Communication Skill Development for Rural Adolescents through Social Cognitive Intervention

Communication skills are playing an important role in predicting individual’s employability in work place. Youth from the rural area are not equipped with the communication and public speaking skills therefore they are struggling to get into the job market. According to social cognitive theory and Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development individual’s immediate society and family are the major influencing factors of skill acquisition. Youth from such environmental conditions are requiring skill development trainings. The objective of the current study is to examine the effectiveness of social cognitive intervention on communication skills development among the rural adolescents. 11 grade Students from government school located in rural area of Coimbatore district were selected, totally 50 students participated in this study. Purposive sampling method was used to select the sample. Single group Pre-test, post-test and follow up experimental design was used. The study consists with four phases 1) pre-test phase 2) Intervention phase (social leaning intervention) 3) Post-test phase and 4) follow up Phase. The intervention session was conducted weekly once to the participants in 12 sessions for duration of three months period. Mean, SD, ANOVA, Post hoc tests were used to analyze the data. Results revealed that social learning intervention significantly improved the rural students’ communication skills.


INTRODUCTION
Unemployment and underemployment is the mounting challenge for India. Parents dream is that admitting their son/daughter in attractive educational institution will make their children as a successful person in work life and life. Most of the educational institutes including arts and science, engineering colleges and universities are keenly searing for the solution to make competent young Indian employees to the job market, unfortunately these institutes failed to include some important predicting factors of employability such as psychosocial influences. On the other hand position of students from rural area is vulnerable in the modern job market. Finally most of the Indian graduates are remaining unemployed or underemployed (National Employability Report of Engineering Graduates, 2014, FICCI, 2012). In the process of making skilled employees psychology plays crucial role such as identifying the inhibiting causes of skill acquisition and developing skill through the psychological interventions. Students from rural area are not taking effort to develop their personal skills. Velayudhan and Palanisamy (2015) revealed that rural college students believe that merely degree from the colleges will help to obtain the desirable job regardless of their social skills. Rural student's Social context, and parent's skill and knowledge are not adequate to acquire the requiring skills. Individual's environment and adult support are the important elements in social skills development (Bandura, 1989., Vygotsky, 1978., & Spence,1995. Development of social skills in children is influenced by many factors such as inheritance, environment, Yorke, (2004) gave the following definition for employability, a set of achievements -skills, understandings and personal attributes that make graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations, which benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy. Employability consists with many skills including technical skill and social skills or generic skills. Social skills include leadership skills, interpersonal skills, intrapersonal skill, critical thinking, problem solving and communication skills (Rasul., et al., 2013). Organizations recommend educational institutions to focus on developing social skills in the students (Sermsuk., 2014). Many findings show that social skills are major predictor of employability. Inadequate social skill leads to unemployment. There are two types of deficits which is acquisition deficit and performance deficit. Acquisition deficit is lack of exposure and fewer resources from the individual's environment, family, and school. Diversity in social practices produces substantial individual differences in the capabilities that are cultivated and those that remain underdeveloped. On the other hand performance deficit means individuals who knew necessary social skills at the same time inability to use those skills (Spence,1995). Hence the social skill is highly important to improve the individuals employability, finding the appropriate training method to develop those skills are immediate need. Therefore in this study effectiveness of social cognitive intervention was used to assess whether this intervention will improve the communication skills among rural adolescents.

COMMUNICATION SKILLS
Employers expecting employee with great communication skills who communicate their personal thought and idea with others in the organizations, and improve team work effectiveness. Communication skills lead individuals to express their needs more and efficiently and help them to understand the needs of others and also benefit more of mental health. Communication skills training programs in schools can have positive effects on the future lives of youth (Vatankhah, 2013). Enhancing rural adolescents communication skills help to improve their employability. Rural student's behavior and skill development is influenced by their immediate social environment therefore social cognitive intervention was used to develop student's communication skills in the present study.

SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY
Social cognitive intervention was developed based on Bandura's Social cognitive theory and Vygotsky's social developmental theory. Bandura (1989) proposed the model called reciprocal determinism. In this model behavior, cognition and other personal factors, and environmental influences all operate as interacting determinants that influence each other bidirectionally. He also argued that each elements of reciprocal determinism does not influence behavior equally, some may be stronger than others. During the early years of life changes occur rapidly. People process and transform passing experiences by means of verbal, imaginal and other symbols into cognitive models of reality that serve as guides for judgment and action. Guided instruction from others, verbal reinforcement and observing others behavior effectively influence cognitive development of the children (Bandura, 1986). Socially guided learning will encourage children to act self-directionally for dealing intelligently with difficult situations in future (Rosenthal & Zimmerman, 1978).
According to Vygotsky (1978) in the classroom teachers have to provide space for peer instruction, collaboration, and small group instruction. Vygotsky believes that development is a lifelong process and social interaction is the major factor which predicts the individual's cognitive development. He called this process as "Zone of Proximal Development" in this process he argued that potential development takes place by adult guidance and collaboration with skilled peers.
Self modeling video intervention has improved the behavior and academic participation of the school students (Hitchcock, 2003). Modeling behavior significantly improved the basic life skills of adolescents with developmental disorder (Gardner, and Wolfe., 2015). Schlichting (2004) reveled that self-modeling video intervention significantly reduced the public speaking anxiety of school students.  Figure 2 shows the four phases of the study Statistics Mean, SD, ANOVA, Post hoc tests were used to analyze the data. SPSS 16 software was used to process the data.   Figure 3 shows the mean difference of luck control between the pre-test, post-test and follow up test Figure 4 shows the mean difference of social control between the pre-test, post-test and follow up test. Table  2 shows the mean and SD of communication locus of control in pre-test, post-test, and follow up tests. Table  3 shows the F value of the communication locus of control skills in pre-test, post-test, and follow up tests. Table 4 shows the Post-Hoc analysis results of communication locus of control dimensions. The difference between pre-test and post-test was found to be significant (MD=1.01, p=.000) in luck control dimension. Similarly pre-test and follow up test was found to be significant (MD=1.26, p=000). Likewise difference between post-test and follow up test was also found to be significant (MD=.25, p=.000). It shows that students luck control has improved after the intervention which indicated that their belief of luck is reduced. Intervention helped them to understand the actual causes that influence public speaking. During the feedback session facilitator explained that luck has no role in making a good speech. Various skills and knowledge help individuals to deliver a good speech. Participants also had a discussion regarding role of luck in speaking at the concluding session of the discussion, all the participants agreed and learnt that luck has no role to play in public speaking.

Results and discussion
In social control dimension of table 4 the difference between pre-test and post-test was found to be significant (MD=.72, p=.000).Similarly pre-test and follow up test results was significantly different (MD=1.17, p=.000). Significant difference (MD=.44, p=.000) was found between the post-test and follow up in social control dimension. Results revealed that social cognitive intervention helped rural students to control social pressure during the public speaking. During the modeling session speaking expert performed a special public speaking in which techniques include controlling the audience pressure on individual speaking. During the group discussion session facilitator assigned a distracter for each group, the role of distracter was to make disturbances during the conversation and facilitator observed each group to examine whether group member dealt the distracter effectively or not, based on the observation the facilitator gave feedback to make changes in dealing with styles. Facilitator also reinforced the students when they handled the social pressure during the communication.
In Table 7 the post-hoc test results shows that difference between the pre-test and post-test was found to be significant (MD=.84, p=.000) and difference between the pre-test and follow up test also found to be significant (MD=.82, p=.000). Difference between the post test and follow up test was not significant (MD=.02, p=NS). The results show that social cognitive intervention has helped rural students to improve the self-control skills during the public speaking. During the social cognitive intervention in modeling session facilitator had a public specking demonstration then methods and techniques was explained to the participants to understand the way of controlling themselves in terms of confusion, fear, and tension during the public speaking. According to the Hancock et al (2008) giving direct instruction and feedback improved the public speaking skills and peer group discussion, public speaking practice in class room setting also significantly improved the students' communication skills. Lau and Wang (2013) revealed that students centered approaches such as focus group discussion; peer feedback significantly improved the student's communication skills. Saidalvi and Mansor (2012) found that watching public speaking videos as a model, practicing public speaking and receiving feedback about their speaking skills from their peer group have effectively enhanced the public speaking ability of the college students.

CONCLUSIONS
Rural students had gained their communication skills after Social cognitive intervention. Social cognitive intervention significantly improved the luck control of the rural students during public speaking. Social cognitive intervention significantly improved the social control of the rural students during public speaking. Social cognitive intervention significantly improved the self-control of the rural students during public speaking.

Implications
 Government and policy makers can institute the social cognitive intervention in all the Government schools were large number of rural students are studying.  School teachers can include the social cognitive techniques during the class to enhance the student's behavior and effective class room participation. NGO's working in rural youth skill development can include social cognitive techniques to improve the students' employability skills.