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Exploring how Teacher SEL Influences the Effects of a Professional Learning Intervention on Student Outcomes

Thu, March 21, 12:30 to 2:00pm, Baltimore Convention Center, Floor: Level 3, Room 329

Integrative Statement

The nature and quality of teacher-student interactions predicts learning development from pre-kindergarten (pre-K) through kindergarten (Mashburn et al., 2008). ParentCorps is a school-based intervention that aims to support parents and early childhood teachers to create environments for children to thrive. It is delivered as an enhancement to pre-K in historically disinvested urban neighborhoods. The teacher-facing component of ParentCorps is grounded in evidence-based practices of Family Engagement (FE) and Social-Emotional Learning (SEL). It includes: professional learning (PL), a comprehensive curriculum, and personalized coaching.

While many school-based interventions have been designed to develop student SEL, few studies have explored how these programs impact the teachers who implement them (Domitrovich et. al., 2016). Based upon the prosocial classroom model (Figure 1) this paper investigates teacher SEL (mindfulness, self-efficacy, negative affect and burnout) as a key process underlying PL effects on student outcomes.

In partnership with the largest urban school district in the country, we are currently evaluating and supporting implementation of ParentCorps at scale. This study launched in 2017 with 23 early education centers randomized. Students are primarily children of color (55% Latino, 25% Black, 10% Asian). ParentCorps PL provides a space for teachers to learn from each other, reflect on beliefs, practice evidence-based strategies, and consider which to try during interactions with students and families. Experiential activities are designed to create shifts in how teachers think, feel, and act.

The current study uses a qualitative approach to assess how PL influences teacher SEL. Thirty pre-K teachers were invited to participate in audio-recorded and transcribed interviews. The Self-in-Relation-to-Teaching method is a cognitive interview (Fischer & Kennedy, 1997; Rodriguez, 2014) that supports teachers in exploring the social-emotional skills employed throughout their process of teaching (before, during and after teacher-child interactions). The method asks teachers to rank the importance of six categories in relation to their process of teaching. Each category (self, personal context, skills, external influences, student SEL and FE) contains five to six potential teacher SEL characteristics (e.g., humor, confidence, and empathy are listed under self). The process leverages low and high cognitive support conditions to assess the teacher’s awareness of themselves and how it affects their teaching. Data were coded using traditional qualitative analysis methods (Charmaz, 2009).

The study will be complete in September 2018. Preliminary results support the importance of teacher SEL as an essential process supporting the effect of PL on student outcomes. Teachers report a lack of awareness for how their SEL may influence their ability to support student SEL development. The data also suggest that this lack of self-awareness may be connected to perceived self-efficacy, burnout and negative affect.

Our data suggests that there are several potential factors within teacher SEL, a key process that underlies the effect of the ParentCorps intervention on classroom and student outcomes. These domains warrant further study and will be integrated with ongoing survey data from the larger sample of teachers to build a framework for understanding how building teachers’ social-emotional awareness enables them to better support student SEL development in pre-K settings.

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