New Study on the Impact of Social and Emotional Learning

March 4, 2011 - A new study on the impact of social and emotional learning (SEL) programs shows that, compared to study controls, SEL participants demonstrated significantly improved social and emotional skills, attitudes, behavior, and academic performance that reflected an 11-percentile-point gain in achievement. The findings add to the growing empirical evidence on the positive impact of SEL programs. 

The study is described in the January/February 2011 issue of Child Development and entailed a meta-analysis of 213 school-based, universal SEL programs involving 270,034 kindergarten through high school students. According to the article, the SEL approach integrates competence promotion and youth development frameworks that help foster people to have flexible, adaptive responses to demands and capitalize on opportunities in the environment. These include being able to recognize and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, appreciate the perspectives of others, establish and maintain positive relationships, make responsible decisions, and handle interpersonal situations constructively.

Given that relationships and emotional processes affect how and what people learn, schools and families must effectively address these aspects of the educational process for the benefit of all students.  Within schools, SEL programming incorporates two coordinated sets of educational strategies. The first one involves instruction in processing, integrating, and selectively applying social and emotional skills in developmentally, contextually, and culturally appropriate ways. The second includes fostering students’ social-emotional development by establishing safe, caring learning environments involving peer and family initiatives, improved classroom management and teaching practices, and whole-school community-building activities. 

The article notes that if effective SEL programs are to be used more widely, then concerted efforts are needed to help schools through the multiple steps of this process such as: dissemination of information about available programs, adoption of programs that fit best with local settings, proper implementation of newly adopted programs, effective program evaluation to assess progress toward desired goals, and methods to sustain beneficial interventions over the long term. 

Source: “The Impact of Enhancing Students’ Social and Emotional Learning: a Meta-Analysis of School-Based Universal Interventions,” Child Development, January/February 2011.