Social — Emotional Learning (SEL) Assessment

A missing piece in the puzzle — Why does it matter?

“My daughter stays aloof and does not interact with anyone”

“Ayush constantly bullies his classmates”

“My son struggles with focusing on his academics”

What these statements have in common is the problem in social-emotional functioning and the influence of the school environment on learning. In the examples above, all of these behaviors have different underlying issues — from low self-esteem to attention seeking to fear of failure. These problems most definitely illustrate an intertwined linkage between children’s and adult’s social-emotional competencies, school academics & safe school climate.

In these situations, one aspect that stands out is, in schools, we only see the constant and continuous efforts are put in to assess the situation and improve the academic performance whereas an attempt to understand the underlying causes of behaviors discussed above is barely seen. In fact, social-emotional learning competencies determine a child’s school readiness and predict their academic success.

A question might still arise — “Is SEL as important as academics?” “Should schools consider teaching SEL exclusively with the same rigor as they teach any other academic subject?” “Should teachers also be provided SEL training as they are trained in pedagogy & assessment methods?” For all these, the answer is nothing but a YES!!

Let’s try to understand why SEL and its assessment are crucial from a research perspective:

Numerous studies in Cognitive neuroscience and brain research have revealed that students need to be socially aware and emotionally engaged to learn effectively and that social, emotional and cognitive capabilities are basically intertwined with each other — as they are interdependent in their development, experience and use. It is also proved by research that schools that work on increasing their students’ social and emotional competence result in higher achievement levels , although the reverse is not true , i.e., increase in academic achievement does not increase social and emotional competence. This clearly indicates the significance of SEL in student’s development. CASEL(2018) from its research reports that explicitly teaching SEL curriculum in schools resulted in improving skills & success in career.

Similarly, sustained exposure to SEL programmes in schools showed positive effects — there was reduced aggression levels , and increased prosocial behavior in students and they became increasingly and emotionally competent over time. Another meta-analytical study of 213 studies on SEL in US schools indicate students who were given quality SEL instruction demonstrated better academic performance, improved attitudes & behaviors, fewer negative behaviors and reduced emotional distress. Since it is being stressed that SEL needs to be taught at school level, the benefits do not limit to just school level but the emotional competence contributes not only to student’s social competence and well-being during early childhood years, but also to later outcomes, such as school adjustment and mental health.

As the saying by Seneca “what we teach, we learn” implies implementing SEL programmes in school does not benefit students alone but also benefits teachers while they teach SEL to students. Just because we discussed SEL is important for students and a warm, positive teacher-student relation improves student learning, teachers’ knowledge need not just be limited to explicitly teaching SEL skills but be aware of their own social and emotional competence and well-being as they appear to play a crucial role. There are also a few conceptual models that are developed to highlight how teachers’ social-emotional competence influences school & classroom context and also both short and long-term student outcomes .

Making an SEL program as a component in the school along with other academic subjects adds up an array of benefits to teachers and student’s development as seen from the research but only the implementation does not make the process complete. Any implementation is complete and effective only when assessments are conducted at regular intervals that give timely feedback on the processes. Conducting assessments help in understanding the contribution of the program towards learning and development, to understand ‘what students are learning’ and identify the gaps and the red flags which can then be addressed. Research studies indicate that changes in the academic achievement of students of grade 8 can be predicted much earlier by assessing students’ SEL competence rather than academic achievement while they are in grade 3.This points how important it is to assess SEL competencies as they help predict the long term outcomes and helps in identifying issues if any, that can be addressed as early as possible. Effective assessments are always pragmatic, scalable and thus provide actionable ways to measure SEL.

When formative assessments are conducted, the data that is obtained often can help teachers reflect on and adapt their pedagogy and guide their decision making process thereby allowing them to determine the instructional strategies that really work . Further, cues can be taken to improvise these and can be used for students’ learning and development. At the institutional level, the data can be used for creating an equitable and safe learning environment, developing authentic and trusting relationships and ensuring all students actively participate in the learning process. Though a few aspects of the assessment and how it helps in developing student and teacher SEL are discussed here, SEL assessments are not specific only to teachers and students. The assessment measures need not be necessarily used only to guide decisions about SEL programmes and practices but also measures of the learning environment like the school climate , inputs from stakeholders, classroom observations help make a better sense of the student SEL assessment results. Quality SEL assessments thus help to develop a complete range of competencies that students would need to lead a meaningful life and to create a culture of SEL in the education system.

The effective implementation of the systemic SEL approach depends on how well the SEL assessment practices are aligned with the SEL curricula and its implementation in schools. Since SEL is not unanimously accepted yet for implementation in schools, specifically in India, as SEL is considered not as important as academics for life, can we be more ardent and take a first step towards bringing in the systemic SEL approach in the education system for the innumerable benefits it offers that help everyone through every step of life?

Because, what gets assessed, gets addressed!!

References

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