An Empirical Basis for Linking Social and Emotional Learning to Academic Performance

Publication date: Available online 17 January 2019Source: Contemporary Educational PsychologyAuthor(s): Margarita Panayiotou, Neil Humphrey, Michael WigelsworthAbstractThere is general agreement about the benefits of school-based social and emotional learning (SEL) interventions in relation to children and young people’s social-emotional competence, mental health, and academic achievement. However, we know little about the theorized mechanisms through which SEL leads to improved academic outcomes. The current study is the first to present an integrative model (derived from the SEL logic model) using a 3-wave (annual assessment, T1, T2, T3) longitudinal sample of 1,626 (51% boys, n = 832) 9-12-year-old students (M = 9.17, SD = .31 at baseline) attending 45 elementary schools in England, drawn from a major randomized trial of a universal SEL intervention (the Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies curriculum; PATHS). Using structural equation modeling that accounted for within-time covariance, data clustering, gender and prior academic attainment, we examined the temporal relations between social-emotional competence (T1), school connectedness (T2), mental health difficulties (T2), and academic attainment (T3). It was hypothesized that social-emotional competence would directly and indirectly influence academic attainment through school connectedness and mental health difficulties. Our analyses also examined whether these hypothesized relations varied as a function of inte...
Source: Contemporary Educational Psychology - Category: Child Development Source Type: research