Student Validation of Barriers to and Solutions for SEL

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

Abstract

Study 3 worked directly with students with learning differences to explore potential barriers and future suggestions to accessible Tier 1 SEL implementation in upper elementary school.
Methods. Study 3 spanned three school years and consisted of two phases of direct learning with students, with a school-year long protocol development and data integration period between them. Phase I, school year 2021-2022, included hybrid classroom observation, activities, and focus groups. Results from Phase 1 were then integrated into a yearlong recruitment and protocol building process, wherein researchers contracted with national experts in youth participatory methods, Eye to Eye, integrated and refined planned validation activity protocols, and worked closely to recruit and onboard students to learn with for Phase 2. Phase 2, school year 2023-2024, included in-person classroom observations, structured protocol activities, and semi-structured interviews with students with learning differences and their educators.
Participants Due to space limitations, see the detailed demographics of the student interviewees are in Table 3.
Measures included Tier 1 SEL tools, the Student SEL Implementation Protocol. Four lessons (What Makes You, You?, What Makes You, You? Part 2, What Makes You as a Learner?, and Evaluate: Is This Lesson Designed for Someone Like Me?) and detailed Student demographic and identity data.
Analytic Plan. Classroom video and audio recordings and classroom observation notes were transcribed by Otter AI for analysis. During Phase 1 we took a grounded theory approach to analyzing classroom observations and artifacts. (Charmaz, 2006; Walker & Myrick, 2006). Additionally, the focus group interviews were structured using the narrative analysis approach (Riessman, 2008). To increase the reliability of interview analysis, we followed a triangulated coding procedure with consensus-building and member checking (Guest et al., 2012).
In Phase 2, we analyzed interview and focus group data using methods consistent with the framework approach, a type of thematic analysis (Gale et al., 2013; Smith & Firth, 2011). The framework approach recommends a five-stage, iterative, analytic process including: familiarization with data, identification of a framework, indexing to apply the framework to the data, charting or summarizing the data, and finally mapping and interpreting the data (Goldsmith, 2021).
Results. Analyses e resulted in four themes and 10 sub-themes therewithin that students with learning differences outlined as important supports to overcome barriers to accessible SEL. The resulting solutions to barriers to accessing SEL identified by students with learning differences are rich and actionable.
Furthermore, recognition of variation in pace and processing among students in Tier 1 settings is often only supported when required by a student's IEP or 504 Plan for test administration (U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, 2016). Lastly, despite emotion regulation skill development being at the heart of most SEL programming currently offered in Tier 1, recognition of students' affective regulation as an on ramp to accessing the lesson content is not. These findings provide novel and critical areas for intervention and change to improve the accessibility of Tier 1 SEL for students with learning differences.

Authors

• Melissa Stoffers, University of Nevada - Las Vegas

• Michael McCarthy, Yale Child Study Center

• Cheyeon Ha, Yale University

• Gabrielle Rappolt-Schlichtmann, EdTogether, Inc.

• Christina Cipriano, Yale University