Agricultura 4: 23-26 (2006) Copyright 2006 By University of Maribor Difference of social competence between students of technical schools and the schools of humanities Drahomíra OUDOVA* Institute of Communication and Education, Czech University of Agriculture in Prague The research has been investigating social competence of students of a secondary technical and secondary pedagogical school. Social competence is the aptitude and effectiveness of one’s dealing with others in social interaction and has two important aspects: the quality of social relationships and good social skills. The quality of social relationships is dependent on good social skills and good social skills increase the quality of relationships. The both aspects are in mutual dependence, the one infuencing the other. Good relationships strengthen good social skills and practising social skills increase the quality of relationships. Social relationships and social skills have the following levels: individual, family, peers, community. To judge the social competence, we have chosen the method of R. Riggio “Social Skills Inventory”. R. Riggio understands the social competence as a multidimensional construct that includes skills of receiving, decoding and understanding of social information together with other social skills as verbal and social expression, regulation of social behaviour and acting social roles (Riggio, 986). His theory of Social Skills Inventory is based on the idea that social competence is a construct which covers basic communication skills. The method includes 90 self-evaluation items which are judged within six scales and the total forms the overall level of social competence. The research compares the results in particular scales and in the overall score of social competence according to various criteria: the type of school (technical, pedagogical), sex, the type of family (complete, incomplete), age and a number of brothers and sisters. The research data can help the management of faculties and teachers to develop social competence of students. The social competence plays an important role in the interaction of students and public. Students with higher level of social competence better understand the approaches and attitudes of public towards rural areas and community and have skills of competent and effcient presentation of agriculture in the society. Key words: social competence, social relationships, verbal and emotional expression, regulation of social behaviour, communication skills, interaction between a student and public, presentation of agriculture INTRODUCTION Social competence Social competence is an ability to develop and maintain private and professional relationships by effective communication, team work and language skills. Social competence is extremely important in various social interactions, e.g. interaction of students of agricultural schools and public. Students with higher level of social competence better understand the approaches and attitudes of public towards rural areas and community and have skills of competent and eff-cient presentation of agriculture in the society. V. Smékal (995) distinguishes between social and professional competence. *Correspondence to: Drahomíra Oudová, Institute of Education and Communication Czech University of Agriculture in Prague, V Laznich 3, 159 00 Praha 5, The Czech Republic Tel.: +420 251 810 878, Fax: +420 251 811 364, email: oudova@ivp.czu.cz He defnes social competence as “aptitude and effectiveness of one’s dealing with others in social interaction based on the respect towards human dignity and the developed culture of one’s personality”. He comprehends it as aptitude and mastery of an individual to deal with others in an adequate and effective way and to solve one´ s integration and position in a social group, conformable with the aims of a group and respect to moral principles. Mr. Smékal emphasises that everyone who is engaged in a social activity and lives with others must have social competence. According to Mr. Smékal, social competence is a very complicated structure of skills, features, habits, needs, attitudes and personality prerequisites, which core is formed by social dexterity, effectiveness, refection and self-refection. R. Riggio (998) understands social competence as a constellation of various communication skills. He divides basic skills of social communication into the following three groups: . skills of receiving information – communication sensitivity, 2. skills of emitting information – communication expressivity, 3. skills of monitoring, controlling, regulation of communication. These three basic skills are enforced in two spheres: a verbal, qualifed as social and a nonver- 23 DIFFERENCE OF SOCIAL COMPETENCE BETWEEN STUDENTS OF TECHNICAL SCHOOLS AND THE SCHOOLS OF HUMANITIES bal, qualifed as emotional. By combining them, Mr. Riggio has conceptualised six social skills: Emotional Expressivity, Emotional Sensitivity, Emotional Control, Social Expressivity, Social Sensitivity and Social Control. R. Riggio conception is realised in a 90 self-evaluation-item method SSI – Social Skills Inventory (Riggio, 989) and we have used it in our research and it is described down below. RESEARCH Between September 2005 and January 2006 we were running a survey inquiring into social competence of adolescents. The research compares the results in particular scales and in the overall score of social competence according to various criteria: the type of school (technical, pedagogical), sex, the type of family (complete, incomplete), age and a number of brothers and sisters. METHODS To judge the social competence, we have chosen the method of R. Riggio “Social Skills Inventory”. R. Riggio understands the social competence as a multidimensional construct that includes skills of receiving, decoding and understanding of social information together with other social skills such as verbal and social expression, regulation of social behaviour and acting social roles (Riggio, 986). His theory of Social Skills Inventory is based on the idea that social competence is a construct which covers basic communication skills. The method includes 90 self-evaluation items which are judged within six scales and the total forms the overall level of social competence. Because the method is rather unknown in our country, down below we describe the individual scales: Emotional Expressivity (EE) The scale of emotional expressivity judges the skills of non-verbal communication of an individual, mainly emitting emotional messages, but it also includes non-verbal expression of attitudes, dominance and the ability to clearly express an emotional state. People with high level of emotional expressivity are able to awaken emotions of others and inspire others to express their emotions. A representative statement: I can change a boring group of people into a lively one. Emotional Sensitivity (ES) The scale of emotional sensitivity measures skills of receiving and decoding non-verbal communication of others. People emotionally sensitive are able to clearly interpret the subtle emotional keys of others. People with high level of emotional sensitivity can be infuenced by emotions of others; they empathetically live through emotional states of others. A representative statement: When watching sad flms, I sometimes cry. Emotional Control (EC) The scale of emotional control measures the ability to control and manage emotional and non-verbal expressions. Emotional control includes the ability to hide one’s emotions. People with high level of emotional control have a tendency to control their expressions and emotions. A representative statement: I can easily change my expressions, to look happy and sad on the instant. 24 Social Expressivity (SE) The scale of social expressivity measures skills of verbal expression and the ability to integrate others into social communication. High score in this scale signifes verbal fuency and an ability to start and lead a conversation with anybody. A representative statement: When telling a story, I use a lot of gestures which help me to express the main point. Social Sensitivity (SS) Social sensitivity implies the ability to interpret verbal communication of others. It also includes an individual sensitivity to understanding of norms which regulate social behaviour. People socially sensitive are aware of social norms and they avoid any possible inadequacy of their behaviour and actions. Extremely high score in this scale together with medium or low score in Social Expressivity and Social Control might indicate inhibition of attendance in social interaction. A representative statement: I think that I take other people comments too personally. Social Control (SC) The scale of social control includes the skills of playing social roles and a social presentation of oneself. People with well-developed skills of social control are generally well appreciated, are tactful and they feel comfortably in various social situations. Social control is also important in leading the course and content of communication in social interactions. A representative statement: Generally, I am good at conducting a discussion. The research sample Students of two different types of secondary schools have been chosen to take part in the survey: a school of technical specialisation – a Higher professional school and a Secondary technical school in Litomyšl and a school of pedagogical specialisation – a Higher pedagogical school and a Secondary pedagogical school in Litomyšl. The questionnaire has been answered by 296 students between the ages of 5 to 20. We have summoned basic information of the following aspects: sex, family, type of school, number of brothers and sisters and academic performance (the latest marks in Czech language and mathematics). Altogether, there have been 77 female (59.8%) and 9 male (40.2%) participants who have taken part in the research 90 (60.8%) of them have been students of technical schools and 6 (39.2%) of pedagogical schools. There have been 257 (86.8%) students who live in a complete family and 39 (3.2%) whose parents are divorced. There have been 3 (4.4%) students who are the only child, 70 (57.4%) students with a brother or a sister, 77 (26%) students with two brothers or sisters, 25 (8.4%) with three brothers or sisters, 9 (3%) students with four brothers or sisters and 2 students (0.7%) have had fve brothers or sisters. RESULTS The subject of the analysis has been the relationship between particular scales of social competence and the relationship between the total score of social competence. DIFFERENCE OF SOCIAL COMPETENCE BETWEEN STUDENTS OF TECHNICAL SCHOOLS AND THE SCHOOLS OF HUMANITIES The criteria have been the following: Sex Age Family (complete, incomplete) Type of school: technical and pedagogical The results are presented and commented in the tables. The median (ideal) of all scales = 38. The median (ideal) of the whole method SSI = 225.5. To judge the average of individual scales of SSI and the overall scale of SSI by girls and boys, we have used t-test of independent choice. The results in the scale of Emotional Sensitivity (ES), Social Sensitivity (SS) and Social Expressivity (SE) and the overall score of SSI are all very high above the median. The scale of Emotional Sensitivity (ES) measures the capability of receiving and decoding non-verbal communication, the aptitude of empathetic living through emotional states of others, of decoding and interpreting the subtle emotional keys of others, their opinions and attitudes. In our sample, this aptitude is signifcantly higher by girls. The scale of Social Sensitivity (SS) measures the sensitivity to verbal communication of others, the ability to inter- Table 1: Averages of individual scales of SSI by boys and girls The whole group n=296 EE ES EC SE SS SC SSI M 36.42 43.19 39.39 43.59 47.38 38.40 248.28 SD 4.68 7.45 5.97 7.55 6.98 5.06 26.34 Median 36 42,5 39 42 46 38 246 Minimum 25 25 15 29 30 25 179 Maximum 49 65 59 66 66 55 328 Boys n =119 M 36.64 39.86 38.61 41.41 45.15 38.69 240.55 SD 4.27 6.35 6.41 6.50 6.63 4.92 23.76 Median 37 39 38 41 45 39 242 Girls n=177 M 36.27 45.44 39.91 45.05 48.87 38.21 253.47 SD 4.94 7.32 5.61 7.86 6.83 5.06 26.78 Median 36 45 40 44 47 38 251 t-test B:D 6.78** B