There are few teacher trainings that focus on the development of social and emotional competencies for teachers (SECT) despite a large research base showing its relevance to teaching, learning, and academic success. Research suggests a major reason many current professional development (PD) models are not effective nor show utility to the immediate context of teachers is that they are externally developed and driven without consideration of the teachers’ voice. Further, they are not created to be context-specific. This study employs a qualitative, participatory action research design (PAR) to use the teachers’ perspectives at an urban elementary charter school to create a local model of professional development with the goal of enhancing social and emotional competencies of teachers. Findings reveal a local definition of PD, indicate the importance of considering macrosystemic policies, systems level policies and practices, and interpersonal supports as potential influences on SECT. / acase@tulane.edu

In the United States, children that require mental health supports will most likely receive them in their school. However, there is a serious discrepancy between youth that require and those that receive psychological supports in public schools. This reality is even more pronounced in urban settings and with youth of color. Untreated mental health issues impact a multitude of life domains—only one of which is school achievement. For decades, the public school system at federal and state levels has focused reform efforts on a single developmental competency (i.e., academic skill) to the detriment and underdevelopment of other interdependent competencies (e.g., social-emotional skills [self-awareness, self-management and regulation, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making]). Social and emotional skills are considered both a universal prevention against future psychological disturbances as well as core components in the treatment of many psychological disorders. Promoting social-emotional skills, however, requires the purposive establishment of a school climate that fosters such skills. The present study aimed to impact social-emotional factors and school climate by encouraging the participation of local stakeholders (i.e., teachers, parents, administrators, and students themselves) in problem solving and decision-making about how best to ensure school conditions foster the development of social and emotional competence. Analyses focused on both the creation of a plan for school climate reform as well as local perceptions of the facilitating and inhibiting factors of engaging in this process in an urban public school. / acase@tulane.edu

Secure infant attachment is important for the positive social-emotional development of children. Many parents have limited understanding of social-emotional development and the influence of appropriate responsive parenting behaviors to their infants’ cues. For example, many parents believe you can spoil an infant if you pick them up every time they cry. Researchers study the impact of positive responses to infants’ cues. Infants form a more secure attachment and learn to interpret the world as a safe place for exploration when parents respond to their signs of distress. In contrast, infants reared with authoritarian parenting styles of strict compliance and harsh punishment develop more insecure attachments. This study measured undergraduate students’ beliefs about spoiling children, child obedience, and parental responsiveness and examined changes in beliefs after instruction in the principles of attachment and the role of caregiver responsiveness in the formation of secure attachment. First, a pretest was administered followed by 1 to 2 hours of in class instruction regarding attachment theory. Next, a posttest was given to determine if in-class instruction had an effect on students’ attitudes regarding spoiling children, child obedience, and parental responsiveness. Students’ beliefs about spoiling children were associated with attitudes about child obedience and parent responsiveness, and students changed their attitudes about spoiling and responsiveness, although not obedience, after instruction. Young adults who have developed an understanding of parental responsiveness and have decreased their fears of spoiling children have the potential to be able to implement more developmentally supportive practices in their own lives as future parents and practitioners in the field of child development.

Social-emotional competence has received increased attention as being critical to a student's success in the classroom. Social-emotional strengths are multidimensional and include assets such as social competence, self-regulation, empathy, and responsibility; however, previous research has not investigated which of these strengths contribute most to a student's academic success. Additionally, limited research has investigated the use of multiple informants (e.g., parents and teachers) to determine whose perceptions are more predictive of academic achievement in kindergarten students. This study examined the relationship between social-emotional strengths, as rated by parents and teachers on the SEARS (Merrell, 2011), and academic outcomes, using the AIMSweb Tests of Early Literacy (Shinn & Shinn, 2008) and Missing Number Fluency (Clarke & Shinn, 2004b), in kindergarten students (n = 154). A moderate, positive relationship between parent and teacher ratings of social-emotional strengths was obtained. When prior achievement was removed from the regression equation, social competence, as measured by parents, was the only significant predictor of current achievement in early literacy. No social-emotional strength, as rated by parents, was a significant predictor of early math achievement regardless of including or removing prior achievement from the regression equation. Additionally, teacher-rated total strengths were predictive of current achievement in reading, when controlling for prior achievement, and for math, when prior achievement was removed from the equation. Teacher ratings of total strengths were thus found to be more predictive than parent ratings of academic achievement in reading, but not math. Implications of findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

This study examined the relationship between behavior problems, learning behaviors and educational outcomes for at-risk preschool children. A sample of Head Start children (N = 196) were selected in the Southeast. Behavior problems were assessed using The Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA; Le Buffe & Naglieri, 1999) and learning behaviors were assessed using the Preschool Learning Behavior Scale (PLBS, McDermott, Green, Francis & Stott, 1996). Educational outcomes included measures of literacy and math, collected using subscales from the Galileo System for the Electronic Management of Learning (Galileo; Bergan et al., 2003). Behavior problems were found to predict learning behaviors, math and literacy. Furthermore, learning behaviors were found to mediate the effect of behavior problems on literacy and math, and such mediation effects were not found to be moderated by gender nor age. The findings of the study provide a preliminary explanation regarding the mechanism through which behavior problems relate to educational outcomes for preschool children.

The purpose of this study is to examine how educators who teach in schools that face challenging circumstances understand child development and the school context, and how their understanding of child development is manifested through non-academic responses to these challenging circumstances. Using mixed methods to explore and compare the results of survey data (N = 209) with interview data (N = 48) this study examines 10 schools that face challenging circumstances that have also demonstrated trends of success on provincially administered standardized assessments. Analysis reveals the findings that educators understand the challenging circumstances their students face to be developmental in nature, that educators’ believe that these challenges involve students’ physical, social-emotional, and cognitive development, and that educators respond to these challenges by implementing non-academic and co-curricular programs that are developmentally based. This study finds that all 10 schools have implemented developmental programs that foster the success of students. These findings suggest that educators offset the developmental disadvantages their students face as a result of the community, school, and their home environments. This study finds that these educators believe students’ social-emotional development is intertwined with student cognitive development. Further, these educators have expanded the traditional performance-based construct of student “success” to include a range of success that includes child social-emotional developmental success, and in expanding their understanding of student success, have arrived at an innovative, developmentally-based approach to facing challenging circumstances in schools.

The purpose of this study is to examine how educators who teach in schools that face challenging circumstances understand child development and the school context, and how their understanding of child development is manifested through non-academic responses to these challenging circumstances. Using mixed methods to explore and compare the results of survey data (N = 209) with interview data (N = 48) this study examines 10 schools that face challenging circumstances that have also demonstrated trends of success on provincially administered standardized assessments. Analysis reveals the findings that educators understand the challenging circumstances their students face to be developmental in nature, that educators’ believe that these challenges involve students’ physical, social-emotional, and cognitive development, and that educators respond to these challenges by implementing non-academic and co-curricular programs that are developmentally based. This study finds that all 10 schools have implemented developmental programs that foster the success of students. These findings suggest that educators offset the developmental disadvantages their students face as a result of the community, school, and their home environments. This study finds that these educators believe students’ social-emotional development is intertwined with student cognitive development. Further, these educators have expanded the traditional performance-based construct of student “success” to include a range of success that includes child social-emotional developmental success, and in expanding their understanding of student success, have arrived at an innovative, developmentally-based approach to facing challenging circumstances in schools.

Este trabajo, titulado “Competencia socioemocional en adolescentes de altas habilidades: un estudio comparativo” tiene como objetivo analizar la relación entre la competencia socioemocional y la alta habilidad (superdotación o talento). La muestra estuvo compuesta por 566 estudiantes (386 con alta habilidad y 180 sin alta habilidad), con edades comprendidas entre los 11 y los 18 años. Además, han participado 535 padres y 443 profesores. Los instrumentos utilizados fueron: 1) las escalas de Percepción de Inteligencias Múltiples dirigidas a padres, profesores y estudiantes; 2) el Test de Aptitudes Diferenciales (DAT-5); 3) el Test de Pensamiento Creativo de Torrance (TTCT Figurativo); 4) el Cuestionario de Inteligencia Emocional para niños y adolescentes (Bar-On EQ-i:YV); y 5) el de padres y profesores (Bar-On EQ-i:YV-O). Algunos resultados mostraron que los padres y los profesores percibieron con mayor adaptabilidad a los estudiantes con alta habilidad. Además, los padres percibieron con mayor adaptabilidad a los chicos; y con mayores habilidades interpersonales a las chicas. / This work, entitled Social-emotional Competence of high abilities adolescents: A comparative study, aims to analyse the relationship between social-emotional competences and high ability (giftedness or talent). The sample was composed of 566 students (386 high ability and 180 not high ability students) aged 11 to 18 years old. In addition, 535 parents and 443 teachers have taken part in this study. The instruments used were: 1) Scales of Perception of Multiple Intelligences by parents, teachers and students; 2) The Differential Aptitude Tests (DAT-Fifth Edition); 3) Torrance´s Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT-Figural); 4) the Emotional Quotient Inventory by children and adolescents (Bar-On EQ-i:YV); and 5) the Emotional Quotient Inventory by parents and teachers (Bar-On EQ-i:YV-O). Some results showed that parents and teachers perceived students with high abilities as being more adaptable. Also, parents perceived boys as having greater adaptability; and girls as having greater interpersonal abilities.

ABSTRACT KINDERGARTEN TEACHERS’ KNOWLEDGE AND PERCEPTIONS OF EARLY LEARNING-RELATED SKILLS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT by Kathryn Powell Historically, the kindergarten curriculum emphasized social-emotional development including interpersonal and learning-related skills (Logue, 2007). Researchers have confirmed that teachers valued social-emotional development, particularly learning-related skills, as foundational skills to school readiness and future academic achievement (e.g., Heaviside & Farris, 1993). Since the implementation of No Child Left Behind (NCLB, 2002), the focus of kindergarten has changed to incorporate additional academic standards and goals (Fantuzzo et al., 2007). This mixed method study (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998) utilized quantitative (i.e., surveys) and qualitative (i.e., semi-structured interviews) methods to investigate and compare the perceptions of pre-NCLB to post-NCLB kindergarten teachers regarding the significance of learning-related skills to academic achievement. A sample (N=97) of certified kindergarten teachers currently working in and around the metro Atlanta area with one or more years of kindergarten experience were administered surveys. Thirty participants from the larger sample were included in the qualitative phase of the study. It was hypothesized that teachers would rate learning-related skills as important precursors to academic achievement; however, pre-NCLB teachers would rate learning-related skills as more important than their peers. The results suggested that there was no difference in pre- and post-NCLB teachers’ perceptions of the importance of learning-related skills to students’ school readiness. There also, was not a significant difference in how pre- and post-NCLB kindergarten teachers prioritized school readiness skills (learning-related, interpersonal, academic). However, when asked to rank these skills in terms of importance there was a significant difference between the two groups. Pre-NCLB teachers indicated interpersonal skills as more important to school readiness than post-NCLB teachers and post-NCLB teachers indicated academic skills as more important than pre-NCLB teachers. No significant difference was found in teachers’ beliefs about achievement or efficacy. Implications for curriculum, policy, research, and practice will be discussed.