Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to develop a scale to measure social skills involved in overall interpersonal relations of junior high school students, with consideration of the aspects of behavior (coding), cognition (decoding), and affection (emotional control). Initially, an item pool was constructed from items selected from existing scales, based on the results of a classification of those items using the KJ technique. Participants in Study 1 were 363 students in the 7th and 8th grades of 3 junior high schools (schools A-C). The results of an exploratory factor analysis revealed the following 5 factors : behavioral expression, emotional regulation, emotional concealing, cognitive decoding, and cognitive monitoring. The α factors were .70-.80. Participants in Study 2 were 1721 students in the 7th, 8th, and 9th grades of 5 junior high schools (schools A-E). The results of a confirmatory factor analysis of those data demonstrated sufficient fitness of 4 of the factors, but not for emotional concealing (GFI=.94; AGFI=.92; CFI=.90; RMSEA=.05). Study 3 was conducted in order to confirm the construct validity of the Basic Communication Skills Scale. Participants were 220 students in the 7th and 8th grades of junior high schools A and B. The results indicated that, other than the emotional concealing factor, the test results were appropriately associated with social anxiety, social support, and aggressive behavior. It was concluded that the Basic Communication Skills Scale was composed of 4 factors, measured with 24 items. These 4 factors were similar to a process model of social skills (Aikawa, 2009, in Japanese). This suggests that the scale might be able to measure fundamental social skills involved in overall interpersonal situations.
