One SEL curriculum I researched is Second Step. Second Step is a scripted program serving over 20 million students and is translated into fifteen languages and dialects. The curriculum is for preschool through eighth grade. Lessons range from five to thirty minutes with explicitly taught content and activities. Resources include a CD for singalongs and puppets for role playing real life scenarios. Topics include listening, managing emotions, decision making, managing conflict, and developing friendship skills. The curriculum builds on previous lessons and previous grades’ lessons to spiral content as a way to revise and further develop students’ growth. Second Step’s website cites anecdotal success stories explaining how the program positively changed schools. This includes decreased behavior issues, positive changes in school culture, and improvements in daily attendance including Everett School District whose graduation rate rose from 53 percent in 2004 to 95 percent in 2017 (Second Step, 2012).

Second Step has a print curriculum and a digital curriculum. It is rated Tier 1, which means that this program addresses all the social emotional needs of students. The digital version can be easily updated with the most up-to-date research and resources, allows for increased consistency in delivery, and uses various interactive components. Teachers are able to access a dashboard to view students’ progress, determine which skills should be retaught, and decide when students are ready for the next lesson. The middle school digital curriculum information was not yet updated, and the high school curriculum is in the process of being developed.

Here is an example lesson for a first grade class about feeling frustrated:

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Second Step, 2022

A meta-analysis analyzed 27 studies of 18,847 participants internationally to evaluate the program’s effectiveness on knowledge and attitudes about violence and violence prevention, prosocial behavior outcomes, and antisocial behavior outcomes. The meta-analysis results found that SEL intervention had only small to moderate effect sizes. The findings stated that the “antisocial and prosocial outcomes were small and positive whereas the knowledge outcomes were large and positive” which shows that students must first learn the knowledge about the skills in order to then have the ability to implement them, however, the knowledge has not yet transferred into action (Moy et al., 2018, p. 332, 334).

In terms of the program’s short term and long term success rate, the analyses determined that when the outcomes were assessed immediately after the program, the effect sizes ranged from small to large; however, when there was a follow up study, the effect sizes were statistically significant yet much smaller. This diminishing rate still proves that the SEL programs do have a positive impact albeit minimally. Furthermore, the context of the school in which the program is implemented must be taken into account. Even though there might be a small effect size, that may still have a considerable and positive effect in that context. With regard to its international adaptation, the program produced positive results across global regions (Moy et al, 2018, p. 336-351).

Finally, pre-school students were affected the most by the program with “lower antisocial behavior outcomes as compared with students in later grades, with smallest effects reported in middle schools” (Moy et al, 2018, p. 352). This could be due to the curriculum being more suitable for younger children or that preschool students are more impressionable for learning prosocial behaviors. The study recommended that SEL programs should focus on younger children. The study concluded by advising school leaders to not select Second Step because the effect size was small (Moy et al, 2018, p. 353).

The discrepancy between Second Step’s research on their website and the meta-analysis study illustrates that Second Step’s website only selected the most persuasive findings and deliberately neglected to cite specific independent research. Considering that the meta-analysis findings show minimal improvement, the company should invest in redeveloping the curriculum rather than currently investing in developing a new high school curriculum.

The limitations of these programs is the cost. One grade level program for Second Step can cost over $2,000 (Second Step, 2012). If schools do not have funding for social emotional learning curriculum or resources, they must invest time and resources into applying for grants. Another source of funding for SEL is a result of legislation. For example, The Every Student Succeeds Act, which replaced No Child Left Behind, does not explicitly reference social emotional learning in the policy, but many interpret the legislation to utilize grants for SEL. For example, the ESSA allows states to use federal funds on initiatives that are evidence-based, improve school conditions for student learning, enhance peer interactions, and develop relationship building skills (Grant, 2017, p. 1-2). As a result, the funding opportunities and cost is a barrier for many schools.

References:

Grant, S., Hamilton, L., & Wrabel, S. (2017). (rep.). How the Every Student Succeeds Act Can Support Social and Emotional Learning. RAND Corporation. Retrieved May 19, 2023.

Moy, G., Polanin, J. R., McPherson, C., & Phan, T.-V. (2018). International adoption of the Second Step program: Moderating variables in treatment effects. School Psychology International, 39(4), 333–359. https://doi.org/10.1177/0143034318783339

Second Step. (2012). Second step program: Second step. Second Step Program | Second Step. Retrieved May 18, 2023, from https://www.secondstep.org/