While they realize their physiological development, people have to develop forms of behavior from their birth to their death that allow them to adapt to the society they live in to survive as social beings. These behaviors require various social skills. Social skills include abilities and learning tendencies, literacies and competencies that are accepted by many institutions and individuals in order to be successful in the 21st century societies and business sectors. The study aimed to develop a valid and reliable social skills scale. The study data to be used for the development of the Social Skills Scale were collected employing the survey method, one of the quantitative research approaches. The study group 202 5th, 6th, and 7th grade middle school students attending public schools in the city center of Erzurum. The study group was determined by random sampling method. The study data were analyzed using the SPSS 20.0 (IBM Corp.; Armonk, NY, USA) and AMOS software. The data collected were subjected to exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The study results revealed a 25-item Likert-type scale with four factors. The scale sub-dimensions were named as self-regulation, interaction, self-control and self-confidence. Cronbach's alpha value for the whole scale was determined as 0.919. The exploratory factor analysis revealed the KMO value as 0.899 and Bartlett's test as significant at the 0.05 level. The explained variance ratio of the scale was found as 51.399%. According to the confirmatory factor analysis results, all goodness-of-fit index values were found as high and at an acceptable fit level. As a result, the developed Social Skills Scale can be considered as a valid and reliable scale.

Social skills scale, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses.