P91: Effect of Group Assertive Training on Social Anxiety, Social Skills and Academic Performance of High School Students

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of group assertive training on social anxiety, social skills and academic performance of high school adolescents in Isfahan city. The sample includes 60 students selected by random multistage sampling method. They were randomly divided into experiment and control groups. Participants in this study completed a battery of scales including Watson & friend's anxiety scale and Eisler Miller's social skills rating scale. In this method, self-assertive are defined for the participants at first and students get familiar with their rights such as rights of self-assertive and election freedom. Then, it is discussed about instrument-based behaviors and substitution behaviors, for example why we get angry? Is anger disturbing? And some cases such as psychic pressure, increasing sincerity, contravention, solutions to control anger and admitting or rejecting a request are discussed. The research design was pre-test-post-test with the control group. For analyzing the data MANOVA method was used. The results of MANOVA revealed that, at least there is a significant difference between two groups in one of the dependent variables. Then, ANOVA method confirmed significant difference between two groups in all three variables. Results showed that group assertive training increase social skills and school performance and decrease social anxiety of experimental groups in compare with control groups. Keywords: Assertive Training, Social Skills, Social Anxiety, Academic Performance.