Social and Emotional Learning

Question 1

What have the reports into children mental health shown?

Answer 1

1 in 4 women have some form of mental illness
Children aged 5-15, one in 9 had a mental health disorder, up from one in 10 in the previous study
Onset happening in adolescence but pre cursers occur earlier on

Question 2

What is the difference between mental disorders in girls and boys?

Answer 2

at age, 5-10, boys have it a lot more prevalent
11-16 - evens off
17-19 - girls have it a lot more than men

Question 3

What is mental health connected with?

Answer 3

Relationships - usually take an individualistic approach to mental health, believing it is the problem inside a child. Sometimes is genetic but relationships do matter
Emotional well being, social relationships are important - connected to academic engagement and achievement outcomes
Mental health important for engaging with the curriculum

Question 4

What is a visual representation of networks in a class?

Answer 4

Asking children who they would like to hang out with
Some children attract a lot of positive nominations
Majority of children, over several years of life, can occupy the rejected position in school

Question 5

What is the social information processing model? Crick and Dodge

Answer 5

Mental health and well being can be underpinned by many social and emotional variables. Can account for various differences in social adjustment

Question 6

What are the steps in the social information processing model?

Answer 6

1. Encoding of cues - notice things
2. Interpretation
3. Classification of goals
4. Response access
5. Response decision
6. Behavioural enactment - peer evaluation and response

Question 7

What are children who encode more negative cues?

Answer 7

They are more anxious

Question 8

Barrett et al - cognitive biases in families

Answer 8

Percentage of anxious children selecting avoidant solutions

• 30% before family discussion
• 68% after family discussion

Percentage of ODD children selecting aggressive solutions

• 30% before family discussion
• 80% after discussion

More anxious when talking, families have a big impact

Question 9

What are CASEL’s five SEL competencies?

Answer 9

Self-management
Self-awareness
Responsible decision making
Relationship skills 
Social awareness

Question 10

What does intersecting domains refer too?

Answer 10

Under the behaviour is lots of different things - behaviour, cognition, emotion, motivation, relationships

Question 11

What is the problem with methods?

Answer 11

Not a single measure out there which will tell us about all of this stuff - every measurement approach will be limited - if you ask teachers, only have a small access to Childs life

Question 12

What does emotion recognition and labelling at age 2-3 predict?

Answer 12

Interactive peer play (sharing toys, comforts others, shows positive emotions, helps other children)

Question 13

What does theory of mind at age 5 predict?

Answer 13

More prosocial behaviour at age 6 - more peer acceptance and less peer rejection at age 7 - longitudinal study

Less peer rejection at age 7 - better academic achievement at age 8 - social emotional competencies of children predict achievement

Question 14

What does early peer rejection predict?

Answer 14

Difficulties with social understanding - more peer rejection

Question 15

Leece et al - conversations as a basic for social understanding

Answer 15

Conversations about hypothetical conversations
91 children aged 9-10 years
Randomly allocated to conversation based ‘theory of mind’ training program or control program
Stories about misunderstanding, use of irony, faux pas, double-bluff
Results:
Pre test - no difference
After intervention - TOM improved greatly
follow up - maintained in the 2 month follow up
Shows SEL can be impacted with different interventions

Question 16

Durlak et al - meta analysis

Answer 16

Meta analysis of school-based SEL programs shows significant improvements:
social and emotional skills
attitudes about self, others and school
classroom behaviour
conduct problems
emotional distress
achievement test scores

Importance of effective implementation (SAFE acronym)

Question 17

What does SAFE mean?

Answer 17

Sequenced
Active
Focussed
Explicit

extent to which they are fulfilling this - the better the results

Question 18

What does the ecological model of the school environment show?

Answer 18

Huge frame work, children exist and interact within complex multilayered ecologies

Systems - child in families, peers, communities, school, class, all interact within one another

Might be happening indirectly - for example, a parents workplace might be impacting children indirectly

Question 19

Banerjee et al - promoting well being at school

Answer 19

Report for welsh government - huge literature on mental health intervention and prevention programs
key points:
some pupils benefit from targeted work, but this shouldn’t replace from universal provision
even programs with very strong evidence base may not deliver reliable and sustained positive outcomes when rolled out over a large number of schools
implementation matters - put it in correctly
schools matter - idea of a connected School - everything needs to be connected

Question 20

What is the idea of a connected school?

Answer 20

Everything needs to be linked e.g. curriculum with the staff and services, classroom etc

Question 21

What is SEAL?

Answer 21

Social and emotional aspects of learning

Question 22

What did national evaluation of SEAL show?

Answer 22

Program implemented - lots of resources
But, showed null results
however, what was being measured? - relying on chid self-reports
was the comparison of SEAL and non SEAL schools valid?
need to consider variations in how initiatives are taken forward in schools

Question 23

SEAL tracker school project

Answer 23

Preliminary work focusing on qualitative data from 2008/9
2010 data:
53 schools visited
32 schools contributed pupil data
23 schools contributed staff data
Wide range of schools (FSM, attainment, attendance etc)
Results:
Schools varied in what they did with SEAL
some implementing it into the community
others integrating social and emotional well being to different classes
schools differed
only worked with one time point tho
Bidirectional associations - schools doing well, more capacity to engage with social emotional learning
but if struggling, won’t be focussing on it, even though these are the ones that would benefit the most