Educator Validation of Barriers to Social and Emotional Learning

• In Event: Defining Accessible Social and Emotional Learning for Students with Learning Differences

Abstract

Study 2 defined barriers to and solutions for access to Tier 1 SEL from educators of students with learning differences.

Methods. We conducted 7 virtual interviews and focus groups with educators of students with learning differences (N = 30). During the 2020-21 school year we enrolled 3 virtual focus group cohorts (N = 20), that each met monthly 9 times across the school year (m = 60 minutes/meeting, N = 27 total meetings, resulting in > 1,620 minutes) to discuss topics related to: accessibility, language and discourse, text decoding, and executive function in their implementation of SEL with their students. Artifacts analyzed included audio recordings and transcripts of interviews and focus groups, images of “SEL in action” from classroom observations and participants.
Sample. Participants (N = 50) included special and general educators, school support staff and school/district leaders across elementary, middle, and high school levels (Table 2)
Data Analyses. We used a mixed-method approach to validate the barriers identified in Study 1, qual (focus group transcripts and artifact analysis)+quant+part (survey responses), on the a priori themes identified in Study 1 to code educators’ responses for barriers to and solutions for student access and opportunities to learn. Thematic and axial coding was done by 4 researchers, including two post graduate associates, one postdoctoral associate, and one university professor over a 6-month period. Two of the four coders identified as persons with a disability, and all coders identified as white, cis-gender females.
Results. The four a priori barriers to SEL - physical, sensory and cognitive accessibility, emotional accessibility, language, text and discourse, and executive functioning – were validated by educators during study two. Discourse analysis of transcripts from focus groups was conducted in Dedoose (ver. 9.0), with researchers coding for evidence of barriers and suggestions for solutions, respectively. To analyze the interrelationships among barriers we applied the matrix queries function in Dedoose, allowing for a principal component factor-like analysis across the respective thematic groupings based on researcher coding; we set the matrix queries criterion for inclusion at >80% inter-observer reliability (Hintze, 2005), the NVivo matrix query revealed percentages of co-occurrence among the groups (Hutchison et al., 2010). Intra class correlations ranged from 0.79-1.0, micc = 0.93, reflecting strong agreement between researchers (Hu & Bentler, 1999) and 93 percent endorsements of barriers and solutions.
In summary, solutions identified included explicit modeling of SEL skills, attention to and inclusion of cultural and individual variability in social and emotional experience, using tactile adaptations for students alongside adaptive technology in SEL materials, repetition and revisiting social and emotional concepts through UDL routines (i.e., “I am noticing that…”), providing multiple and flexible options representing key SEL concepts and skills, intentionally naming emotion, cognition and cultural variability when articulating SEL goals for students, using student emotional appraisals as a ready and reliable read on the classroom environment, emotion monitoring and mapping to support individual goal setting and progress monitoring, explicit support for emotion vocabulary development, acknowledging that there is no one or “correct” way to feel, and placing relationship building with students and colleagues at the center of SEL work.

Authors

• Michael McCarthy, Yale Child Study Center

• Melissa Stoffers, University of Nevada - Las Vegas

• Cheyeon Ha, Yale University

• Gabrielle Rappolt-Schlichtmann, EdTogether, Inc.

• Christina Cipriano, Yale University