Students display five distinct social-emotional skill profiles: A person-centered analysis

• In Event: AER Roundtable Session Friday 1:45 pm - Gold 3
  In Roundtable Session: Factors Influencing Development of Social Emotional Learning in Youth

Abstract

Social-emotional skills are crucial to key life outcomes. However, most findings have been derived from the average levels of social-emotional skills, using variable-centered approaches. To address this gap, we drew on data from 29,755 15-year-olds from nine countries. We employed latent profile analysis to identify distinct profiles of social-emotional skills and investigated how these profiles are associated with academic and well-being outcomes. Our results revealed five profiles: Exceptionally-skilled (3.89%), Highly-skilled (17.38%), Moderately-skilled (49.19%), Sensitive and Open-minded (5.94%), and Low-skills (23.61%). Students in more adaptive profiles also had better academic and well-being outcomes. This study contributes to the literature by revealing the ways in which students demonstrate distinct social-emotional skill profiles. The results have practical implications for personalizing interventions.

Authors

• Jianhua Zhang, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

• Faming Wang, Zhejiang University

• Ronnel B. King, Chinese University of Hong Kong

• Xiaoyao Liu, Chinese University of Hong Kong