Effects of a Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Program on Quality of Classroom Interactions and Children’s Academic and SEL Outcomes: the Significance of High Quality of Implementation
Abstract
Research shows that school-based social and emotional learning (SEL) programs are associated with improvements in children’s SEL and academic outcomes (Durlak et al., 2011; Sklad et al., 2012) and higher teacher support during classroom interactions (Brown et al., 2010; Raver et al., 2008). The magnitudes of these positive effects increase depending on the quality of the implementation, including both implementation of program activities (Durlak, 2016; Humphrey, Barlow & Lendrum, 2018) and the implementation supports teachers receive to implement the program (e.g., training and coaching; Hadden & Pianta, 2006; Kraft, Blazar, & Hogan, 2018). Compliance with high quality of implementation depends, in part, on teacher characteristics (e.g., teacher experience, psychological wellbeing; Downer, Kraft, et al., 2009) and classroom characteristics (e.g., proportions of students at behavioral risk; Musci et al., 2019). This study aimed to 1) identify teachers’ propensity to comply with high quality of implementation, and 2) examine the relations between school random assignment to an SEL program, quality of classroom interactions and child SEL and academic outcomes at different levels of teachers’ compliance propensity. This study drew upon data from a cluster-randomized controlled trial evaluating the efficacy of 4Rs+MTP, a literacy-based SEL program, in 60 New York City public elementary schools during the 2015 and 2017. Third and fourth grade teachers (n = 330) and their students (n = 5081) comprised the study sample. Latent profile analysis of teacher quality of implementation indicated that measures of teacher responsiveness and amount of exposure to implementation supports contributed to the differentiation of profiles of high and low quality of implementation. Random forest analysis showed that more experienced teachers with low levels of professional burnout had high propensity to comply with high quality of implementation. Multilevel moderated mediation analysis indicated that 4Rs+MTP teachers with high compliance propensity were associated with higher classroom emotional support and lower children’s school absences than their counterpart in the control group. These findings may inform debates in policy research about the level of implementation needed for a program to be effective and the importance of providing the supports teachers need to implement SEL school programs with high quality.
Subject Area
Developmental psychology|Personality psychology|Social psychology
Recommended Citation
Gómez Varón, John A, "Effects of a Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Program on Quality of Classroom Interactions and Children’s Academic and SEL Outcomes: the Significance of High Quality of Implementation" (2020). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI27964600.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI27964600
