Curated Lists of Programs Intended to Facilitate the Adoption of Effective Preventive Interventions: What Does a Meta-Analysis of Casel-Endorsed Programs Reveal?

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) is a promising approach to preventing youth behavioral problems and promoting prosocial development. Meta-analyses support the effectiveness of school-based, universal SEL on increased positive/prosocial behaviors and decreased aggressive/antisocial behaviors (Durlak et al., 2011; Sklad et al., 2012). To facilitate the local adoption of effective programs, various governmental and intermediary units have created curated lists of endorsed programs, but the review process and endorsement criteria vary among those lists. The Collaborative for Academic Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) recently published such a list, endorsing 19 SEL programs for elementary students, based on CASEL’s criteria for program features, effectiveness, and implementation support. Although this list is a popular source of information, it is unclear the extent to which the endorsed programs are effective, relative to the universe of SEL interventions studied in previous meta-analyses. This study reviewed published evaluations of CASEL-endorsed elementary school programs and synthesized their overall effectiveness.
Studies eligible for review evaluated the effects of a CASEL-endorsed program on K-5 students’ positive/prosocial and/or aggressive/antisocial behaviors either in a randomized- or a quasi-experimental design, reporting sufficient information to obtain a standardized group mean difference in teacher-assessed pre-to-post gains. Through the CASEL 2013 Guide, Blueprints, What Works Clearninghouse, and PsychARTICLES, 88 studies were identified and assessed for eligibility, 15 of which were included in this review.
These 15 studies reported the effects of 9 different programs delivered to 14,579 K-5 students. Random-effects meta-analysis found a small effect on positive/prosocial outcome (d=.43, p<.01, n=13) and a negligible effect on aggressive/antisocial outcome (d=-.16, p<.05, n=13) after <1 year of implementation. Meta-regression results suggest that the evaluation design and the involvement of program developers significantly moderated the effect sizes: programs evaluated in a quasi-experimental design and with involvement of program developers had larger effects than their counterparts.
These findings provide supporting evidence of the benefits of CASEL-endorsed programs for social behaviors among K-5 students, although some effect sizes did not reach criteria for practical significance (Ferguson, 2009). Based on a risk of bias assessment and meta-regression analysis, the presenter will provide suggestions for future research assessing SEL programs and will discuss implications for the criteria used to create curated lists intended to facilitate the scale up of effective programs (Gottfredson et al., 2015; Hawkins et al., 2015).