moral [14]. Naini [13] reported a direct and significant relationship between life skills and critical thinking and mathematical reasoning in students. Dorlock et al. [14] in their research concluded that failure to emotional communication and control could lead to problems in their social adjustment in the developmental stage and lead to lasting negative effects. Kazemi et al. [15] found that education increased social adequacy and its components in students with math disorders, significantly. Therefore, since deficiencies in individual and social skills can have profound effects on students' behavioral competence and academic performance, many experts emphasize the need to training individual and social skills as a part of school planning [16].

The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between social deficiencies and individual skills with behavioral empowerment in middle school students.

This is a descriptive-analytical cross-sectional study.

The statistical population consisted of the students of middle school in Yazd province in the academic year of 2018-19 with 12,000 people.

373 students were selected using cluster random sampling based on the Morgan sampling table. In this method, initially, out of 19 boys' schools, 6 schools were selected. Inclusion criteria include the male students, how were in the first year of middle school, their satisfaction for participate in the research and the students in the morning shift at middle school. Exclusion criteria were dissatisfaction for participating in the study. The research tools were as follows: 1) Empowerment Questionnaire: The questionnaire of Flanner et al. Was used to collect information about this variable. This questionnaire was translated by Sharifi Jandani et al. Its reliability coefficient based on Cronbach's alpha is reported to be 0.88 and its validity has been confirmed by factor analysis method (0.83) [17]. In the present study, Cronbach's alpha was 0.83. 2) Individual Skills Questionnaire: To collect information about this variable, the standard Fatro questionnaire was used. The Persian version was prepared by Mahmoudi et al. The total reliability coefficient of the questionnaire was 0.93, and the Cronbach's alpha coefficients for each of the obtained components were reported as 0.90, 0.79, 0.88, 0.83, 0.83, 0.68, respectively [12]. Cronbach's alpha in the present study was 0.90. 3) Student Deficiency Questionnaire: Burns et al. Standard questionnaire was used to collect information about this variable. The Persian version of this questionnaire has been translated and validated by Sadeghpour et al. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was reported to be 0.92. Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the subscales of survival, love, power, freedom and recreation was reported 0.71, 0.70, 0.70, 0.75, 0.71, respectively. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test was used to test the normality of data distribution. The correlation coefficient and multivariate regression tests were used to analyze the relationship between variables and investigating hypotheses using SPSS 20 software. The significance level in all tests was considered less than 0.05.

None declared.

Of the 372 students who participated in the study, 130 (34.95%), 116 (31.18%) and 126 (33.87%) were in the seventh, eighth and ninth levels of middle schools, respectively (Table 1). The mean values of behavioral empowerment, individual skills, and social deficiency from a total of 5 points were 3.58 ± 0.602 (subsets 3.3±76.43), 3.0±15.482 (3.2±42.79), and 3.40±0.396 (3.61±3.25), respectively (Table 2). There is a significant relationship between social deficiencies and behavioral empowerment and this relationship is inverse. This means that with increasing social deficiencies, behavioral empowerment decreases, and vice versa (p<0.05), and this significance was not observed only in emotional adequacy (Table 3). There is a relationship between cognitive, behavioral, motivational skills, and empowerment with social deficiencies. Also, a positive and significant correlation was observed between individual skills and behavioral empowerment (p<0.05; Table 3). In general, there is a relationship between cognitive, behavioral, motivational skills, and emotional adequacy, and empowerment with individual skills. In general, there is a relationship between cognitive, behavioral, emotional adequacy, motivational skills and empowerment with individual skills. Multiple regression showed that there was a relationship between social deficiencies and individual skills with students' behavioral empowerment; so that the linear regression of the relationship of the social deficiencies variables and students' individual skills with the variable of behavioral empowerment justifies 17.5% of the changes (R2=17.5%; Table 4).

The results showed that there is a negative and inverse relationship between social deficiencies and behavioral empowerment of students, which is consistent with the research of Kingerley et al. [19] and Isman et al. [20]. The results of this study also showed that there is no relationship between social deficiencies and emotional adequacy. ...[21]. Based on the results there is a relationship between individual skills and behavioral empowerment of students which is consistent with the results of previous research [22-30]. ...[24]. The correlation between behavioral, emotional, and motivational skills was less than cognitive skills. In this regard, Rezapour states that the higher the individual skill, the higher the empowerment skills [21]. Findings showed that the variables of social deficiencies and individual skills have the ability to predict the behavioral empowerment of the middle school students in Yazd, which from this perspective is consistent with Sadri et al. In this regard, Sadri et al stated that training individual skills, recognizing and addressing students' social deficiencies are the good methods to meet the different needs of students in the classroom. In general, if this approach is designed and implemented and the necessary resources are provided, it can be implemented to all students [26].

It is suggested that education departments establish cultural and recreational centers by cooperation with municipalities to meets the social deficiencies and needs of the students, as well as collaborate with students' families in social interactions and interpersonal relationships to meet their child's deficiencies and needs. Also, it is suggested that family counseling and education classes be held for parents to increase their level of awareness and knowledge to identify and address student needs through the development of individual and social behaviors in the family.

One of the limitations of the research is that it is a cross-sectional study and focuses on middle school students in Yazd.

There is a negative correlation between social deficiencies and behavioral empowerment; so that the more disabilities in the subjects, the lower their behavioral ability. There is a positive correlation between individual skills and behavioral empowerment, so that the more individual skills in the subjects, the more their behavioral abilities. Finally, having individual skills and the absence or reduction of social deficiencies can lead to students' behavioral empowerment.

We thank the students and all the people who helped us in conducting this research.

The article is retrieved from the master's thesis of Mohammad Rezapour at Islamic Azad University, Ardakan.

The research is approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Mazandaran University with the IR.UMZ.REC.1397.068 ID.

This research is funded by the authors.

TABLES and CHARTS

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