Efficacy of Communication Skills Training on Self-esteem and Academic Achievement of Students

Communication skills refer to skills with which people can involve in interpersonal interactions and communication process; that is, process in which people share their information, thoughts, and senses through verbal and nonverbal exchanges. The present research was done to study the effect of communication skills training on self-esteem and academic achievement of male students of high-schools in Zanjan city. The research method was experimental with pre-test, post-test with a control group. The tools used in this research were the Cooper Smith Self-esteem Questionnaire (1986) and, the average student's marks in the semester and the UNISEF program for training communication skills (2004). The statistical population of the research included all of male high school students in Zanjan in the school year 2011-12. Among them 60 students were randomly selected by multi-stages cluster sampling method and divided into two experimental and control groups. The results gained by ANCOVA showed that there was a significant difference between experimental and control groups in self-esteem. Also the results showed that there was significant difference between experimental and control group in academic achievement of students. The training of communication skills was effective in improvement of self-esteem and academic achievement of students.