Scope and scale of research
Being new to the education field and to inquiry-based research, I have only relied on the knowledge of others to draw conclusions. I have not conducted any studies or primary research.
The scope of this inquiry is on students who have not been diagnosed with or display indications of learning blocks, be they cognitive, emotional or social. Nor is it meant to find resolution to personal issues faced by some students, such as substance abuse. The aim of this research is to enrich and enhance the student who otherwise would excel at and graduate from school, whether or not they acquire specific SEL competencies. In future research, I want to explore the applications SEL may have for specific student categories.
Learning through emotion rather than in spite of
Neurobiological evidence suggests that “the aspects of cognition that we recruit most heavily in schools, namely learning, attention, memory, decision making, and social functioning, are both profoundly affected by and subsumed within the processes of emotion.” (Immordino-Yang and Dammasio, 2007). Cervone & Cushman (2014) note that “academic, social, and emotional learning are deeply mutual.”
The idea that acquisition of knowledge occurs alongside emotional triggers is not a new one, nor is it surprising. Almost 20 years ago, the prominent (and prescient) educator Robert Sylwester wrote:
We know emotion is very important to the educative process because it drives attention, which drives learning and memory. We’ve never really understood emotion, however, and so don’t know how to regulate it in school—beyond defining too much or too little of it as misbehavior and relegating most of it to the arts, PE, recess, and the extracurricular program. . . . By separating emotion from logic and reason in the classroom, we’ve simplified school management and evaluation, but we’ve also then separated two sides of one coin—and lost something important in the process. It’s impossible to separate emotion from the other important activities of life. Don’t try. (Sylwester, 1995).
A recent statistical analysis of 213 independent SEL studies (the sample size was 270,034 K-12 students in the US!) found that “SEL programs significantly improve students’ skills, attitudes, and behaviours” (Durlak et al, 2011). I will linger on this meta-analysis because the findings are too interesting to gloss over (and it is a substantial document that few readers will likely have the time or inclination to absorb).
Six outcomes were measured by the Durlak et al analysis:
SEL skills
Attitudes
Positive social behavior
Conduct problems
Emotional distress
Academic performance
They found that
Classroom by Teacher programs [that is, SEL integrated into the classroom by teachers] were effective in all six outcome categories, and Multi-component programs (conducted by school staff) were effective in four outcome categories. In contrast, classroom programs delivered by non-school personnel produced only three significant outcomes (improved SEL skills and prosocial attitudes, and reduced conduct problems). Student academic performance significantly improved only when school personnel [such as teachers and school staff] conducted the intervention. (Durlak, 2011)
The analysis divided SEL programs into those that follow SAFE procedures and those that did not. SAFE is basically instructional good practice and represents Sequenced, Active, Focused, and Explicit (details can be found here: http://www.extension.umn.edu/youth/research/sel/docs/issue-brief-intentional-practices-to-support-sel.pdf). The programs that followed SAFE procedures created improvements in all six outcomes. The really amazing finding was that even those programs that did not follow SAFE procedures fully still produced significant gains in attitudes, conduct problems, and academic performance. In my opinion, this is a very exciting finding. Politicans, policymakers, educators, and even the public-at-large should be thrilled that SEL programs – even those cobbled together messily – can elicit academic performance improvements. The finding indicates to me that the very act of SEL, of airing its ideas, profoundly contributes to outcomes, regardless the quality of tuition.
The headline statistic that will likely inform “policy and practice” (Durlak, 2011) is the 11% academic performance gain across all the studies analysed. Before you reach for the phone to call your district superintendent with this news, note that the authors “suggest that SEL programs are associated with gains across several important attitudinal, behavioral, and academic domains that are comparable to those of other interventions for youth.” In other words, any intervention is likely to reap rewards, rather than none at all. On the other hand, SEL has the advantage over other interventions of being easy to implement and cognitively approachable for most students. According to Cervone & Cushman (2014),
other benefits of social and emotional learning mattered almost as much as test scores to these stakeholders. In adolescents struggling to find their stride, it developed confidence and maturity. For youth haunted by broken- ness and violence, it offered a lifeline.
There are some characteristics of the Durlak meta-analysis that are worth noting:
Most papers (75%) were published during the last two decades. Almost half (47%) of the studies employed randomized designs. More than half the programs (56%) were delivered to elementary-school students, just under a third (31%) involved middle-school students, and the remainder included high school students…About 77% of the programs lasted for less than a year, 11% lasted 1 to 2 years, and 12% lasted more than 2 years.
As it relates to my inquiry, it is unfortunate that only 13% of the SEL programs took place in high school. This may be indicative of how few classroom SEL programs are available to high school students (and that SEL takes place in other less direct forms in senior years). It is important to note some middle-school grades are categorized as high school in Canada, so the relevant percentage may be higher than 13%.
The research on SEL should remind educators that learning is a quintessentially human endeavour: it is not linear, nor does it occur in a sterile vacuum. The best learning occurs in tandem with varied, meaningful, and shared emotion and experience. If this translates to a noisy classroom, so be it; my goal as an educator is to facilitate rich experiences.
Next: SEL strategies: Implications and application for teaching practice