Planning for a Great SEL Road Trip Through SEL Measure Improvement: An Introduction

Key Points

• Continuous improvement is a critical component of systemic SEL implementation, but equally important is continuously improving the ways we measure SEL.
• Continuous measure improvement follows a parallel pattern to continuous improvement of implementation, but focuses on the tools and metrics used to measure SEL.
• This blog post kicks off a multi-blog series focusing on the importance of and practices for continuous measure improvement.

The authors of “Using Social and Emotional Competency Assessments for the Continuous Improvement of SEL,” a chapter within the SEL Handbook, are sharing a blog series that extends their chapter to include additional examples of how to engage in continuous measure improvement. In this first post, they introduce the concept of continuous measure improvement through the metaphor of a road trip. These blogs are authored by Laura Davidson, Rachel Gordon, and Marisa Crowder.

Embarking on a journey to promote SEL can be a rewarding and sometimes challenging experience. A district’s “SEL Road Trip” will be a well-planned and well-resourced journey with all the makings for a fabulous adventure. The trip is successful because it includes:

• A clear destination, possibly built into a long-term strategic plan accompanied with dedicated resources for curriculum and professional learning (system)
• Passengers from every district department, filled with excited students and staff, driven by an enthusiastic superintendent and leadership team (system)
• State-of-the-art gauges (like a speedometer, an odometer, or gas gauge in an actual roadtrip) that help the district monitor progress and spot roadblocks and car troubles well in advance (measure)

Other times, our “SEL Road Trip” might be a bit more of a “struggle bus.” Perhaps … 

• There is a clear destination in mind, but progress is stalled by the traffic of competing initiatives or limited resources dedicated to help it continue (system).
• There may be too few passengers in the car, which is driven by one dedicated SEL champion hoping to pick up promising hitch hikers along the way (system).
• Many of the gauges are faulty or outdated. Maybe the driver forgot their reading glasses and can’t see the gauges, or they’re in metric when the driver is familiar with miles! They may provide an estimate of the car’s speed, tire pressure, and engine status, but not reliably or in a way understood by the drivers or passengers (measure). 

How can you ensure your road trip is more like the first example and less like the second? If you said, “continuous improvement,” you’re correct! In this blog, we’d like you to focus on an important part of continuous improvement: continuous measure improvement.

What Is Continuous Measure Improvement? And Why Is it Important?

If you work in education, you’re likely familiar with the term “continuous improvement.” Defined as a repeated process to improve outcomes in cycles of incremental change, the term has gained considerable traction in education in recent decades (Best & Dunlap, 2014; Taylor et al., 2014).

As an example, when a school district creates a plan to survey SEL competencies at the beginning and end of the school year to determine how they can improve their SEL implementation, they’re engaging in continuous improvement.

Often, discussions about continuous improvement focus on systems: how well are the systems of SEL implementation working? But what about how we measure our progress (e.g., the tools, data, and processes we use to determine if our SEL efforts are working)? Shouldn’t we be paying attention to their continuous improvement?

In your district or organization, you might have lots of different measures of SEL to support continuous improvement, including:

• Assessments of students’ social and emotional competencies (SECs)
• An SEL practice inventory, where schools rate their readiness to implement SEL or the quality of their SEL implementation so far
• Behavior or attendance data you use to see if SEL is having an impact
• Conversations, interviews, or focus groups with your teachers to see how SEL teaching is going

While each of these types of tools is useful, no measure is either absolutely reliable or valid. Have you ever taken a survey where one of the questions did not make sense or used an acronym you weren’t familiar with? Or, have you completed a personality test and thought the results did not match your personality at all? These experiences may have meant that the measure was not a reliable or valid source of information about your knowledge or personality.

For any tool, reliability and validity depend on numerous factors, such as the intended use of the measure, population characteristics, and the time period in which it is used (Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, 2014/2021).

This is important because continuous improvement of SEL systems should be based on reliable and valid information. When we work to improve our measures, we are working to ensure that we are accurately measuring what we intend to: progress in SEL systems and in students’ SECs.

What Does Continuous Measure Improvement Look Like?

Continuous measure improvement is very similar to continuous system improvement. You might be familiar Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle often cited in reference to continuous improvement (Shakman et al., 2020; Best & Dunlap, 2014). It outlines the four steps that make up continuous improvement, which are repeated in an ongoing cycle.

Below, you can see what this cycle looks like for both systems improvement and measure improvement:

As you can see, the actions are similar in each cycle, but the subject you’re examining—systems vs. measurement—differs.

Bringing it all Together

In reality, these two cycles are interconnected within continuous improvement efforts. In a recent chapter of the Handbook of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), Second Edition, we introduced the Continuous System Improvement-Continuous Measure Improvement (CSI-CMI) model to elevate the importance of attending to the mutually informative cycles of system and measure improvement (Crowder et al., 2024). 

Remember the two road trips we described at the start of this post! We bet you know which bus you want to be on—and continuous measure improvement can help! As you can see in the diagram above, the trip itself involves the interconnection of these two elements of continuous improvement, so learning about continuous measure improvement is critical!

Buckle up, because this introduction to the road trip is just the beginning! In the rest of this blog series, we are going to tackle the top three system and measure challenges to help you get back on the road! Here’s what we’ve got planned:

1. Plotting the Course: What should you plan for as you start out your SEL adventure?
2. Tuning Up: How can you maintain alignment between SEL systems and measures?
3. The Journey: What are some strategies for addressing common roadblocks?

We’re looking forward to taking the journey with you!

The views in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of CASEL.

Laura Davidson, Ph.D., has been the Director of Research and Evaluation for the Washoe County School District in Reno, NV for the past 14 years. Her team focuses on the use of innovative data tools, program evaluation, and user-friendly research to drive continuous improvement and informed decision-making.

Rachel Gordon, Ph.D., is associate dean for research and administration and professor of health studies in the College of Health and Human Sciences at Northern Illinois University. An engaged policy scholar, throughout her career, Dr. Gordon has worked at the intersection of academic research and social policy. Her most recent projects aim to advance understanding regarding the cost, quality, adaptability and ownership of educational products whose creation and use are publicly funded, as well as the ways in which snap judgments of appearance shape social constructions, identities and experiences.

Marisa Crowder, Ph.D., is a researcher and co-owner of The ElevatEd Initiative, LLC. She has expertise in leading partnerships that center and elevate local voices in the development and implementation of educational initiatives and measurement. She specializes in social and emotional learning, academic engagement, contextualization, and school-based mental health.

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