Exploring the Role of Social and Emotional Learning in Project-Based Learning Science Classrooms

• In Event: 15.052 - Promoting and Measuring Student Learning and Engagement Through Project-Based Learning: Leveraging Coherence

Abstract

Objectives: This study pilots a new instrument developed to measure social and emotional learning (SEL) during PBL science lessons in 32 3rd grade classrooms (N= 21 treatment and N = 11 comparison). Responses from 733 students are examined to test the confirmatory variation of the SEL constructs designed to measure engagement, ownership, and collaboration using factor analysis. Difference tests were used to measure individual item SEL responses between treatment and comparison groups.

Perspective: One of the major recommendations of NGSS was the importance of developing science lessons that asked purposeful questions that engaged students in figuring out their solutions. PBL, based on design principles (Krajick and Shin, 2009) identifies how these ideas can be incorporated into science lessons. While important, there are few instruments that actually measure if these SEL goals are being met. For the past several years, a field test has been conducted in Michigan to assess PBL’s impact on the social, emotional, and academic learning of 3rd graders during their science lessons (ML-PBL, Krajcik, 2016). There are few instruments that measure SEL in situ especially for young children. Recognizing this challenge, the team consulting various sources, including developmentally appropriate questions, created a new instrument that they anticipated could detect differences in SEL during science lessons. It is important to underscore that the intent of this instrument was not to measure personality traits but rather SEL constructs that are argued as effective in PBL—specifically engagement (both generally and in relation to specific topics), ownership, and collaboration.

Method and Data Sources: In spring 2018, a survey of 14 items was given to the two student groups. The treatment group also received a set of three additional items for unit content. Recognizing variation in literacy skills, a thumbs-up, down, and fist were used to measure agreement. The constructs include: engagement, ownership, and collaboration. A separate construct for content engagement was asked for each individual unit. An exploratory factor analysis with a reliability check was employed to determine the extent of variation for each of the constructs. Differences were then examined between the two groups.

Findings: Our preliminary results show that the 14 items we selected identified three factors in the treatment group (.453; .131; 1.01). However, the item values in the comparison group did not show the same factor loadings. Further analysis attributed these differences to the positive response of females over males (in both groups) who were overrepresented in the comparison group, which suggests the importance of conducting additional bootstrap analyses.

Significance. Preliminary findings suggest that specific elements of SEL (engagement, ownership, and collaboration) can be measured especially with young children in PBL science classes. The conformity among these constructs in the treatment group suggests that they play a distinctive role in PBL classrooms with potentially important consequences for enhancing student engagement, improving student achievement, and promoting greater equity.

Authors

• Emily Adah Miller, University of Georgia

• Susan Codere, CREATE for STEM at MSU

• I-Chien Chen, Michigan State University

• Barbara Schneider, Michigan State University