Leveraging social-emotional development for sustainable academic improvement

Given the research validated connection between social-emotional development and academic achievement, there has been a push to transition from a focus on narrowly defined academic achievement to one that promotes the... [ view full abstract ]

Given the research validated connection between social-emotional development and academic achievement, there has been a push to transition from a focus on narrowly defined academic achievement to one that promotes the long-term development and success of all children. With many schools constantly seeking the newest vogue method for improvement, they suffer from haphazard and hasty implementation that lacks sustainability. The current research looks at the initial conditions for learning within a large school district as the leaders embark on a five-year effort to sustainably implement social-emotional learning. We examine five domains related to conditions for learning: kindness, school safety, academic rigor, student support, and social-emotional skills.

The data came from a combination of student and staff surveys about the conditions for learning along with indicators of school performance. The staff and student versions of the school climate survey were administered in the fall of 2017 and yielded information from 12,000 students and 2,000 adults across 66 schools in a large school district in the southwestern United States. Student level data were combined with achievement measures. Staff data were combined with school characteristics such as school size, type, and performance to create indicators of school conditions. These data allowed us to explore the answers to the following questions that guided the research:

• How do students’ and staff ratings of their experience of the conditions for learning in a school relate to student achievement? Does the strength of these relationships change when considering student subgroups?   
• Do conditions for learning vary systematically by school characteristics such as school size, level, demographics, or type?

Because students are observed within schools, we developed hierarchical linear models that account for the clustering or nested structure of the data. Preliminary findings from student and teacher data provided insights for making the climate and culture more inclusive and were generally favorable overall. The initial analysis demonstrates that there is a significant association between the domains of social-emotional learning and student learning. Additionally, there is significant difference based on student cultural identity. Given that there is a solid foundation of research that provides empirical evidence of the proximal and distal benefits of social-emotional learning, this study provides another lens into how to sustainably support student achievement and development. More insights will be available at conference time, as the first round of data collections concludes January 31, with final analyses available shortly thereafter.