Socio-Emotional Skills scale to assess the effectiveness of coaching for Japanese workers and university students

Abstract

Purpose: There is a growing interest in the application of coaching to a variety of domains such as business, education, and health care in Japan. Despite the expanding market and increased demand for coaching, little research is conducted on developing an assessment tool to measure the effectiveness of coaching interventions. The purpose of the present study is to develop a measurement of Socio-Emotional Skills (SES) to assess coaching intervention effectiveness. Methods: 280 workers and 119 university students participated in the self-reported questionnaire survey. The student participants completed the questionnaire (1) assessing SES, KiSS-18 (Kikuchi's Scale of Social Skills), age, and sex. The worker participants also completed the questionnaire (1), and in addition, they were asked to answer the questionnaire (2) consisting of organization-based self-esteem (OBSE), occupation, job title, and employee tenure. Findings & Discussion: The explanatory factor analysis yielded a 16-item four-factor solution termed ‘Awareness of others’ emotions’, ‘Awareness of one’s own emotions’, ‘Application of one’s strength’, and ‘Sense of togetherness with others’. Internal consistency indicated a sufficient reliability. SES showed a significant association with OBSE and KiSS-18, confirming concurrent validity. Further, significant differences in the SES scores were observed between students and workers, and among different job titles. This study indicates that socio-emotional skills are desirable to acquire for both workers and students who may be engaged in responsible roles, and enhancement of SES can lead to better adaptation and/or performance. The SES scale appears to be an adequate measure for coaching intervention effectiveness.