Adolescents’ Emotions in Spanish Education: Development and Validation of the Social and Emotional Learning Scale

Abstract

The aim of this study was to develop and validate a scale for measuring the different areas of competence of the social and emotional learning model in students in compulsory secondary education. For this purpose, following the recommendations and quality standards established by the specialised literature, the Social and Emotional Learning Scale was constructed and administered to a convenience sample of 1385 students in compulsory secondary education. The results reveal adequate reliability of the instrument and fairly satisfactory fit indices for the structural model proposed. In addition, external evidence is provided for the validity of the instrument with the variables life satisfaction and school performance. The Social and Emotional Learning Scale is of satisfactory metric quality and provides a detailed and consolidated picture of adolescents’ level of self-awareness, social awareness, self-control, interpersonal skills and responsible decision making, which provides students with an instrument that can help to understand their interpersonal and intrapersonal skills and to establish mechanisms for their improvement.