THE SOCIAL VALIDATION AND TRAINING OF CONVERSATIONAL SKILLS¹

Abstract

Three reliably measured components of conversation-questioning, providing positive feedback, and proportion of time spent talking-were identified and validated as to their social importance. The social validity of the three conversational behaviors was established with five female university students and five female junior-high students. Each was videotaped in conversations with previously unknown adults. The conversational ability of each girl was evaluated by a group of 13 adult judges who viewed each tape and rated each conversant "poor" to "excellent" on a seven-point rating scale. The average ratings of the girls correlated at r = 0.85 with the specified behavioral measures. These procedures were replicated with additional subjects and judges and yielded a correlation of r = 0.84. The high correlations between ratings and the objective measures suggested that the specified conversational behaviors were socially important aspects of conversational ability. Employing a multiple-baseline design across the behaviors of asking questions and providing positive feedback, an attempt was made to train four girls who used these behaviors minimally to engage in the behaviors in conversations with adults. Adult judges were again employed to rate randomly selected samples of the girls' skills in pre-and posttraining conversations. The average ratings of the girls before training were lower than both the university girls and the junior high-school girls. After training, the girls' conversational abilities were rated substantially higher than those of their junior high-school peers. These rating data validated the benefits of the training and the social importance of the behavioral components of questions and feedback in conversation. The authors suggest that it may be necessary for traditional behavior analysis measurement systems to be supplemented by social-validation procedures in order to establish the relationship between "objectively" measured behaviors and complex classes of behavior of interest to society.

Improving the Conversational Skills of a College Student with Peer-Mediated Behavioral Skills Training

“…Unfortunately, normative measures of conversational skills are rarely assessed. In a notable exception, Minkin et al (1976) asked naïve judges to rate conversation samples of female college and junior high school students during unstructured conversations, and the judges rated the college students more favorably. The authors found that the college students engaged in more questioning and positive feedback than the junior high school students, suggesting that these two behaviors are important conversational skills.…”

An Evaluation of Teaching‐family (Achievement Place) Group Homes for Juvenile Offenders

“…In a more recent review of program evaluations of delinquency treatment, Elliott (1980) . The treatment approach is based on behavioral principles and the premise that deviant behavior might be reduced or prevented by providing youths with relationships with adults who have high reinforcing value, who provide differential consequences for youth behavior, and who teach requisite social, academic, and self-care skills for successful community living (Braukmann, Kirigin, & Wolf, 1980 (Phillips, 1968); the self-government system ; the teaching procedures used to develop the youths' social, academic, and self-care behaviors (Maloney, Harper, Braukmann, Fixsen, Phillips, & Wolf, 1976;Minkin, Braukmann, Minkin, Timbers, Fixsen, Phillips, & Wolf, 1976;Werner, Minkin, Minkin, Fixsen, Phillips, & Wolf, 1975); the home-based report card system (Bailey, Wolf, & Phillips, 1970;Kirigin, Phillips, Timbers, Fixsen, & Wolf, 1977); and vocational training procedures (Braukmann, Maloney, Fixsen, Phillips, & Wolf, 1974 (Braukmann, Fixsen, Kirigin, Phillips, Phillips, & Wolf, 1975). The year long, in-service training sequence consists of two 1-wk workshops, frequent telephone and periodic inhome consultation session, and regular formal evaluations (Braukmann,Kirigin,& Wolf,Note 1).…”

Small Group Behavioral Training to Improve the Job Interview Skills Repertoire of Mildly Retarded Adolescents

“…Contingent upon the targeting of a spe- consistently evaluated all participants' posttraining performance more favorably than their pretraining performance. Because these managers were naive as to which tapes were before or after training, their evaluations provide "social validation" of the overall training outcome (Minkin, Braukman, Minkin, Timbers, Timbers, Fixsen, Phillips, & Wolf, 1976 Historically, education and training programs for mentally retarded adolescents and adults have focused a great deal of attention on the acquisition of specific vocational skills, often in special workshop settings. However, in order to actually become economically and personally independent, potentially employable retarded persons will need to convey their employability to prospective employers.…”