Method
Introduction
Social Skills
Anger Control Training
Moral Reasoning
Skillstreaming
The first component of ARTŪ is Skillstreaming, a set of procedures designed to enhance prosocial skill levels. Skills are being learned in small groups by:
1. Modeling
2. Role-playing
3. Performance feedback
4. Generalization training
1. Modeling
The participants are shown several examples of expert use of the behaviors that constitute the skills in which they are deficient. The skill can be modeled by the trainer or by using the examples on DVD.
More effective modeling will occur when the model:
- seems to be highly skilled or expert;
- is of high status;
- controls rewards desired by the trainee;
- is of the same sex, age and social status as the trainee;
- is friendly and helpful;
- is rewarded for the given behavior.
2. Role-playing
Trainees are given several guided opportunities to practice and rehearse the skills.
At first trainees will have to make an attempt to imitate (parts of) the modeled skill. Gradually, the trainer will demand more of the trainees during training. Trainees will have to increasingly reproduce more and more behavioral elements of the skills, role-play situations will get more difficult, and there will be a shift from imitation (of other people's behavior) to a more personal and more relevant situation in which the skill has to be mastered.
According to Goldstein, Glick and Gibbs these conditions optimize learning through skillstreaming:
- The extent to which the trainee experiences its participation in the role-play as a free choice.
- The trainee's commitment to perform the skill.
- The extent to which the trainee "owns" the learned skill, which implicates that the skill cannot be undone easily.
- The extent of improvisation. This means that the trainee is able to perform the skill without preparation or detailed instruction.
- The amount of reward, praise or positive feedback related to the skill that has to be mastered.
3. Performance feedback
Trainees are provided with praise, reinstruction, and related feedback on how well their skill enactments match the expert model's portrayals. Rewarding trainees for their performance, already begins during the modeling phase.
While practising skills, there will be continuous approval; every performance of the trainee that answers more to the aimed skill, deserves attention and approval of the trainer and other trainees. Feedback will be more effective when taking these matters into account:
- Type of reinforcer
When choosing a reinforcer, the trainer should take into account the needs and possible satiation effect of trainees. Not everyone likes the same reinforcers, and what is effective at first can be overdosed and cause a satiation effect.
Therefore there are several categories of reinforcers one can choose from; like material, social, activity and token reinforcers.
- Moment of presenting the reinforcer
In general: the more immediately the reinforcer follows the desirable behavior, the more likely is its effectiveness. Not only does rapid reinforcement augment the message that the immediately preceding behavior is desirable,
but delayed reinforcer presentation also increases the risk of undesirable behavior or irrelevant behavior.
4. Generalization training or Transfer training
Trainees are encouraged to engage in a series of activities designed to increase the chances that skills learned in the training setting will endure and be available when needed in school, home or other real-world settings.
During modeling, trainees will learn that learned skills can be administered in several different (real-life) situations. In the skillstreaming training trainees are encouraged to bring in personally experienced situations. In addition, trainees get homework assignments. These assignments are designed to increase the behaviors they practiced during training, in their own real-life settings.
Transfer training is a key part of the training because, in order to be successful, it is necessary to be able to translate the learned behavior during training to every day and real-life situations.