Apparent variation in SEL program impacts may be an artifact of imprecise program targets misaligned with too-general outcome measures¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · reviewr2·q2
Currency · newest study 2017 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q2 i? What appears to be variation in impacts of elementary SEL programs may instead stem from imprecise program targets misaligned with too-general measures of outcomes. → Stephanie M. Jones 2017
q2 i? SEL programs target basic emotion skills such as emotion knowledge and vocabulary but measure more complex outcomes that build on those basic skills, so effects on targeted basic skills go unmeasured. → Stephanie M. Jones 2017 (2)
Evidence¶
Stephanie M. Jones 2017¶
Stephanie M. Jones, Sophie P. Barnes, Rebecca Bailey, and Emily J. Doolittle. (2017). Promoting Social and Emotional Competencies in Elementary School. The Future of Children, Vol. 27, No. 1, Spring 2017. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1144815
q2 · i? · review · r2
The article's central conclusion from its review of 11 randomized-trial SEL interventions, mapping each program's targets against its measured outcomes. The review finds that "what appears to be variation in impacts may instead be an artifact" of target-measure misalignment. This is the authors' interpretive synthesis rather than a tested statistical result.
"Our review suggests that what appears to be variation in impacts may instead be an artifact of imprecise program targets misaligned with too-general outcome measures."
Stephanie M. Jones 2017 (2)¶
Stephanie M. Jones, Sophie P. Barnes, Rebecca Bailey, and Emily J. Doolittle. (2017). Promoting Social and Emotional Competencies in Elementary School. The Future of Children, Vol. 27, No. 1, Spring 2017. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1144815
q2 · i? · review · r2
Documented example of the misalignment pattern in the emotion domain: 40 percent of PATHS lessons focus on understanding and communicating emotions and RULER targets five key emotion skills, yet neither study included measures of these basic emotional skills. The article reports this as a review finding about measurement practice, with no effect sizes.
"Programs tend to target basic or fundamental emotion skills, such as emotion knowledge, emotion vocabulary, and emotion expression. But they measure more complex outcomes that build on or use these basic emotion skills."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Only three reviewed SEL studies measured classroom-level outcomes, and effects on CLASS-measured classroom environments ranged from moderate to large — related
- Social-emotional learning benefits persist at follow-up — related
- A cluster randomized trial tests the impact of a skill-targeted social and emotional learning curriculum with Syrian refugee children in Lebanon — related
- Universal school-based SEL programs improve students' behaviour, with a small and, in recent randomised trials, negligible effect on academic achievement — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
status |
review |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-11-01 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
Frontmatter is the page's machine-readable record — see the Schema & Guide.