SEL Overview | Improving Student Ou

SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL LEARNING: WHAT WE KNOW

This page introduces SEL, key meta-analytic findings to date, and introduces the Living Systematic Review of SEL.

08_Ed Collaboratory at Yale_Ink Factory_Icon_Classroom Activity 1.png

Social and emotional learning refers to a process of how we develop cognitive, affective, and behavioral skills and strategies. These skills have close connections to how we learn, engage others, form and maintain relationships, make decisions, and problem-solve. Explicit SEL instruction includes school-based programs designed to promote student academic, social, emotional, and behavioral success in school and life.

14_Ed Collaboratory at Yale_Ink Factory_Icon_Evidence Library.png

Evaluation evidence is essential for understanding whether SEL programs benefit the students they are designed to support.

Synthesizing SEL evaluation evidence across studies and clearly documenting the program and study details can document the growing evidence of effectiveness and begin to explain what works, for whom, and in what settings.

In the absence of evidence, SEL runs the risk of being “everything” and “nothing” in the history of initiatives that fizzled out in effectiveness.

Learn more about how it started

In 2023 researchers at Yale University released the state of the evidence for social and emotional learning, a registered report of the empirical evidence of effectiveness for school-based SEL interventions through 2020. Here’s what we learned:

SEL programs improve student outcomes across domains.

On average, students who participate in SEL programs have improved academic behaviors and performance, social and emotional skills, peer relationships, perceptions of school climate and safety, prosocial behaviors, civic attitudes and behaviors, and reduced experiences of stress, anxiety, bullying, and depressive symptoms.

Teachers are central to effective SEL implementation.

Classroom teachers are the most frequent and effective facilitators of SEL programs during the school day. Programs have the greatest impact on student outcomes when they are led by classroom teachers.

Specificity matters.

SEL programs vary widely in their content, instructional methods, theoretical foundations, implementation approaches, and intended outcomes. Meaningful discussions about impact and effectiveness require clarity about the SEL program and its approach.

The structure of SEL programs influences student outcomes.

SEL programs are most effective when implemented using sequenced, active, focused, and explicit (SAFE) practices. Evidence also suggests that the order of instruction matters: programs that build intrapersonal skills (e.g., emotion skills) before interpersonal skills (e.g., social skills) produce stronger outcomes than those that teach these skills in the reverse order.

SEL programs can better engage families and support students.

SEL programs have an opportunity to explicitly engage families and to equip school-based mental health providers with the tools and resources to ensure that all students can access and benefit from SEL programs.

Read Cipriano et al. 2023

Learn more about how it's going

SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL LEARNING: WHAT WE KNOW

In 2023 researchers at Yale University released the state of the evidence for social and emotional learning, a registered report of the empirical evidence of effectiveness for school-based SEL interventions through 2020. Here’s what we learned:

Classroom teachers are the most frequent and effective facilitators of SEL programs during the school day. Programs have the greatest impact on student outcomes when they are led by classroom teachers.

SEL programs vary widely in their content, instructional methods, theoretical foundations, implementation approaches, and intended outcomes. Meaningful discussions about impact and effectiveness require clarity about the SEL program and its approach.

By the Numbers

109 Studies

79 Programs

95,102 K-12 Students

Subscribe for updates