What Are the Common Elements of Evidence-Based Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Programs?

Introduction: Schools play an important role in the promotion of social and emotional competencies for all students. Implementation of universal social and emotional learning (SEL) programs in school settings are a promising approach to foster affective, cognitive, and behavioral skills among all children. Despite evidence of their effectiveness in school settings, (Durlak et al., 2011) there are number of challenges to implementing manualized SEL programs in schools, including program cost, limited flexibility, and competing demands in school system.

Recent work has identified “common elements” of evidence-based mental health interventions. These common elements have been used to develop modular approaches to psychotherapy, in which clinicians can select from stand alone modules that address specific problem areas (Chorpita & Daleiden, 2009). This approach offers greater flexibility and brevity than manualized psychotherapies, making it a particularly promising approach in school settings (Lyon et al., 2014). The common elements approach may also have promise as a method to develop more flexible approaches to SEL; however, little is known about how a modular approach to SEL might be developed.

In this presentation, we will describe the process of systematically identifying common elements in evidence-based Elementary School SEL programs. We will report on the common elements that were identified and the rates at which they are included in the sample of SEL programs.

Methods: SEL programs were selected for inclusion in our analysis when they were classified as a “CASEL SELect” (i.e., evidence based) program and were classified as including explicit skills instruction in SEL skills in the 2013 CASEL Guide for Elementary School grades. We iteratively developed and refined a formalized coding manual, which provided definitions for 12 common practices (e.g., “identifying one’s own feelings”), organized within the CASEL framework. 2 coders independently coded the SEL programs for the presence or absence of each common practice and sub-practice.

Results: 15 SEL programs met inclusion criteria for the study. The common practices that occurred most frequently across programs were Social Skills (15 programs), Identifying Others’ Feelings (14 programs), Identifying One’s Own Feelings (13 programs), and Behavioral Coping Skills/Relaxation (13 programs).

Conclusions: We illustrate that it is feasible to systematically identify common elements from evidence-based SEL programs, and that there is considerable overlap in elements between programs. Modularized approaches to SEL may facilitate increased use of skills in school settings and minimize challenges associated with SEL implementation.