effectiveness of social skills training in the high-risk behaviors and communication skills of secondary school students

Background: the present study aimed to determine the effectiveness of social skills training inhigh-risk behaviors and communication skills among secondary school students in kaleybar city.methods: this was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test, post-test control group design.the statistical population of the study consisted of all the male high school students of kaleybarcity in the academic year of 2018-2019. first, two high schools were randomly selected fromthe districts of kaleybar (east azarbaijan province), one class was randomly selected from eachschool, and then, 40 students in the selected schools were randomly assigned into two groups:experimental (n=20) and control (n=20). the high-risk behaviors and communication skillsscales were used for data collection. descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) andcovariance analysis were used to analyze the data at the significant level of 0.05.results: the results showed that social skills training focused on high-risk behavior and itscomponents (violence, smoking, drug use, alcohol consumption, and the opposite sex) andcommunication skills (feedback, listening, and verbal skills) positively affected the students,reduced risky behaviors, and increased communication skills (p<0.05).conclusion: paying attention to the social skills of students can crucially reduce their high-riskbehaviors and enhance their communication skillsو