Teaching Social Skills in a Virtual Environment: An Exploratory Study

This article reports on an exploratory study which examines the use of virtual environment technology as a tool to teach elementary school children social skills. Small group interventions were assessed to determine how the participants were measurably different on 7 different dependent variables: problem behaviors, academic competence, cooperation, assertiveness, responsibility, empathy, and self-control. The group intervention created measurable positive changes on 4 of the 7 dependent variables, including problem behaviors, cooperation, responsibility, and self-control.