Students\u27 Social Behaviour in Relation to their Academic Achievement in Primary and Secondary School: Teacher’s Perspective

Social skills include different behaviours which help an individual enter and interact in interpersonal relations. On the other hand, these skills are also learnt through the very same experience. Social skills are an important factor of students\u27 acceptance and popularity among peers and also a factor of their academic achievement. In our research, we tried to establish how primary and secondary school teachers rate their students\u27 social skills; we explored gender differences in evaluated social skills and investigated relations between social skills and students\u27 academic achievement. 907 students participated in the study, of whom 470 were seventh-grade primary school students (231 boys and 239 girls), and 437 third-grade secondary school students (176 boys and 261 girls). Merrell\u27s School Social Behaviour Scales (1992) were used for the assessment of students\u27 social skills and homeroom teachers filled in the questionnaire for each participating student. Results showed that teachers assessed girls as socially more competent on all subscales regardless of their school level. Academic behaviour was the only subscale on which there were significant differences between primary and secondary school students, although girls scored higher again at both levels. Correlations between students’ social behaviours and their academic achievement were higher in boys and higher between socially desired behaviour and academic achievement compared to socially undesired behaviour. In the category of desired behaviour, self-management/compliance and academic behaviour were significant predictors of male and female students\u27 academic achievement. The strongest predictor of students\u27 academic achievement was their academic behaviour. Further on, we also discuss pedagogical implications of the study