Abstract
School-based social and emotional learning (SEL) programs can be effective in producing positive outcomes for students. However, when the implementation quality is poor, these programs often lose their effectiveness and fail to produce the expected positive outcomes. The current study evaluates a school-based SEL program for 15–18-year-olds in Ireland by determining the impact of implementation quality on program outcomes. The study also examines the effects on outcomes of different implementation dimensions including Dosage, Adherence, Quality of Delivery, and Participant Responsiveness. Employing a cluster randomized controlled trial design, this study collected student outcome data (n = 675) from 32 disadvantaged schools across three time points (pre-, post-, 12-month follow-up) and compared these data across three treatment groups (high-implementation, low-implementation, and control). Linear mixed models (LMM) were used to determine the relationships between the implementation data and student outcome data longitudinally. The findings revealed that the positive effects of the program were only observed with the high-, but not the low-implementation group (reduced suppression of emotions (p = 0.049); reduced avoidance coping (p = 0.006); increased social support coping (p = 0.009); reduced levels of stress (p = 0.035) and depressive symptoms (p = 0.025). The comparison of implementation dimensions revealed that only Quality of Delivery had a significant effect on all of the tested outcomes. This study highlights the importance of high-quality implementation in producing positive outcomes and supports the need to evaluate implementation using multiple dimensions.
Highlights
Elias and colleagues [1] describe social and emotional learning (SEL) as “the process of acquiring and effectively applying the knowledge, attitudes and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, appreciate the perspective of others, establish and maintain positive relationships, make responsible decisions and handle interpersonal situations constructively.”SEL has often been used as an umbrella term covering a wide range of programs and approaches and defined in several ways [2,3]
Based on Total Implementation Quality, there were eight schools assigned to the high-implementation group (n = 169) and eight schools allocated to the low-implementation group (n = 143)
Taking implementation quality into consideration, and assigning intervention schools to two separate groups dependent on their Total Implementation Quality score, the findings show that all outcomes that were found to be significant in the original study were only significant for those schools in the high-implementation group at post-intervention
Summary
Elias and colleagues [1] describe social and emotional learning (SEL) as “the process of acquiring and effectively applying the knowledge, attitudes and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, appreciate the perspective of others, establish and maintain positive relationships, make responsible decisions and handle interpersonal situations constructively.”SEL has often been used as an umbrella term covering a wide range of programs and approaches and defined in several ways [2,3]. Elias and colleagues [1] describe social and emotional learning (SEL) as “the process of acquiring and effectively applying the knowledge, attitudes and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, appreciate the perspective of others, establish and maintain positive relationships, make responsible decisions and handle interpersonal situations constructively.”. The definition of SEL is driven by CASEL’s (Collaborative for Social and Emotional Learning) competency framework [4], and the program encapsulates the five core competencies identified within this framework: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship management, and responsible decision-making. School-based social and emotional learning (SEL) programs have gained recognition for their ability to improve young people’s mental health and well-being through the development of social.
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