Scales are excellent exercises to aid in your improvisation and solos. Did you know that improvisation and solos come from these scales? By know the pattern of scales, you could simply change it here and there using bends, pull-offs and so on. Get the idea? In this case, you can actually create something that sounds cool, a lick, easier.
Secondly, scales help you to understand which fingers to use. When learning scales, do follow the finger guide, that is very crucial. Guitarist learn which fingers to use via scales. Once mastered, that guitarist is able to play songs using the correct fingering instead of using all the wrong fingering, which may prove to be slower as compared to using the correct fingering.
For beginners, you probably should learn scales. Why? When i started off playing an electric guitar, I always strike the wrong strings. That was because I did not learn scales yet. When I was supposed to pick the 3th string, i pick the 4th string. However, after numerous handouts of scales from my teacher, I now can pick the correct guitar string. In order to curb this problem, this should be the answer to this problem. Not only is it effective, it also helps improve other aspects too.
