〈Originals〉Effect of communication skills training on mothers with preschool children

[Abstract] This study aims to evaluate the effect of a communication skills training program developed for mothers of preschool children. The study was carried out between September 2010 and July 2012 among 73 consenting mothers of preschool children. The training program, consisting of six 90-minute sessions, was delivered to 36 of the mothers in the experimental group. Remaining 37 mothers who did not participate in training program were set as the control group. The allocation to experimental and control groups was made on a voluntary basis. Before and after the training program, the experimental group and the control group both completed a questionnaire comprising questions about their social skills, self-esteem, empathic ability, sense of trust, sense of self-efficacy, and group awareness. Each training program involved a 50-minute PowerPoint presentation, 30 minutes of practical exercises, and 10 minutes for participants to complete a written evaluation of their experience. The presentation covered skills such as listening and problem-solving. The practical exercises included pair work to develop listening techniques. For each of the indicators,　we carried out two-way repeated-measures　ANOVA. We performed between-subject factor　analysis for both groups (experimental and control) and within-subject factor analysis for time (before and after the experiment). Where the interaction effect was found to be significant, we tested for simple main effects. The results showed a significant increase in scores for the experimental group after the training program for communication skills, sense of fulfillment, sense of trust, cognitive empathic ability, and group awareness behavior. This suggests that the communication skills training program was effective at improving participants\u27 communication skills