Predictors of social competence in primary school children

Cilj ovog istraživanja bio je ispitati odnos samoregulacije, rizika za psihopatologiju, samoefikasnosti i socijalnih kompetencija kod djece osnovnoškolske dobi. Također, željelo se ispitati u kojoj mjeri navedene varijable predviđaju socijalne kompetencije kod djece. U istraživanju je sudjelovalo 320 učenika od petog do osmog razreda osnovnih škola s područja grada Osijeka. Primijenjeni instrumenti su: Upitnik socijalnih kompetencija – forma za dijete (Spence, 1995), Upitnik samoregulacije (Novak i Clayton, 2001), Check lista pedijatrijskih simptoma – forma za dijete (Spence, 1995) i Upitnik samoefikasnosti za djecu (Muris, 2001). Podaci pokazuju da su socijalne kompetencije značajno pozitivno povezane s emocionalnom, ponašajnom i kognitivnom samoregulacijom te socijalnom, akademskom i emocionalnom samoefikasnošću, dok su značajno negativno povezane s rizikom za razvoj internaliziranih problema, eksternaliziranih problema i problema s pažnjom. Na temelju hijerarhijske regresijske analize može se zaključiti da emocionalna i kognitivna samoregulacija, prisutnost rizika za internalizirane i eksternalizirane probleme, socijalna samoefikasnost i emocionalna samoefikasnost mogu predvidjeti socijalne kompetencije kod djece.The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between self-regulation, risk for psychopathology, self-efficacy and social competence in primary school aged children. Also, it was examined the possibility of predicting social competence in children based on mentioned variables. 320 pupils from the fifth to the eight grade of primary schools in the city of Osijek participated in this research. Instruments that were used are: Social competence with peers questionnaire (Spence, 1995), Questionnaire on self-regulation (Novak i Clayton, 2001), Pediatric Symptom Checklist PSC-35 (Jellinek i Murphy, 1988), and Self-efficacy questionnaire – Children, SEQ-C (Muris, 2001). The data show a significant positive correlation between social competence and (emotional, behavioral, cognitive) self-regulation and (social, academic, emotional) self-efficacy, and a significant negative correlation between social competence and risk for internalizing, externalizing and attention problems. Based on the hierarchical regression analysis, it can be concluded that emotional self-regulation, cognitive self-regulation, risk for internalizing problems, risk for externalizing problems, social self-efficacy and emotional self-efficacy can predict social competence in children