Benefits of SEL » Meta-analyses
(Syntheses of SEL Research Study Findings)

Project Description
Results Summary
Reports & Research Findings

Project Description

With funding from the W.T. Grant Foundation and the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Mental Health, CASEL President Roger Weissberg and Joseph Durlak, professor of clinical psychology at Loyola University Chicago, have directed the meta-analyses of more than 700 positive youth development, SEL, character education, and prevention interventions. These are the largest, most scientifically rigorous, and up-to-date reviews of controlled outcome research on interventions that promote children’s social and emotional development to date. The reviews include school, family, and community interventions designed to promote personal and social skills in children and adolescents between the ages of 5 and 18. The reviews looked at the impact of SEL programs on students' SEL skills, attitudes toward self and others, positive social behavior, conduct problems, emotional distress, and academic performance.

Results Summary

SEL programs have found to yield multiple benefits in every review/analysis conducted to date.

The reviews indicate that SEL programs:

• Are effective in both school and after-school settings and for students with and without behavioral and emotional problems.
• Are effective for racially and ethnically diverse students from urban, rural, and suburban settings across the K-12 grade range.
• Improve students’ social-emotional skills, attitudes about self and others, connection to school, and positive social behavior; and reduce conduct problems and emotional distress.
• Improve students’ achievement test scores by 11 to 17 percentile points.

In addition, school-based programs are most effectively conducted by school staff (e.g., teachers, student support staff) indicating that they can be incorporated into routine educational practice.

Effective programs and approaches are typically sequenced, active, focused, and explicit (S.A.F.E.), meaning they:

S: use a Sequenced set of activities to achieve skill objectives
A: use Active forms of learning
F: include at least one program component Focused on developing personal or social skills
E: Explicitly target particular personal or social skills for development

The magnitude and scope of these benefits suggests that SEL programs are among the most successful youth-development programs offered to school-age youth. Given these positive findings, we recommend that federal, state, and local policies and practices encourage the broad implementation of well-designed, evidence-based SEL programs during and after school.

Reports and Research Findings

The Positive Impact of SEL for Kindergarten to Eighth-Grade Students: Findings from Three Scientific Reviews (2008)

This report, made possible with the support of the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health, summarizes results from three large-scale reviews of research on the impact of social and emotional learning (SEL) programs on elementary and middle-school students. The three reviews look at programs intended for the general student-body, programs directed toward children with identified needs, and programs in after-school settings. Executive Summary (pdf) ; Full report (pdf)

Key Research Findings

• Universal (for all children), indicated (for students with early identified problems), and afterschool SEL programs raise achievement test scores an average of 11, 17, and 16 percentile points, respectively.
• Universal and indicated programs increase social-emotional skills in test situations.
• All three types of programs improve social behavior (e.g., getting along and cooperating with others) and decrease behavioral problems (e.g., aggression and disruptiveness).
• All three types of programs lead to more positive feelings about self, others and school .
• Universal and indicated programs reduce levels of emotional distress (e.g., anxiety and depression).

The Impact of After-School Programs That Promote Personal and Social Skills (2007)

This report, made possible with the support of the William T. Grant Foundation, includes a review of 73 after-school programs explicitly designed, at least in part, to enhance students’ personal and social skills. The included programs involved children between the ages of 5 and 18.

Executive Summary (pdf); Full report (pdf)

Key Research Findings

• Youth who participate in such after-school programs improve significantly in three major areas: feelings and attitudes, indicators of behavioral adjustment, and school performance. More specifically, programs are successful in improving youths’: feelings of self-confidence and attitudes toward school; positive social behaviors; and grades and achievement test scores. They are also successful in reducing problem behaviors (e.g., aggression, noncompliance, conduct problems) and drug use.
• Programs that are consistently successful in producing multiple benefits for youth use evidence-based skill training approaches (S.A.F.E.). Programs that do not use such procedures are not successful in any outcome area.

The Impact of Enhancing Students' Social and Emotional Learning: A Meta-analysis of School-based Universal Interventions (Expected 2009)

• This study has been submitted to a peer-reviewed journal for publication, and a link to the article will be posted here when available.
• View a 3-page summary of the study results.
• View a PowerPoint presentation about the meta-analysis project and findings given by Roger Weissberg at the CASEL Forum in Dec. 2007.

Key Research Findings

Universal school-based social and emotional learning (SEL) programs yield benefits in three major areas: feelings and attitudes, indicators of behavioral adjustment, and school achievement. More specifically, youth show improvement in social and emotional skills, school bonding, prosocial norms, self-perceptions, positive social behaviors, and academic achievement and significant reductions occur in such areas as conduct problems, substance use, and internalizing symptoms. The gains produced by school-based programs translates into a(n):

• 23% improvement in social and emotional skills
• 9% improvement in attitudes about self, others, and school
• 9% improvement in school and classroom behavior
• 9% decrease in conduct problems such as classroom misbehavior and aggression
• 10% decrease in emotional distress such as anxiety and depression
• 11 percentile point gain in achievement test scores

Based on the studies that collected follow-up data in each of the above categories, the positive benefits to students are found to persist over time.

Programs are most effective when conducted by teachers rather than researchers, and need to be well-implemented in order to attain positive results.