Beyond Test Scores: How Can We Measure Social-Emotional Learning?

In recent years, educators and policymakers have expanded the conversation around student success by moving beyond standardized test scores. Social-emotional learning (SEL), in particular, has emerged as an important factor in student outcomes. The use of non-academic terms like “self-management” and “grit” has grown common among policymakers and educators, due in part to the broadening of school performance measures mandated by the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Post-ESSA, the education community has been forced to examine how it can best identify and measure outcomes related to SEL.

Luckily for researchers, California’s CORE Districts, which are comprised of ten large urban school districts across the state, have assessed SEL through qualitative surveys to teachers, parents and students for years. In 2014, they piloted the survey to approximately 9,000 students and 300 educators across 18 schools; in spring 2016, they officially administered it across all CORE districts. Since then, districts have continually monitored the results. In a recent paper, Thomas Toch and Raegen Miller of Georgetown University’s FutureEd highlighted one CORE district—Fresno Unified School District (USD)—and the methods educators there used to transform survey results into actionable insights.

Within the Fresno USD, Toch and Miller found that the survey results verified what many educators have long suspected: namely, that social-emotional learning was associated with academic performance. Among the SEL metrics measured in the CORE surveys, self-management (the ability to regulate one’s emotions, thoughts and behaviors) and self-efficacy (the belief in one’s ability to achieve a task) were correlated most strongly with the grades of students in elementary school. For high school students, the presence of a growth mindset (the belief that one’s abilities can improve) and social awareness (the ability to empathize with others from diverse backgrounds) were the strongest predictors of student success.

The researchers also uncovered some troubling trends related to SEL throughout Fresno USD and other CORE districts. Most disturbingly, researchers found that student self-confidence levels decreased the longer students remained in school. This effect was particularly pronounced among girls entering high school and Latinx and African American students. Students of color and economically disadvantaged students also displayed negative attitudes across multiple dimensions of the survey; the researchers suggested that social and cultural biases could be to blame.

While the survey results have been both affirming and enlightening, the researchers noted that obstacles to implementation remain. Since the field of SEL is still developing, teacher skepticism remains a persistent challenge. Moreover, researchers recognize that the field has not rallied around a consistent and concise set of definitions for SEL metrics. The vast number of concepts that the surveys cover can be overwhelming for teachers, leaving them uncertain as to where to focus their efforts. Administrators have also observed that high teacher turnover hinders the commitment to necessary long-term training on SEL, as it takes time to train teachers in the analysis and interpretation of SEL survey data. Most importantly, researchers and educators alike acknowledge that the efficacy of teacher strategies to improve SEL is not yet known.

Toch and Miller concluded their report with strategies for educators and policymakers to assess SEL. They recommended limiting the number of topics surveyed, reporting results by student subgroups and reconsidering social-emotional learning not simply as a set of skills to be taught, but as a dimension of learning that was an extension of healthy school environments and good policy. In contemplating the impact of SEL assessments more broadly, the researchers counseled caution. While the CORE survey results provided a foundation for how to measure and track SEL metrics over time, more research is needed to identify specific strategies for how to actually improve students’ social-emotional learning.

Article source: Toch, Thomas, and Raegen Miller. “CORE Lessons: Measuring the Social and Emotional Dimensions of Student Success.” FutureEd, Georgetown University (2019).

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