The effectiveness of the RESPECT training model as a counseling intervention for enhancing college students’ social skills

College students' social skills have declined significantly in the digital era, affecting their ability to communicate, build interpersonal relationships, and meet academic and career demands. A preliminary survey of 518 students at IKIP Siliwangi indicated that social skills remained at a moderate level, with social facilitation, social problem-solving, and communication identified as priority areas for development. However, existing interventions lack contextual relevance and have yet to systematically integrate experiential simulation with structured reflective processes. This study therefore examined the effectiveness of RESPECT Training a reflection and simulation-based counseling intervention in developing college students' social skills. A mixed-methods approach with an embedded experimental design was employed, involving 40 third-semester students with low or very low social skills assigned to an experimental group (n = 20) and a control group (n = 20). Data were collected using a validated Social Skills Scale (101 items; ? = .94) and semi-structured in-depth interviews. Given a non-normal data distribution (Shapiro–Wilk: W = 0.91, p = .03), quantitative data were analyzed using the Mann–Whitney U test, while qualitative data were analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Results showed that RESPECT Training significantly improved social skills in the experimental group (p = .02; d = 0.75, moderate effect), whereas the control group showed no significant change (p = .18; d = 0.21). Significant gains were observed across all six social skill dimensions (p < .05). IPA identified four experiential themes emerging reflective awareness, expanding social self-efficacy, adaptive emotional regulation, and deepening empathic engagement which converged with and explained the quantitative findings. These findings suggest that RESPECT Training represents an effective simulation-based, reflective counseling intervention for enhancing college students’ social skills and contributes to advancing guidance and counseling practices in higher education within Indonesia’s collectivist cultural context.