The impact of a Portuguese middle school social-emotional learning program.

Abstract

This controlled pre-post study investigated whether a universal, school-based, social-emotional learning program implemented in two consecutive school years in two distinct cohorts, would promote gains in the social-emotional competencies of Portuguese middle school students. Moreover, it also analyzed the moderating role of students' characteristics, such as gender and baseline levels, on the impact of the intervention. Program 'Positive Attitude' was applied to 472 seventh to ninth grade students (25 classes). One hundred and fifty-six students in control groups (8 classes) also participated in this study. Overall, there were 628 participants aged from 11 to 17 years (Mage = 13.54; SD = 1.36). Self-report questionnaires were administered before and after the intervention. There were significant intervention gains in three (of five) social-emotional competencies, namely increases in social awareness and self-control as well as decreases in the levels of social anxiety in the first cohort. The positive effects were stably effective in the second cohort, except for social anxiety. Girls revealed greater gains in social awareness and greater reductions of the levels of social isolation and social anxiety when compared with boys. Intervention students with lower social awareness pretest scores profited more than controls. These results indicated that the intervention improved the social and emotional competencies of middle school students, supporting the cross-cultural generalization of social-emotional learning programs' efficacy.