Özet:

This research has two dimensions: (1) adaptation of the Matson Evaluation of Social Skills With Youngsters (MESSY) to Turkish and, (2) examination of the relationship between social skills, socio-economic status, gender, and age in 12-14 year-old children. The study was carried out on 526 secondary school students in Ankara. Reliability of MESSY was obtained by test-retest and Cronbach Alpha internal consistency methods; validity was determined by applying correlations with the Social Skills Scale and the Teacher Rating Form. In order to examine the relationships between social skills, socioeconomic status, gender and age, three separate two-way analysis of variance were applied. The results revealed that the MESSY was valid and reliable to determine 12-14 year- old children's social skills. The study showed that general social skills levels of children is significantly related to gender [F (1,524) = 5.13; p < .05]. Further, it was observed that while negative social behaviors are significantly related to age [F (2,523) = 3.62; p < .05], gender and socio-economic status have common effect on positive soci al behaviors [F (2,521) = 3.15; p < .05].

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