Evidence for Social and Emotional Learning in Schools

Abstract

There is a consensus among educators, parents, and policymakers that education should include a focus on supporting essential social and emotional capacities to help children navigate the world successfully. To develop these competencies, many schools adopt social and emotional learning programs. This report reviews the findings from 12 meta-analyses on school-based SEL programs. Across these studies, there is a consistent, reliable effect of tested, evidence-based SEL programs on students’ social, emotional, behavioral, and academic outcomes in PreK–12th grade, including the development of social and emotional skills, improved academic engagement and performance, growth of positive social behaviors, and lower rates of behavior problems and psychological distress. These findings are applicable across gender, ethnicity and race, income, and other demographic variables.

The state of evidence for social and emotional learning: A contemporary meta‐analysis of universal school‐based SEL interventions

“…Despite the momentum and perceived progress USB SEL intervention design, implementation, and evaluation over the past decade, the reports of effectiveness of these interventions do not reflect such progress. The complete articulation of the benefits of USB SEL interventions requires increased collection and reporting of outcomes that are most meaningful in their practical implications, including contextual measures that are both macro structural and proximal to the interactions and experiences in SEL programs that contribute to what are statistically discerned as impacts so that more sophisticated meta‐analyses can be conducted (Durlak et al, 2022; Greenberg, 2023; Osher, Pittman, et al, 2020).…”

“…Wolf and Harbatkin (2023) used data from the What Works Clearinghouse to categorize outcome measures in educational interventions and documented how average effect sizes varied for outcome measure type by whether the group who developed the measure potentially had a stake in the intervention (non‐independent) or not (independent). Research designs and the possibility of a conflict of interest further complicates an already complex constellation of potential outcomes in evaluations of USB SEL interventions (Cheung & Slavin, 2016; Greenberg, 2023; Wolf & Harbatkin, 2023). Subsequent review of best available data is underway and available upon request.…”

Kids are all in the same storm but not in the same boat.

“…On the individual child/youth level, schools can provide nearly universal access to evidence-based prevention programs. SEL based in school settings has garnered a strong evidence-base across childhood and adolescence (Greenberg, 2023) with recommendations for SEL to become even more culturally responsive to advance equity (Ramirez et al, 2021). Recent meta-analyses show significant benefits from school-based antibullying programs (Gaffney et al, 2019) and anticyberbullying programs (Polanin et al, 2022).…”

Harnessing Robotics and Coding to Foster Social-Emotional Learning in Students With Autism

“…These skills should be a focus in the classroom whether or not teachers are embedding robotics/coding into their class activities. Social Emotional Learning skills are designed to help students understand themselves and others through equitable learning environments (Greenberg, 2023). Teachers should attend professional development workshops and/or use the resources from CASEL to continue their learning and understanding in implementation of SEL.…”