Building elementary students' social and emotional skills: A randomized control trial to evaluate a teacher-led intervention

Elizabeth Al-Jbouri; Naomi C Z Andrews; Emma Peddigrew; Alexandra Fortier; Tracy Weaver

doi:10.1007/s12310-022-09538-x

Building elementary students' social and emotional skills: A randomized control trial to evaluate a teacher-led intervention

School Ment Health. 2023;15(1):138-150. doi: 10.1007/s12310-022-09538-x. Epub 2022 Sep 2.

Authors

Elizabeth Al-Jbouri¹, Naomi C Z Andrews¹, Emma Peddigrew¹, Alexandra Fortier², Tracy Weaver²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Child and Youth Studies, Brock University, 1802 Sir Isaac Brock Way, St. Catharines, ON Canada.
² School Mental Health Ontario, 20 Education Court, Hamilton, ON Canada.

Abstract

The Faith and Wellness: A Daily Mental Health Resource is a school-based, teacher-led social-emotional learning (SEL) intervention resource for elementary students. It is designed to address the challenges faced by existing SEL interventions, including lack of time, training, and resources. Using a randomized control trial design, this study evaluates short-term outcomes associated with the use of this resource. Participants were elementary teachers (N_T1 = 201, N_T2 = 129) and students (N_T1 = 242, N_T2 = 183; ages 4-14; 47.5% girls) from 19 Catholic school boards in [PROVINCE]. Using multi-level models, significant small to medium effect sizes indicated that intervention group teachers: taught SEL more frequently; had higher confidence in teaching SEL; and had more positive perceptions of the classroom climate, students' SEL, and students' school engagement at Time 2 than comparison group teachers. Results for students were less robust, though there was indication of dosage effects. Results highlight the role of teachers and frequent delivery in effective SEL implementation.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12310-022-09538-x.

Keywords: Elementary school; Evaluation; Intervention; Social emotional learning.

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