Programs that teach students how to recognize their emotions, solve problems, and form healthy relationships may continue to show positive benefits for students months or years after they complete them, concludes a new meta-analysis in the journal Child Development.
Students who completed social-emotional-learning interventions fared better than their non-participating peers on a variety of indicators—including academic performance, social skills, and avoidance of such negative behaviors as drug use. In eight studies that measured academic results, participants in social-emotional programs performed about 13 percentile points higher than their peers in the control group.
Researchers reviewed results and follow-up data from studies on 82 school-based, social-and-emotional-learning interventions that were universal, or administered to all students. Those studies involved nearly 100,000 K-12 students of different demographic backgrounds.
