Beyond Content: Incorporating Social and Emotional Learning into the Strive Framework 16 Main Street Accord, NY Fax

The Strive Task Force and Philliber Research Associates Our charge: choose competencies that are related to academic achievement and particularly to Strive benchmarks Then-- define them report whether they are malleable find measures for them

The Result Three volumes: 1.Social and Emotional Competencies and their Relationship to Academic Achievement 2.A Summary of Measures by Competency and Stage of the Cradle to Career Continuum 3.A Compendium of Social and Emotional Competency Measures

What did we find? A bit of a conceptual mess e.g., academic self-efficacy, academic self concept, outcome expectations, confidence, perceived ability, perceived academic control

What did we find? Different groupings e.g., academic mindset might include passion and purpose, grit, growth, identity as part of an academic community, mastery orientation— Or it might not

What did we find? Different numbers of important competencies e.g., one author might name 5 important competencies, another might name 4 and they might not overlap

What does that conceptual confusion lead to? Measurement confusion Or more positively thought of— Lots of measurement choices

Academic Self-Efficacy Belief in being able to succeed in academic or learning situations There are specific kinds e.g., math self-efficacy More specific measures lead to better predictability and clearer measures

Academic Self-Efficacy Positively related to: College retention or persistence GPA Adjustment to college Work performance

Academic Self-Efficacy Is malleable— Beginning in childhood by giving children a sense they can succeed Modeling, goal setting, and performance feedback In the workplace when workers understand a task, get training, and feedback AND, leads to greater persistence.

Growth Mindset Your brain is like a muscle—it will grow and improve if you use it. Children with a mastery orientation are motivated to master material and thus, seek challenge—rather than being motivated to avoid failure.

Growth Mindset Positively related to: Higher grades in junior high school Higher science and math grades Higher test scores Lowering aggression and stress

Growth Mindset Experimental studies have deliberately manipulated subjects’ beliefs about whether intelligence can be changed --tell them it can change --blame temporary or external causes for failure --deliberately incorporate content instruction with mindset development

Grit or perseverance A “stick with it” attitude Passion for long term goals Staying focused on a goal despite obstacles or distractions

Grit or Perseverance Positively related to: Grades SAT scores Faster growth in reading and math Less anxiety

Grit or Perseverance Some believe this is a stable personality characteristic—not easily malleable. Others argue that you can increase perseverance by raising academic self-efficacy (I CAN do it) or increasing community belongingness, or mastery orientation

Emotional Competence Learning to recognize and manage emotions, care about others, make good decisions, behave ethically, develop positive relationships and avoid negative behaviors. Accuracy of identifying emotions, regulating behavior, empathy, work cooperatively

Emotional Competence Positively related to: Literacy achievement in 1st, 3rd and 5th grades Reading and spelling at age Self efficacy, problem solving, math grades Academic and clinical competence of medical students

Emotional Competence Is malleable through— Programs like Second Step, Roots of Empathy Courses for business people Training on how to “read people” Parents, teachers, and peers helping children to resolve conflicts

Self Regulated Learning/ Study Skills Overlaps with self-management, self-evaluation, self direction, time management and self control Cognitive regulation (e.g., planning ahead) and emotional regulation (e.g., delayed gratification) Overall management of attention and emotion to use appropriate study skills

Self Regulated Learning/ Study Skills This competency is the most proximal factor to student academic performance “Study habit and skill measures improve prediction of academic performance more than any other non-cognitive individual difference and should be regarded as the third pillar of academic success” (with test scores and grades) —Crede & Kuncel, 2008

Self Regulated Learning/ Study Skills Positively related to: College retention College GPA Math and literacy achievement Grades (more strongly than IQ) Credit accumulation Grade promotion Test scores

Self Regulated Learning/ Study Skills Is malleable through— Direct self regulation training Goal setting Feedback loops Teaching study skills within content areas Teaching students to use “self-talk”

A word about critical thinking Is this non-cognitive? “…purposeful self-regulatory judgment which results in interpretation, analysis, evaluation and inference…” The National Research Council called this a cognitive 21st Century skill Is non-cognitive a useful term?

Another word about critical thinking Some studies show this to be related to academic achievement while others argue it is not as important as self-regulated learning and good study skills. It is malleable by Direct teaching Teaching of good communication skills

A word about creativity Big C (Mozart) and Little C (you in the kitchen) Not consistently related to academic achievement Often not valued by teachers It is malleable

What about measures? 32 for academic self-efficacy 12 for growth mindset 13 for grit or perseverance 44 for emotional competence 28 for self regulated learning and their subparts

These measures include-- Self reports Teacher ratings Parent ratings Clinical professional ratings and --are available for all age groups.

Other parts of the work Summaries of studies relating the competencies to academic achievement Experimental studies of attempts to alter the competencies The measures that authors would share Bibliographies of the literature reviewed

So that’s what we did at camp last summer! Questions? Comments?