Social and Emotional Learning: Research, Practice, and Policy最新文献

In 2021, Oregon's legislature passed House Bill 2166, which mandated that the Oregon Department of Education (ODE), in collaboration with the Early Learning Division and the Teacher Standards and Practices Commission (TSPC), develop K-12 Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) standards for students across the state. This manuscript highlights how Oregon used the Transformative SEL framework to guide their multi-phase process, which involved extensive input and collaboration from a diverse group of educators, policy makers, parents and students. This collaborative approach ensured that the standards reflected a wide range of perspectives and addressed the unique needs of various student populations. The manuscript discusses the challenges encountered in the process, such as resistance to change, resource allocation, and professional development needs. This work contributes to the growing body of research on SEL by providing a model for states and districts to develop and implement SEL standards that align with legislative mandates and educational equity goals.

Research suggests that strong implementation across various dimensions, such as fidelity and dosage, contributes to the effectiveness of social and emotional learning (SEL) programs. Nevertheless, those who implement SEL programs are often faced with a variety of implementation barriers, especially as they relate to program characteristics or fit. These challenges are exacerbated in global crisis and education in emergency settings, where implementers often confront a unique set of implementation challenges related to feasibility and relevance. The paper presents a methodology for addressing these challenges using a behavioral insights approach, which draws on theories and evidence from a diverse set of fields to understand the root causes of human behavior as they relate to program uptake and use. Through a case study, the authors demonstrate how behavioral insights was used to explore implementation barriers and design potential solutions in a project to contextualize SEL programming in northeast Nigeria. Findings suggest that behavioral insights contributed to lowering implementation barriers and increasing participant motivation that ultimately encouraged increased uptake, dosage, fidelity, and quality of SEL programming. This work furthers the emerging integration of behavioral insights into SEL program design and implementation by describing a suggested methodology for the application of behavioral insights and outlining important lessons learned that may be relevant to future projects that seek to model this approach.

Social and emotional skills play a pivotal role in an adolescent’s healthy development. In recent years, there has been a greater focus on the international expansion of social and emotional learning (SEL) efforts to support students’ well-being. SEL efforts in China for example, have expanded significantly to address the increasing trends in the rates of anxiety and depression among adolescents. Despite the increased focus on SEL, there remains a lack of standardized measures to inform these efforts. This study describes the application of the cultural adaptation process for assessments outlined by the International Test Commission to create a Chinese version of the DESSA High School Edition Student Self-Report (DESSA SSR). The DESSA SSR is a standardized, norm-referenced, strength-based behavior rating scale that measures the social and emotional competence of students in 9th through 12th grades. In addition to a rigorous translation process, expert cultural review and a measurement invariance study were conducted. Findings support the use of the DESSA SSR with Chinese students.

Teaching is a challenging profession, and teachers experience stress due to the difficulties associated with shifting educational policies, disengaged or dissatisfied parents, and the behavioral, emotional, and academic needs of diverse students. This stress can lead to burnout, which often results in departure from K-12 education system. These stressors can also reduce teachers’ sense of self-efficacy, i.e., their perceived ability to accomplish tasks and overcome challenges. These elevated levels of stress and burnout and reductions in self-efficacy negatively impact student outcomes. In this study, we evaluated the potential for cooperative learning (CL) to reduce stress and burnout and enhance teacher self-efficacy. To aid in the implementation of CL and reduce the burden on teachers, we used an innovative software platform (PeerLearning.net). Data were from a cluster randomized trial encompassing 12 middle and high schools (N = 111 teachers, 62.2 % female, 86.5 % White). We found that teachers in intervention schools (i.e., schools given training and access to PeerLearning.net) reported reduced levels of stress and beneficial effects on self-efficacy (i.e., higher levels of Student Engagement and Instructional Strategies) and burnout (i.e., reductions in Emotional Exhaustion and higher levels of Personal Accomplishment) compared to teachers in control schools that conducted business as usual. We found no significant differences in Classroom Management (an element of self-efficacy) and Depersonalization (an element of burnout). These results suggest that CL, implemented with PeerLearning.net, can have some beneficial effects on teacher well-being.

Human development involves intraindividual changes across the life span. Developmental changes may involve instances of change common to all individuals (nomothetic change), change common to only some groups of individuals (differential change), and change specific to an individual (idiographic change). All three types of change must be measured to obtain a holistic and integrated understanding of any facet of human development. To date, most studies of the development of social and emotional learning (SEL) skills have focused on assessing nomothetic and differential change. The analysis of data derived from this research is variable-focused, and longitudinal studies with such a focus typically do not have enough time points to model intraindividual trajectories with sufficient power. Such trajectories require analysis wherein each individual is compared to themselves across time (ipsative analyses). Change-sensitive measures used within intensive longitudinal designs and analyses are suitable for ipsative analyses of participants and enable direct comparisons of whether intraindividual trajectories are reflected in group data. We discuss research findings reflecting that meaningful idiographic changes are not reflected in group data. We also argue that future studies of SEL should integrate idiographic data with differential and nomothetic data in the service of understanding the holistic development of SEL.

Developing social-emotional training opportunities for caregivers and professionals can promote higher quality care for children and families in the home and in early years services. Community-based efforts that integrate developmental-relational research into practice using a participatory approach are a growing area of interest and focus. The current paper provides a program profile of RAISE (Research and Practice Partnership: Building Awareness and Increasing Social-Emotional Capacity in the Early Years), a social-emotional training model that uses a bottom-up community-based approach to design and implement a developmental-relational training to strengthen caregivers’ and educators’ capacities to support children’s social-emotional development and mental health. We describe our training development approach, which integrates community engagement efforts with developmental-relational and clinical research, including examples of how participatory approaches may inform curricula development. Finally, we highlight several lessons learned from this training model, with the aim of informing future social-emotional development and practice initiatives.

We used a cluster-randomized controlled trial to examine the impacts of a technology- and game-based social-emotional program, the Adventures Aboard the S.S. GRIN (Adventures), on students’ social skills development. Eighty-eight third-grade classrooms (N = 1645 third-grade students) across four California public school districts were randomized to treatment or control. Analysis of student demographic data indicated that 49 % were male, 51 % were female, approximately one-third were Latinx, and about 50 % qualified for free and reduced lunch. Two-level hierarchical linear model analysis results indicated that Adventures had significant and meaningful impacts on students’ social-emotional learning (SEL) skills. The findings of Adventures shine new lights on a growing effort to support all students, including those identified by their teachers as having social-emotional challenges. It also expands our knowledge about the potential role of technology in addressing SEL competencies.

In recent decades, social and emotional learning (SEL) has become widespread in classrooms across the United States and around the globe, as an ever-growing body of research links the development of social emotional skills to positive outcomes in school, work, and life. In practice, SEL in schools has also encountered challenges related to definition, implementation, and equity. In this paper, we present a model that integrates the core principles of successful SEL practice from developmental and prevention science with culturally sustaining and asset-based pedagogies. We propose that culturally sustaining SEL in the classroom rests on three core adult competencies: 1) engaging in critical reflection; 2) building caring, authentic, and reciprocal relationships; and 3) shifting the balance of power toward the developing students. These competencies are both strengthened by and enacted through the facilitative processes of co-regulation and co-construction, and are the foundation upon which culturally sustaining classroom norms, structures, and SEL practices are built. As SEL arrives at a crossroads of practice, policy, and politics, a flexible, adaptable, responsive, and co-constructed model of culturally sustaining SEL in the classroom offers a path forward that honors and sustains the diversity of our classrooms and deepens our commitment to equity in practice.

Amidst growing concerns about the prolonged youth mental health crisis, many schools across the United States provide social and emotional supports for students through both universal social and emotional learning (SEL) programs and practices and through more targeted and intensive mental health supports. However, all too often, these supports are implemented in a way that is not coordinated to ensure that students benefit in a systematic and equitable manner. This article provides a case study example from a statewide initiative to address this issue: the Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Academy (SEB Academy) operated by Education Development Center (EDC) as part of the Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) Academies funded by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. The SEB Academy supports schools in assessing and improving their MTSS for SEL and mental health. Schools improve their systems for identifying students needing SEL and mental health support at each tier, providing appropriate support, monitoring student progress, and adjusting supports as appropriate while ensuring cultural responsiveness and equity. Key strategies, tools, and approaches in implementing this MTSS approach to SEL and mental health in schools and districts are described. Implications for the field of SEL and mental health are discussed, including how states and other education stakeholders can support an MTSS approach to SEL and mental health at scale.

Implementing school-based social-emotional learning (SEL) interventions requires consideration of both evidence-based practices as well as contextual fit based on student needs. One key approach to adapting SEL interventions is through research-practice partnerships between researchers, practitioners, and school district leaders. The current paper explores the ways a research-practice partnership supports an inclusive education intervention, called the Path Program, designed to support elementary students with emotional disabilities through both structural elements and evidence-based practices. Using the research-practice exchange in the Path Program to support a continuous improvement approach to adaptation, the Path Program uses a Plan Do Study Act cycle to continually infuse SEL activities with a trauma-informed approach to meet student needs. The paper offers crucial information for SEL interventions on the strengths of leveraging research-practice partnerships for program adaptation as well as implementation.

Impact statement

The current paper importantly sheds light on ways to leverage a research-practice partnership to support intervention adaptation and implementation to better meet student needs while maintaining evidence-based practices. Specifically, the paper details the importance of infusing SEL activities with trauma-informed practices to meet students with emotional disabilities’ needs and the ways a research-practice partnership supports that process. The paper informs researchers, practitioners, and school leaders on ways to use partnerships to develop stronger SEL interventions.