TEACHING COMPETENCE, SOCIAL SKILLS AND COPING FOR A PROFESSOR’S EFFECTIVE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRACTICE

The purpose or this work was to identify the relationships between teaching competences, social skills and coping styles in public elementary school teachers from Yucatan, Mexico. A total of 447 teachers from 27 public elementary schools in the entire state participated in this study.
This is considered a non experimental, empirical systematic investigation, where there is no direct control over the independent variable because their manifestations have already occurred or they are inherently non manipulable (Kerlinger, 1988). A univariate design was used because there was only one dependent variable interacting with the several independent variables (Clark, 2002).
Three instruments were used, one for each variable studied: Teaching Competences Inventory: Likert type scale, consisting of 30 items, which measures the frequency of strategies, techniques and skills used directed to learning transference in formal educational environments. Teacher Social Skills Inventory: Likert type scale, consisting of 25 items, which measure the ability of performing those learned behaviors that cover the interpersonal communication needs and/or respond to the demands of school situations effectively. And the Multidimensional and Multisituational of Problem Coping Scale (Góngora Coronado, 2000): Pictorial Likert type scale consisting of 108 items which measures coping as a trait and a second dimension, coping as a state.
Results establish significant correlations from high (r = .93, p = .01) to low (r = .09, p = .01) between teaching competences, social skills and coping styles. The multiple linear regression produced a predictive model of teaching skills, which explains the 85% variance (p = .000) from Social Working Skills, Confidence and Direct, Revalorative coping styles and Social Support.
In conclusion, teaching competences observed in the present study, show the implementation or methods, strategies, techniques and intentional abilities towards learning transferring in formal educational environments which agrees with Ribes (2006) theoretical approach, which states that in a competence, the relation between the criterion -established for the adjustment demand as a result or achievement- and the required skills for it, can be observed.