Do Teaching Practices Impact Socio-Emotional Skills?

Abstract

Recent studies emphasize the importance of socio-emotional skills for the success in school as well as for later economic outcomes. However, little is known about how everyday classroom practices impact development of these skills. Using data from the Czech Republic, we show that modern practices such as working in small groups improve these skills. Intrinsic motivation and self-confidence are particularly positively affected. Moreover, modern practices have no adverse effects on test scores. On the other hand, standard practices such as lecturing or requiring memorizing have no impact on socio-emotional skills and test scores. Our results highlight that test score measures do not capture all skills developed in schools and suggest that changing slightly the composition of teaching practices can have a substantial positive impact on socio-emotional skills.