Exploring the Relationship Between Teachers' Social Emotional Learning Skills and Student Academic Achievement

• In Event: Thursday Roundtable Session 12:40 pm
  In Roundtable Session: A Tale of Two Research-Practice Partnerships: Varied Approaches to Collaborative Research Within a Single University (Table 1)

Abstract

In this section I present a case study of collaborative research-practice-provider partnership between a large urban school district, a digital curriculum provider, and university researchers. This presentation focuses on the study that was conducted and importantly, on the collaborative process that guided this work. Together we explored the following research question: To what extent do educators’ social and emotional learning (SEL) skills correlate with student academic achievement?

SEL is designed to help students develop healthy identities, regulate their emotions, and build supportive relationships (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning [CASEL], 2020). In the classroom, Wiest-Stevenson and Lee (2016) described how teachers can include social-emotional learning into their curriculum to teach empathy, emotional regulation, and interpersonal skills. However, Woolf (n.d.) found that educators who do not strengthen their own SEL skills actually worsen their students’ SEL skills as well. Despite this finding, ongoing research on the extent of educators’ SEL development presents a gap in the literature, particularly when attempting to correlate levels of adult SEL skills with student academic achievement.

To explore associations between teachers' social-emotional learning skills and student academic achievement, we collected data via two sources. First, we administered a survey to teachers with our partner school district. This survey combined elements of two existing surveys: 1) Test of Regulation in and Understanding of Social Situations in Teaching (TRUST) (Aldrup et al., 2020) and 2) Panorama Education’s Teacher and Staff Survey. The instrument was further refined through iterative conversations with our district partner so as to ensure that items aligned with the district’s local context and needs. This survey provided a quantitative assessment of participants’ levels of SEL skills as well as broader data about the nature of their schools’ climate and culture. The second data source comes from our digital curriculum provider: de-identified math and literacy benchmark scores collected via the provider’s online assessment platform.

A brief summary of the study’s analytic approach, findings, and implications will be included in this presentation. The primary focus, however, will be on how university researchers and district partners communicated about the design and findings of this work. I conclude by describing our partnership’s efforts to share results directly with school and district leaders, and how we have since applied lessons learned from this project to our subsequent work with the district.

Author

• Tommy Wells, Bellarmine University