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Impact of Life Skill Training on Self-esteem, Adjustment and
Empathy among Adolescents
Pooja Yadav and Naved Iqbal
Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.
The aim of the present study was to see the imp act of life skill training on self-
esteem, adjustment and empathy among adolescents. Total sample comprised of
60 students (30 males and 30 females) from the Hans Raj Model School, Punjabi
Bagh who has received life skill training from the team of Expressions India. Self
esteem inventory (school form), Adjustment inventory for school students (AISS)
and the Empathy quotient (EQ) were administered in a group session one by one
in two or three days both before training was given and after training. In the post
condition, test scores were obtained after 5 months of training. The result showed
that subjects improved significantly in post condition on self-esteem, emotional
adjustment, educational adjustment, total adjustment and empathy. However, no
significant difference was found on social adjustment in pre and post condition.
Overall training was very effective as subjects improved in the post condition on all
measures except one, thus showing that Life skill training do show positive results
in bringing change in adolescent’ s attitude, thought and behavior by providing
supportive environment to them.
Keywords: Self-esteem, Adjustment, Empathy
The present scenario of adolescents clearly
shows that the condition of our youth has
significantly deteriorated. Recent studies show
that there is significant rise in the problems
faced by the adolescents for example, serious
emotional disturbances has increased (WHO,
2001), increased sexual activity in schools, rise
in AIDS cases in India & greater use of alcohol
consumption has been found (BSS, 2007).
Apart from the above, use of heavy drugs and
youth drop outs have also increased in the
recent years (UNICEF, 2001).
All these studies clearly illustrate the
increase in aggressiveness, suicidal cases,
drug use, and depressive cases among
adolescents. This gives us the clear image of
the struggles that adolescents go through, the
problems they face. So providing an
experience that would strengthen adolescent’s
coping abilities to counter environment al
stress and disadvantages with which they
sometimes have to cope with while
experiencing is an essential need.
One best-practice model for contributing
to the healthy development of adolescents is
a life skills approach. A key aspect of human
development - as important to basic survival
as intellect - is the acquisition of socio-
cognitive and emotional coping skills. This has
been shown to have impact on behaviors. For
more than a decade, research on interventions
that address these specific skill areas has
shown their effectiveness in promoting
desirable b ehaviors, s uch a s s ociability,
improved communication, ef fective decision
making and conflict resolution, and preventing
negative or high-risk behaviors, such as use
of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs, unsafe
sex, and violence. Developed by Dr.Botvin, a
leading prevention expert, Life Skills Training
© Journal of the Indian Academy of Applied Psychology
October 2009, Vol. 35, Special Issue, 61-70.
62
is backed by over 20 scientific studies and is
recognized as a Model or Exemplary program
by an array of government agencies including
the U.S. Department of Education and the
Center for Substance Abuse Prevention.
Life skills are essentially those abilities
that help promote ment al well being and
competence in young people as they face the
realities of life. UNICEF and WHO agree that
life skills are generally applied in various
aspects of life. Such as in the context of health
and s ocial e vents l ike h uman r elationships,
learning about social influences on behavior
and learning about rights and responsibilities,
as well as being taught in the context of health
problems.
Life skills enable individuals to translate
knowledge, attitudes and values into actual
abilities – i.e. what to do and how to do it. Life
skills are abilities that enable individuals to
behave in healthy ways, given the desire to
do so and given the scope and opportunity to
do so. They are not a panacea: “How to do
abilities” are not the only factors that af fect
behavior. If the model were placed within a
larger, more comprehensive framework there
would be many factors that relate to the
motivation and ability to behave in positive
ways to prevent health problems. These
factors include such things as social support,
cultural and environment factors etc.
It can be utilized in many content areas,
issues, topics or subjects such as in prevention
of drug abuse, sexual violence, teenage
pregnancy, HIV/AIDS/STD prevention, suicide
prevention, etc. UNICEF extends it s use
further into consumer education,
environmental education, peace education or
education for development, livelihood and
income generation, among others. In short, it
empowers young people to t ake positive
actions to protect themselves and to promote
health and positive social relationships.
Life skill s e ducation is an educatio nal
innovation that has spread in several countries
since it was introduced in mid-1980, thus
showing its effectiveness. Comprehensive Life
Skills programmes developed in England,
Canada, Australia and the United States have
spread to over 30 countries. In our country ,
most of the initiatives have come from Ngo’s
sector.
The current scenario of adolescent s
revealed by increased depression, increased
suicidal rates, increased drug use is the clear
indication of the challenges that adolescent’s
are facing. Information overload, mixed
messages from media, press, teachers, and
family and from society at large add to the
confusing scenario of the assimilating young
mind. No doubt that they are at risk because
they l ack s ocial s upport t o s eek a ccurate
information and services. Thus providing an
experience that would strengthen adolescent’s
coping abilities to counter environment al
stress and disadvantages with which they
sometimes have to cope with while
experiencing is an essential need. The
purpose of this study is primarily to study the
impact of life skill training on adolescents and
to understand and explore what can be done
at grass root level, starting from the school as
school play crucial role in the development of
cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional and
moral function and competencies in a child.
The present study therefore is an attempt to
understand the effectiveness of this approach
in the Indian setting on adolescent’ s self
esteem, adjustment level and empathy.
Method
Sample:
The samples of the study comprised 60
students (30 males and 30 females). The age
range of 15-17 years. The sample was
collected from the Hans Raj Model School,
Punjabi Bagh.
Tools:
Self esteem inventory (Adult form):
Self esteem inventory by Coppersmith (1982)
was used to measure the self esteem of the
subjects. The SEI is designed to measure the
Impact of Life Skill Training
63
evaluative attitude towards the self in social,
academic, family and personal area of
experience. It was developed in conjunction
an extensive study of self-esteem on children
and the major basis was the widely used belief
that self-esteem is significantly associated with
personal satisfaction and effective functioning.
The adult form of the SEI was used in the
study. This form consist s of 25 items. The
subject has to put a “x” in the column of either”
LIKE ME”, if he/she thinks that the item
signifies what he feels or “UNLIKE ME”, if he/
she thinks the item does not signify what he/
she feels. Reliability coefficients ranging from
.71 to .80 have been reported when alternate
forms were used. The concurrent validity and
predictive validity of the SEI has been reported
to be good. SEI scores are significantly
correlated to creativity , academic
achievement, perceived popularity and family
adjustment. High personality adjustment
scores accompany high SEI scores. SEI
scores are also correlated with scores on
achievement and intelligence. They are also
predictive of school achievement.
Adjustment inventory for school
students (AISS): It was developed by Sinha
and Singh (1984), for Hindi knowing school
students of India, was used to assess different
areas of adjustment. The inventory seeks to
segregate well-adjusted secondary school
students (age group 14 to 18 years) from
poorly adjusted students in three years of
adjustment. In this scale, the scoring is done
in a reverse direction i.e. less score reveals
better adjustment. A list of 100 questions
indicating the significant problems of school
students in the three areas was prepared. The
questions were to be answered in “yes” or “no”.
The final inventory consisted of 60 items, 20
items in each area of adjustment. Meaning of
the symbols and explanation of the areas: (a)
Emotional adjustment: High scores indicate
unstable emotion. Students with low scores
tend to be emotionally stable. (b) Social
adjustment: I ndividuals s coring h igh a re
submissive and tiring. Low scores indicate
aggressive behavior. (c) Educational
adjustment: Individuals scoring high on third
are poorly adjusted with their curricular and
curricular programmes. Persons with low
scores are interested in school programmes.
Coefficient of reliability was determined by (i)
Split – half method, (ii) Test retest method and
(iii) K-R Formula- 20. Table I gives the
reliability coefficients of the tot al test and of
subtests by the dif ferent methods. In item
analysis, validity coefficients were determined
for each item by biserial correlation method
and only such items were ret ained which
yielded b iserial c orrelation w ith b oth t he
criteria. (i) Total score and (ii) Area score,
significant level being 0.01. Correlating
inventory scores with high ratings by the
Hostel superintendent also validated this
inventory. This was done on the dat a of 60
pupils living in the hostels of Patna Collegiate
Multi purpose higher secondary school. The
Hostel superintendent rated the pupils on a
five point sc ale, namely , Excellent, Good,
Average, Poor and Very poor in respect to their
adjustments. The product moment coefficient
correlation betwe en inventory scores and
superintendent’s was found to be 0.51.
The E Q q uestionnaire: The empathy
quotient by Cohen and Wheelwright (2004)
was u sed t o m easure the e mpathy of the
subjects. The EQ has a forced choice format,
can be self administered, and is
straightforward to score because it does not
depend on any interpret ation. It contains 40
empathy items and 20 filler/control items. On
each empathy item a person can score 2, 1,
or 0. The EQ comprises 60 questions, broken
down into two types: 40 questions t apping
empathy (items 1, 4, 6, 8, 10, 1 1,12, 14, 15,
18, 19, 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 32, 34,35,
36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 48, 49, 50,
52,54, 55, 57, 58, 59, and 60), and 20 filler
items (items 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 13, 16, 17, 20, 23,
24, 30, 31, 33, 40, 45,47, 51, 53, and 56). The
20 filler items were included to distract the
participant from a relentless focus on empathy.
Each of the items listed above scores 1 point
Pooja Yadav and Naved Iqbal
64
if the respondent records the emp athic
behavior mildly, or 2 points if the respondent
records the behavior strongly. Approximately
half the items were worded to produce a
“disagree” response and half to produce an
“agree” response for the empathic response.
This was to avoid a response bias either way.
Following this, items were randomized. So,
the EQ has a maximum score of 80 and a
minimum of zero. Reliability-Cronbach’s
alpha was calculated for the EQ was 0.92,
which is high.
Table 1 Mean, SD and t value pre and post
condition
Variable Condition Mean SD t
Pre 53.93 18.87 9.97**
Self esteem Post 69.06 15.97
Emotional Pre 13.51 3.79 15.05**
Adjustment Post 7.53 3.35
Social Pre 11.53 6.09 0.8
Adjustment Post 10.93 1.74
Educational Pre 13.1 4.53 11.73**
Adjustment Post 6.13 3.47
Total Pre 38.2 7.9 13.82**
Adjustment Post 24.61 4.92
Empathy Pre 40.71 17.19 10.80**
Post 54.26 13.08
** p< 0.01
The t able1 shows that there was
significant d ifference b etween p re a nd post
condition on Self-esteem, Emotional,
Educational, Total adjustment and Emp athy.
Significant dif ferences were observed
between all the pairs at .01 level of
significance. In post condition, subjects have
improved in all the above variables. However,
significant difference was not found between
pre and post condition on Social adjustment.
Fig1 clearly depicts the gain in scores of
all above dimensions among adolescents after
LST. It could be observed that there is
decrease in case of adjustment, but as there
is reverse scoring in the inventory used, lower
score reveals better adjustment.
Fig1 Depicts the gain in scores of all above
dimensions among adolescents after LST.
Fig 2 depict s the decrease in adjustment
scores in adolescents after life skill training,
thus proving the efficiency of the technique.
As, in the case of adju stment, low er score
reveals better adjustment.
Discussion
Changes in society and environment
surrounding young people have created
various problems in their growth and
development of health. For example,
competitive examinations, reduction of free
time, reduction of interpersonal relationship
skills and low self-training skills are said to
cause juvenile worries, anxiety and stress.
Their low tolerance an d in appropriate
management toward stress are highlighted
and have made health issues surrounding
them varied and more serious. The trend is
Impact of Life Skill Training
65
expected t o b ecome m ore c omplex. U nder
these circumstances, valued skills to survive
in healthy conditions are life skills, with which
we can subjectively and positively solve
various everyday problems and requirements.
The W orld Health Organization (WHO) has
defined life skills as ‘necessary skills to
constructively and effectively manage various
issues and needs arising in daily life’. They
are regarded as skills for people to act in a
flexible and positive way. The p resent study
focuses on these life skills as youth survival
skills in healthy conditions and, using the
framework of WHO’s definition of three
aspects in health: physical, psychological, and
social aspects, aims to understand the skills
that are useful in enhancing health in daily life
(health-related life skills, hereafter).
The present study was aimed at studying
the impact of life skill training on self-esteem,
adjustment and empathy among adolescents.
For this purpose, the total sample of the study
taken was 60 students, out of these 30 were
males and 30 were females. The sample was
collected from the Hans Raj Model School,
Punjabi Bagh. Scores of the subjects in the
two conditions i.e. pre and post training were
compared.
It was found that in the present
investigation, there was significant difference
at .01 level between pre and post condition
on Self-esteem of adolescents .The mean
score obtained by the subjects was found to
be 53.93 before training and 69.06 af ter
training. This indicates that the subjects had
scored higher on the self-esteem dimension.
The t-ratio obt ained was 9.97, which was
significant at .01 level of significance. Thus,
Life skills’ training is ef fective in increasing
self-esteem of adolescents.
This result has been supported by
various studies [Morgan et al.1996,
Friesenhahn 1999, Winkleby et al 2004].
Morgan e tal ( 1996) f ound t hat L ST h ave
significant ef fects on attitudes and beliefs
regarding substance use but rather less effects
on actual behavior. An analysis of how these
effects were mediated suggests that the
enhancement of self-esteem and the learning
of assertiveness skills played an important role
in the outcomes. Winkleby et al (2004) also
obtained Similar results. Friesenhahn (1999)
study also confirm that there is significant
difference in the self esteem of adolescents
after LST, along with improved ability to
interact with others, strengthened
communication skills, gain in creative thinking
skills, enhanced ability to make their own
decisions and manage their resources, and
greatly improved their ability to effectively work
in groups to accomplish group goals. .
The self-esteem of an adolescent is an
important contributor of his growth and dealing
with difficulties. Studies have found that one-
third to one-half of adolescents struggle with
low self-esteem, especially in early
adolescence (Harter, 1990; Hirsch & Dubois,
1991). The results of low self-esteem can be
temporary, but in serious cases can lead to
various problems including depression,
delinquency, self-inflicted injuries, suicide
(Battle, 1990; Bhatti, 1992), and anorexia
nervosa.
Miller (1988) demonstrated that a
program to increase self-esteem significantly
changed the attitudes of students regarding
their alcohol and drug use.
The result s of these studies clearly
illustrate the positive effect of life skills training
on adolescents and importance of self-esteem
as an important personality variable that needs
to be strengthened as it is directly related to
negative behaviors. If adolescents develop
some life skills, then positive feelings of self
worth will follow—or if such youth have
positive feelings of self-worth, they will be
more likely to develop and practice new life
skills. It could be said that Group learning
provides opportunity for social skills by
encouraging social interacti on and thus
promotes self-esteem in the subjects.
Pooja Yadav and Naved Iqbal
66
Present investigation also revealed that
there was significant dif ference at .01 levels
between pre and post condition on Emotional
adjustment. In post condition, subject’ s
emotional a djustment h as i mproved
significantly.
Emotionally adjusting can be interpreted
as emotionally stable. To be stable in
emotions, to handle emotions well is an
important skill that adolescents must learn, as
this seems to be major cause of their
involvement in high-risk b ehaviors.
Effectiveness of LST has been supported by
various researches like Deffenbacher, e t al,
(1986) reported that LST teach anger control.
LST thus teaches social and emotional
skills that have positive effects in multiple
realms, such as decreasing aggression in
boys, decreasing suspensions and expulsions,
decreasing d rug u se a nd d elinquency,
increasing academic test scores, and
increasing positive attachments to school and
families (Hawkins et al, 1992). Concisely, life
skills programs address and have an impact
on multiple behaviors. Skills for coping with
emotions through learning self-management
and controlling stress (of ten incorporating
social problem solving skills) are a critical
dimension of most life skills programs.
On social adjustment, significant
difference was not found between pre and post
condition. This shows that there is no impact
of LST on the part of social adjustment among
subjects. The reason for getting this result
could be chance facto rs or may be du e to
individual differences and could be because
of small sample size. Whereas it promote
positive s ocial a djustment i s s upported b y
study of Elias, etal (1991). Mize and Ladd
(1990) have also researched that LST Prevent
peer rejection.
The importance of social adjustment has
been seen in the behavior of adolescent s in
dealing with people, having control on
aggressiveness and to deal with dif ferent
situations.
Apart from this, recent findings in
behavioral epidemiology indicate that mental
health problems, social problems, and health-
risk behaviors often co-occur as an organized
pattern of adolescent risk behaviors.
(Greenberg et al, 1999). It focuses on
increasing positive social skills with which to
handle inevit able social disagreement and
conflict, on the ability to generate alternative
solutions to an interpersonal problem and on
the ability to conceptualize the consequences
of different behaviors. Relationships between
these problem solving skills and social
adjustment were found not only in preschool
and kindergarten children, b ut also in
adolescents and adults. So, it can be said that
Social-cognitive skills, social competence, and
problem-solving skills serve as mediators for
behaviors, both positive and negative.
As for the third type of adjustment i.e.
educational adjustment, table I reveals that
mean of subject s in pre condition, 13.10 is
higher than mean in post condition, 6.13, thus
showing difference between the two mean
values. The t value obtained is 1 1.73 that is
significant at .01 level and thus again proves
the ef fectiveness of LST . It is known that
individuals having good adjustment in context
of educational are at better pace in their
adjustment with curricular and curricular
programmers. One of such study is that of
Hawkins et al (1992), who found that LST has
been found to increase academic test scores.
Significant dif ference was also observed
between pre and post condition on Total
adjustment. Total adjustment improved
significantly in post condition. Because
Adjustment is inevitably tied in with issues of
independence, sufficiency and control and will
vary from person to person influenced by their
character, previous experiences and support
network.
Hence, we can conclude that there is
significant d ifference o n a djustment o f
adolescents before and after life skill training
in the area of emotional, educational and total
Impact of Life Skill Training
67
adjustment, only in social adjustment findings
does not support the expectations.
Another result that has been produced in
this study is that there was significant
difference on Empathy level of adolescents
before and after life skill training. The mean
score obtained by the subjects was found to
be 40.71 before training and 54.26 af ter
training. This indicates that the subjects had
scored higher on the dimension of Empathy.
The t-ratio obtained was 10.80, which was
significant at .01 level of significance. The
result indicated that a significant dif ference
exists on the ability of adolescent s to
empathize before and after life skill training.
Empathy is a verbal response, which
reflects emotional content of the other person’s
talk and the causes of emotions. Empathy has
an affective component (for example, feeling
an appropriate emotion triggered by another’s
emotion), a cognitive component (for example,
understanding and/or predicting what
someone else might think, feel, or do), and a
mixed component (cognitive and affective).
Sympathy is clear inst ance of the
affective component of empathy. Sympathy is
said to occur when the observer ’s emotional
response to the distress of another leads the
observer to feel a desire to t ake action to
alleviate the other person’s suffering (Davis,
1994). The observer may not actually act on
this desire, but at the very least the Observer
has the emotion of wanting to take appropriate
action to reduce the other’s distress.
Empathy is a component of
communication and can only be improved with
appropriate training (Winefield and Chur-
Hansen 2000). It allows us to understand the
intentions of others, predict their behavior, and
experience an emotion trigge red by their
emotion. .
Perspective taking and empathy are two
critical social skills. Programs in violence
prevention have successfully taught specific
skills that link perspective taking and empathy
to appropriate behaviors. Young people are
found to show increased skill in identifying and
relating to another person’s feelings if a real-
life role model demonstrates empathy for a
character in a distressful situation (Feshbach,
1982). Guiding children to practice these
empathic responses within conflict situations
can build habits of thinking and caring about
other people’s perspectives and feelings and
help them to come up with nonviolent solutions
instead of resorting to aggression (Slaby and
Guerra, 1998).
The reason for getting such a result could
be summarized in this way. Life skills applied
to drug/substance use prevention are
supposed to facilit ate the Practice and
reinforcement of p sychosocial skills that
contribute to the promotion of personal and
social development such as self awareness,
empathy, communication skills, interpersonal
skills, creative thinking, critical thinking, coping
with emotions and coping with stress.
Empathy and interpersonal sensitivity
may be turned simply into useful ‘tools’ for
adjusting delinquent or disturbed young people
to schooling. Lack of empathic concern, poor
communicative responsiveness and high
emotional contagion significantly contributed
to reduced personal accomplishment (Orndahl
and O’Donnell 1999).
Thus, it is an important variable to be
considered and the ability of subject s
empathizing has been found to be greater after
LS T.
In the light of above discussion, it could
be said that life skill training can specifically
address the needs of children growing up in
disadvantaged environments that lack
opportunities to develop these skills. Health
promotion and prevention programs focusing
only on transfera l of information are less
effective than programs incorporating skills
development.
The social, cognitive and emotional
coping skills targeted by life skills programs
Pooja Yadav and Naved Iqbal
68
are s hown t o b e m ediators o f pr oblem
behaviors and there lies the success of LST.
There are research indications that
teaching skills in this way , as p art of broad-
based life skills programmes, is an ef fective
approach for primary prevention education
(Errecart et al., 1991; Caplan et al., 1992).
Apart from this, the most import ant point for
its effectiveness is in its delivery method that
was most ef fective emphasized sharing,
cooperating and contributing. The conclusions
drawn were that interactive educative
programmes were ‘st atistically superior ’
(Black et al., 1998) to non-interactive
interventions in preventing drug misuse as the
style was not didactic, but highly interactive
and participatory. Similar study of Tobler et
al. (2000) also indicated that non-interactive
lecture- oriented programs have minimal
impact, whereas interactive pro grams like
LST, that enhance the development of
interpersonal skills have greater impact. LST
includes training in refusal skills, goal setting,
assertiveness, communication, and coping
and therefore greater benefits were also
achieved.
The other point to be mention is that Life
Skills are taught using an interactive, problem-
solving approach that arranges activities as a
series of steps. First, the students identify the
problem, and then they brainstorm all possible
solutions. They then examine the advantages
and disadvantages of each solution, and the
best solution is agreed up on. Students next
devise plans for carrying out selected
solutions. Thus, nothing is forced upon
subjects. Concisely it could be said that the
learning activities offer numerous
opportunities for participants to provide their
own input into the nature and content of the
situations addressed during the learning
activities (e.g., creating their own case studies,
brainstorming possible scenarios, etc.).
But one obvious limitation of this type of
prevention approach is that it addresses a
limited set of etiological factors within school
settings. More research is therefore needed
either to extend this approach to other
intervention modalities (e.g., approaches
targeting the family or community) or to
integrate it within a more comprehensive
intervention strategy targeting a broader array
of etiological factors.
Thus although considerable progress
has been made in the past decade, the present
study would be an important contribution in
this field but still further research is needed.
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Pooja Yadav, Student, Gh-10, Sunder Apartment, Flat No. 1 11C, Paschim
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Naved Iqbal, Department of Psychology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi -
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Impact of Life Skill Training
Received: 21 August, 2008
Revision Received: 29 September, 2009
Accepted: 09 October, 2009
