Setting aside time in the school day to teach students social-emotional skills, such as emotional regulation and perspective-taking, can substantially boost students’ grade-point averages and standardized test scores in reading and math.
That’s according to a large-scale analysis of existing studies published this month in the Review of Educational Research, a journal of the American Educational Research Association.
What distinguishes this study from previous meta-analyses of SEL research is that it specifically examines how SEL moves the needle on students’ grades and standardized test scores in academic areas such as literacy and math. It found that students participating in an SEL program demonstrated significantly greater achievement in those two academic areas compared with students who did not participate in an SEL program.
The findings show that, on average, students receiving explicit SEL instruction (meaning it is taught separately as a standalone subject, not only embedded into other academic areas) will see a 4.2 percentile point increase in their academic achievement overall, compared with students who did not participate in an SEL program. Broken down by subject, students saw a 6.3 percentile point increase in literacy, and a 3.8 percentile point increase in math.
The length of the program mattered: Programs that lasted more than a semester consistently showed more positive effects. When the researchers looked at students who participated in a universal SEL program—those for all students, not just targeted to certain groups of students—for an entire year, they saw an 8.4 percentile point increase in students’ academic standing, said Chris Cipriano, an associate professor at the Yale Child Study Center in the Yale School of Medicine, and one of the study’s authors.
“If the school invests in social-emotional learning and they’re teaching social-emotional learning across one grade year, we can expect to see an academic achievement grade percentile point increase of [about] one grade,” she said. “That 8.4% would bring a C to B and from a B to an A.”
The study examined in-house and company-created SEL programs
The findings should be encouraging for schools that have invested in carving out time for social-emotional learning and those looking for a tested intervention to improve students’ grade-point averages and standardized test scores.
The meta-analysis was based on 40 studies published between 2008 and 2020 involving more than 33,700 students across 12 countries. Some of the programs were developed by companies and include more standardized curricula, while others were created in house by the schools or districts themselves.
To be included in the study, an SEL program had to offer at least six sessions, meaning any one-off lessons provided by a school counselor, or a school-wide assembly to discuss social skills were excluded. The analysis examined universal SEL programs that include all students in a school and focused on programs that taught explicit SEL rather than embedding it in other subjects. The study did not examine programs in which social-emotional learning is embedded into academic subjects or at the specific skills the programs taught or focused on.
The mix of in-house or company-created SEL programs in the study is a good representation of what SEL looks like in schools, said Cipriano.
“Having a sample that really captures the range of what types of programs there are, and what it’s really like for programs in schools for actual students, that matters to me as a scientist,” she said. “To find these effects, knowing that that’s what was put into the model, it really speaks to the possibility and promise of explicit SEL instruction.”
The best results were seen in elementary school SEL curricula
The strongest results were at the elementary level, but that might be due to the fact that there are just fewer studies on how SEL impacts middle and high school students, Cipriano said.
Historically, schools and SEL curriculum providers have focused much more on the elementary grades. But some recent surveys have shown that is beginning to change as more middle and high schools are investing in SEL.
The study comes at an important time, said Catherine Bradshaw, an associate dean for research for the school of education at the University of Virginia. Bradshaw, an expert in SEL who is not affiliated with the study, described the findings as an important development in the understanding of the effectiveness of SEL programs.
National data show that U.S. students’ learning has declined in reading and mostly stalled in math, as schools continue to struggle to rebound from academic losses following the pandemic.
Bradshaw said the fact that SEL programs that are not teaching reading and math skills are helping to improve students’ learning in those subjects is an important takeaway for educators and policymakers.
“We’re thinking that we’re preparing kids to learn through the SEL curriculum, and it’s not just targeting those skills most directly,” she said.
The math gains were particularly interesting to her. “Most of the time when you think about learning math, you think about learning numeracy and other types of skills in the mathematics area. But in this, you’re able to see that helping kids be prepared to learn through SEL generalizes and creates an opportunity for them to learn math skills.”
Social-emotional learning has been swept up in bitter political fights over what should be taught in schools as some critics—including some high-profile conservative activist groups like Moms for Liberty—have cast the practice as liberal indoctrination or teachers practicing counseling without a license.
This past spring, the U.S. Department of Education released an FAQ document arguing that SEL can be used to discriminate against students, but in August a judge struck down the federal guidance that the FAQ document mentioned. The pushback has led some schools and districts to stop using the term social-emotional learning, or to drop teaching the concept altogether.
Bradshaw emphasized that this large-scale analysis of SEL effectiveness “re-centers the conversation on why social-emotional learning is an important investment in schools.”