Two-year findings from a new approach to social emotional learning in out-of-school-time (OST) settings

• In Event: 3-148 - From Brands to Strategies: Frontiers of Intervention in Social and Emotional Learning

Integrative Statement

High-quality social emotional learning (SEL) programs are shown to improve children’s behavioral, mental health, and academic outcomes (Durlak et al, 2011; Sklad et al, 2012). SEL programs are particularly important for low-income students, who are more likely than their affluent peers to be at risk for social, emotional, behavioral, and academic challenges (Evans & English, 2002; Raver, Blair, & Willoughby, 2013). Despite emerging consensus about the importance of social emotional development to children’s learning in school (Jones & Kahn, 2017), a number of barriers related to implementation challenges and limited time and resources undermine efforts to bring comprehensive SEL programming to scale, and these barriers are likely exacerbated in low-income settings. As such, there is an urgent need to test less intensive SEL strategies that are more feasible to implement than traditional programs, while still achieving meaningful outcomes for children (Jones & Bouffard, 2012). In this study, we examine two-year findings from a new strategy-based approach to SEL, developed and tested through a 4-year research-practice partnership with an out-of-school-time (OST) provider. We report on implementation, teacher feedback, and student growth using a new measure of SEL skills.

Adapted from a comprehensive evidence-based SEL program (Jones, Bailey, & Jacob, 2014), the strategies in this study were designed to build a range of SEL skills and be easily integrated into daily routines. Strategies were embedded in an OST program during its 6-week summer session providing math and literacy support to low-income urban students. Data were collected across two summer sessions in 2017 and 2018. Participants include 25 teachers and 190 students in grades PreK-8. All data are teacher reported and include the following: (a) daily implementation checklists; (b) weekly surveys documenting SEL challenges; (c) end-of-program focus groups; and (d) baseline and end-line reports of individual student SEL skills, using a new measure designed to guide instruction and assess student growth. Methods include qualitative analysis of focus groups (using a hybrid approach to coding) and quantitative analysis of the implementation, survey, and SEL growth measures. Using STATA, we conducted paired t-tests to determine whether student growth was statistically significant from beginning to end of summer and over the course of two years.

In this paper, we will explore how teachers’ implementation of SEL strategies evolved over time, particularly their use of “prescribed” versus “teacher choice” strategies (i.e., how often teachers select specific strategies in order to meet classroom needs). We explore whether classroom SEL challenges shifted between Year 1 and Year 2, and we use focus group findings to identify factors that may have affected SEL implementation and student outcomes. Preliminary findings suggest that in Year 2, teachers continued to follow the recommended plan a majority of the time, although they increasingly made adaptations to meet their students’ needs. We expect our findings to inform a new body of research about the feasibility and efficacy of low-cost targeted SEL strategies in school and OST settings; and to inform policy discussions about how to sustainably scale evidence-based SEL practices, particularly in low-income settings.

Authors

• Laura Stickle, Harvard Graduate School of Education
  Presenting Author

• Rebecca Bailey, Harvard Graduate School of Education
  Non-Presenting Author

• Bryan Nelson, Harvard Graduate School of Education
  Non-Presenting Author

• Stephanie Jones, Harvard Graduate School of Education
  Non-Presenting Author