Preparation and compilation of a life - skills curriculum for students

Abstract

The concept of life skills is a great group of psychosocial and interpersonal skills that can help people make decisions, make an effective relationship, develop their coping skills and self management, and have a productive and safe life. The purpose of this study was to determine the essential life skills for Iranian high-school students, to design appropriate curriculum pattern for life skills, and to evaluate their effectiveness. A questionnaire with 50 items was administered on 600 high-school students (150 students of each grade), a questionnaire with 50 items was administered on 240 parents and a questionnaire with 12 items was administered on 150 high-school teachers, 20 high-school curriculum experts, and 10 faculty members of the universities. The results of the study indicated that the self-awareness, effective communication, interpersonal relationship, coping with stress, decision-making, problem solving, critical thinking, and creative thinking are important priorities for all groups. An appropriate curriculum pattern for life skills was also designed. This curriculum pattern includes purposes, syllabus, type of content, instructional methods, and evaluation methods of life skills. In experimental stage of the study, curriculum of self-awareness skill, which was in first order in last stage, was administered on 120 subjects by a pretest-posttest with control group design. Analysis of data indicated that teaching of self-awareness skill to students is effective in advancement of this skill.