Classroom Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Composition and Students’ Social-Emotional and Academic Skills

Introduction: Systems theories emphasize the role of contexts in shaping human development. For elementary school-aged children, classroom composition is a key contextual feature. It determines the peers with whom children interact and is linked to their social-emotional and academic skills. Classroom-level aggression is associated with increased student-level aggression (Barth et al., 2004; Thomas et al., 2011) and internalizing problems (depression, anxiety) (Yudron et al., 2014). Classroom-level prosocial behavior is linked to increased student social competence (Hoglund & Leadbeater, 2004). Less is known about classroom compositional influences on academic skills and whether classroom internalizing problems are related to student behavioral or academic outcomes. This study will examine associations between winter classroom social and behavioral composition and students’ spring social competence, aggression, internalizing problems, and academic skills.

Methods: Data come from a cluster-randomized controlled trial of a social-emotional learning and literacy program in 60 NYC public elementary schools. Participants were 131 3^rd- and 4^th-grade teachers in 27 schools (cohort 1) and their 1,903 students. In winter and late spring 2016, teachers reported on students’ social competence (α=.93; Social Competence Scale; CPPRG, 1999), aggressive behavior (α=.95; BASC; Reynolds & Kamphaus, 1998), and literacy skills (α=.96; ECLS-K, Gr3). Students reported on their own aggressive behavior (α=.83; Aggression Scale; Orpinas & Frankowski, 2001), anxiety, and depressive symptoms (α=.82; BASC). Multilevel modeling (HLM v7.01) was used to predict students’ self-reported aggression, anxiety, and depression, and teacher-reported social competence and literacy skills at time 2/spring (level 1) from average classroom-level student-reported anxiety and depression and teacher-reported aggression and social competence at time 1/winter (level 2). Random assignment status was included as a school-level (level 3) covariate.

Results: Higher classroom-level depression predicted increased student-level anxiety (B = 0.18, p < .01), but higher classroom-level anxiety predicted decreased student-level anxiety (B = -0.17, p < .01), even after controlling for winter scores on outcomes and other compositional measures. Higher classroom-level anxiety during winter standardized test prep and lower student-level anxiety after spring testing might explain the inverse relationship. Alternate operationalizations of classroom composition will be examined and presented.

Conclusions: Results suggest classroom-level internalizing problems shape classroom context and influence certain domains of student development. Implications for prevention efforts and educational practice will be discussed.