Evaluate the effectiveness of life skills training on development of autonomy in adolescent students: A comparative study

Pages:68-72
Ayub Ghasemian and Venkatesh Kumar G. (Department of Studies in Psychology, University of Mysore, Mysore )

The aim of the present study was to enhancement of autonomy through life skills training among adolescent students. A conceptual analysis of different theoretical perspectives has resulted in an integrative model of attitudinal, emotional, and functional autonomy. Attitudinal autonomy refers to the cognitive process of choosing and defining a goal. Emotional autonomy refers to the affective process of feeling confident about one’s own choices and goals. Functional autonomy refers to the regulatory process of developing a strategy to achieve these goals. Adolescent Autonomy Questionnaire by Noom et al. (1999) was used to measure adolescent students’ autonomy and each component. After the pre-test a total of 200 adolescent students who measured low on autonomy were selected and divided into experimental and control groups (50 boys & 50 girls in each group). Life skills training program designed by World Health Organization (WHO) was administered to the experimental group in 8 training sessions of 120 minutes and the control group was kept under observation. The results showed that life skills training has significantly increased autonomy of the intervened sample than non intervened sample. We also found positive effect of life skills training in increasing all the sub-components of autonomy-attitudinal, emotional and functional autonomies.