Informing Social and Emotional Learning and Well-Being

INFORMING SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL LEARNING AND WELL-BEING::

INFORMING SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL LEARNING AND WELL-BEING: a whole school approach Research Proposal by Naima Thomas The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto

Statement of Problem – Relevance:

Statement of Problem – Relevance Observable links between well-being, mental health, positive self-efficacy and academic achievement Significant increase in the number of students identified with severe deficits in social emotional well-being, mental well-being and mental health

Statement of Problem – Current Practice:

Statement of Problem – Current Practice Boards across Ontario have adopted a variety of programs to assist in promoting social and emotional well-being including: Character Education Tribes Healthy Schools Initiative SEAL: Social and Emotional Academic Learning Skills Continuum Programs provide: assessment tools; lesson plans; and Strategies for fostering a sense of school community

Statement of Problem – Proposed Deficit:

Statement of Problem – Proposed Deficit …We need to be both creative and concrete in how we coordinate services, work with community partners, advocate for support, as well as find ways to align our resources to the best of our ability in this area…moving from the abstract to the concrete in terms of both physical and mental well-being. - Thurston, K., (2011). Mental well-being: moving from the abstract to the concrete. Reflection on our Practice. Leading Edge, January 14 – internal newsletter

Statement of Problem - Question:

Statement of Problem - Question Will using the results of a revised testing tool together with pre-defined support for action plan development and implementation result in improved social and emotional well-being? Will any resultant change to social and emotional well-being show a correlation to academic achievement?

Hypothesis:

Hypothesis Schools that measure social and emotional well-being and use the resulting data to develop and implement an action plan will demonstrate greater improvement in social and emotional well-being than schools that measure social and emotional well-being, but do not develop or implement an action plan, controlling for pretests. Schools that experience improvement in social and emotional well-being will demonstrate higher academic achievement than schools that do not.

Literature Review: Morrison, M. & Bratton, S. (2010):

Literature Review: Morrison, M. & Bratton, S. (2010) Purpose: to improve child teacher relationships and reduce problem behaviours for children with clinical and borderline behaviour identifications by participating in Child Parent Relationship Therapy (CPRT) Method: empirically based and controlled study conducted at one school n = 12 teacher/aide dyads and 52 students experimental group trained in CPRT and control group provided with an alternative form of classroom management training pre, mid and post test model used over a 18 week period statistically tested behavioural checklist a split plot analysis of variance (ANOVA) Preliminary investigation of an early mental health intervention for Head Start programs: effects of child teacher relationship training on children’s behaviour problems

Morrison, M. & Bratton, S. (2010) Con’t:

Morrison, M. & Bratton, S. (2010) Con’t Results: hypothesis proven – with explicit teacher training in CPRT; key behavioural indicators were reduced significantly in behaviourally identified children. 69 % (roughly two thirds of children) showed improvements both during and after treatment Areas for Consideration: due to the small sample population, students were not randomly selected or stratified at pretest there were some statistically significant differences between the means in favour of the treatment group possibility for Hawthorne affect as teachers were aware of placement in control and experimental groups and were responsible for assessing students at pre, mid and post intervals Future Implications: by providing teachers with specialized skill sets for managing problem behaviour can reduce the number of students typically identified with having a behavioural disorder

Literature Review: Rice, Kang, Weaver and Howell, (2008):

Literature Review: Rice, Kang, Weaver and Howell, (2008) Purpose: to characterize relationships between trait anger, stress, patterns of anger expression, resources for coping, and school connectedness and to determine if race and gender moderate these relationships in elementary school-aged children Method: a two tiered examination first using a traditional correlational design and then a deeper examination using categorical variables along with an analysis of regression n = 166 fourth grade students from 4 elementary schools in one rural district study completed during the 5 th week of school statistically proven and reliable scales used to collect data Relationship of Anger, stress, and Coping With School Connectedness in Fourth-Grade Children

Rice et al. (2008) Con’t:

Rice et al. (2008) Con’t Result: school connectedness positively associated with social confidence and behaviour control and negatively associated with trait anger, stress and negative expressions of anger no moderation found when examining gender as a categorical variable, but moderation found in race for Caucasian students only Areas for Consideration: questions with regard to relationship between race and school connectedness study should be expanded to include an urban perspective randomized sample was not equally stratified which may have had an effect on the regression analysis causation may exist between rural and urban location or other variables Future Implications: several studies of this nature had been completed to examine the nature of these relationships in high school however, this was the first of its kind to examine the relationships between student and school connectedness in the elementary system

Literature Review: Hall, S. (2010):

Literature Review: Hall, S. (2010) Purpose: to develop a system for using the opinions of students to ameliorate social and emotional aspects of learning within a school Method: single case qualitative design used within one school four focus sessions were conducted with 2 educational psychologist present n = 18 students ranging from year 1 to year 6 – students were selected by staff Semi structured questioning technique used during interview Result organized into an action plan and shared with school and staff Supporting Mental Health and Well-Being at a Whole-School Level: Listening to and Acting Upon Children’s Views

Hall, S. 2010 Con’t:

Hall, S. 2010 Con’t Results: results organized into 5 themes: environmental quality, self-esteem, emotional processing, self management skills and social participation Psychological team themed the data and worked with the whole school staff to plans actions Areas for Consideration: provisions should be made to measure the long term change and monitor implementation of the plan the school selected for this study was motivated and already employing strategies to support social and emotional well-being staff aware of the purpose of the study and had control over the students selected for the interview triangulation of findings with staff and parent voice may strengthen results Future Implications: Creating a system to access student voice and turn words into actions will make a school community take ownership of their environment which promotes well-being

Literature Review: Suldo, Friedrich, White, Farmer, Minch and Michalowski. (2009):

Literature Review: Suldo, Friedrich, White, Farmer, Minch and Michalowski. (2009) Purpose: to identify which types of perceived social support enacted by teachers are most strongly associated with middle school students’ subjective well-being (SWB) (quantitative) as well as student reported specific teacher actions and/or comments that communicate social support (qualitative component) Method: Quantitative: data collected from 1 suburban middle school subjects enrolled in either gifted, advanced or general education classes 40% of eligible student participated n = 401 Qualitative: purposeful sample extracted from the quantitative sample to be representative of numbers n = 50 student participated in 8 focus groups Teacher Support and Adolescent’ Subjective Well-Being: A Mixed-Methods Investigation

Suldo et al. (2009) Con’t:

Suldo et al. (2009) Con’t Results: Quantitative: perceived teacher support accounted for 16% of variance in students’ SWB emotional support and instrumental support predict SWB Qualitative: prompted the discovery of a variety of themes related to specific teacher actions gender differences identified with respect to different themes Areas for Consideration: due to the incredibly close correlational differences between the forms of emotional support, one wonders to what extent they are separate constructs. since only 40% of the population were sampled, 60% of students were left out an oversampling of gifted and general students as well as Caucasian students did occur Future Implications: using data driven results, and student voice to clarify meaning, one can develop a greater understanding of the SWB of their school community.

Proposal of Study: Procedures:

Proposal of Study: Procedures Subjects and Sampling Plan: 10 schools will be selected based on a stratified random assignment. 5 school will be part of the experimental group and 5 schools will be assigned to the control group for each school n = the number of staff (administrators, educators and support staff as well as school volunteers - both parent and non) and all students in Grade 3, 6 and 8

Proposal of Study: Procedures:

Proposal of Study: Procedures Experimental Timeline and Design: October – Prestest facilitator will visit each school on three separate occasions first, meet and distribute questionnaires and student/parent and participant consent forms and establish a Social and Emotional Well-being Committee at each experimental school. second, collect questionnaires for data analysis third, meet with committees (experimental group) and administrators (control group) to share results mean scores will be examined to note any significant differences at pre-test November to May – Monthly Meetings facilitator will meet with experimental group committees to discuss action plans and collects evidence that timelines and actions are being achieved June – Posttest facilitator will visit each school on three separate occasions as in October mean scores as well as a computation of variance and standard deviation will be undertaken

Proposal of Study: Procedures:

Proposal of Study: Procedures Correlational Time Line and Design correlation coefficients will be calculated between total social and emotional well-being scores from the June assessment and EQAO Reading, Writing and Mathematics Scores for both control and experimental groups analysis will take place the following fall when EQAO scores are published to the school only Grade 3 and 6 students that have provided consent to view EQAO scores will be included in this portion of the analysis. facilitator will meet with committee and administrators to share results.

Proposal of Study: Instruments:

Proposal of Study: Instruments World Health Organization’s Psycho-Social Environment Profile: administrator, educator, support staff and volunteer targeted questionnaire created by the World Health Organization that targets seven quality areas that extensively encompass a school’s social and emotional climate observation manual is provided that explains how to administer the test, process the results and share findings Social Emotional and Academic Learning Skills (SEAL) profile: primary, junior and intermediate targeted questionnaires created by facilitator that targets the four SEAL standard goals and model the format of the Psycho-Social Environment Profile an observation manual must be developed to accompany this instrument Computing Reliability: both scales will be tested for reliability and modified until an internal consistency of 0.90 is reached

Proposal of Study: Results and Discussion:

Proposal of Study: Results and Discussion Experimental Analysis – Investigation of Means and Variance: using the Psycho-Social Environment (PSE) Profile: by investigating the means of each theme related to the PSE Profile one can identify areas of strength within a school’s social and emotional climate and areas of need. this information can be used to develop an action plan to be implemented by all school staff over the course of the experimental year using the Social Emotional and Academic Learning (SEAL) Profile: by investigating the means of each theme related to the SEAL profile on can identify areas of strength within a school’s SEAL skills continuum an action plan can be developed for classrooms and the SEAL skills continuum can be used to directly address the deficit skills areas according to the action plan Discussion: by measuring the PSE and SEAL within a school and using these results to create and implement a concrete plan of action a school will be able to improve the social emotional climate of their school and concretely measure this growth

Proposal of Study: Results and Discussion:

Proposal of Study: Results and Discussion Correlational Analysis: calculating the correlation coefficient between overall the overall SEAL score provided by the Grade 3 and 6 students and their EQAO Reading, Writing and Math scores we will see that greater SEAL scores are related to higher academic achievement in each of the EQAO subject areas Discussion : most important aspect of the analysis for if this intervention does not positively affect academic achievement, then this process will not be considered more useful than carrying on with traditional methods for achieving social and emotional well-being

Proposal of Study: Ethical Implications:

Proposal of Study: Ethical Implications during the treatment period, this study will affect all administrators, teachers, support staff and volunteers as well as Grade 3, 6, and 8 students within each participating school informed consent will be attained by all participants of the study. For all student participants, parental consent must be received along with a consent to release individual EQAO results for the Grade 3 and 6 students for the purpose of this experiment, no individual names will need to be used, nor will the name of the participating schools or Board be published in the study participants in the control group will be offered a delayed treatment option upon completion of the study

Conclusion:

Conclusion Social and Emotional Contentedness and Academic Achievement STUDENTS COMMUNITY TEACHERS

References:

References Hall, S. (2010). Supporting mental health and wellbeing at a whole-school level: listening to and acting upon children’s views. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 15(4), 323-339. Morrison, M. & Bratton, S. (2010). Preliminary investigation of an early mental health intervention for Head Start programs: effects of child teacher relationship training on children’s behaviour problems. Psychology in the Schools, 47(10), 1003-1017. Rice, M., Kang, D.H., Weaver, M. & Howell C. (2008). Relationship of anger, stress, and coping with school connectedness in fourth-grade children. Journal of School Health, 78(3), 149-156. Suldo S., Friedrich, A., White, T., Farmer, J., Minch, D., & Michalowski, J. (2009). Teacher support and adolescents’ subjective well-being: a mixed-methods investigation. School Psychology Review, 38(1), 67-85. Thurston, K., (2011). Mental well-being: moving from abstract to concrete. Reflection on our Practice. Leading Edge, January 14 – internal newsletter. World Health Organization. (2003). Creating an Environment for Emotional and Social Well-Being: An important responsibility of a health-promoting and child friendly school. Geneva, SZ: WHO. York Region District School board. (2010). Academic Enablers: The explicit teaching of skills for learning. SEAL: Social emotional and academic learning skills continuum. Newmarket, ON: YRDSB.