Parent and Caregiver Support for Social-Emotional Learning Programs. ACT Research. Data Byte

Social and emotional (SE) skills are interpersonal, self-regulatory, and task-related behaviors that are important for adaption to and successful performance in educational and workplace settings (Casillas et al., 2015). These skills are related to important outcomes such as academic achievement and job satisfaction (e.g., Judge et al., 2002; Mammadov, 2022; Poropat, 2009). Additionally, students can improve these skills through social and emotional learning (SEL) interventions: programming designed to teach SE skill development to students in school settings (e.g., Mahoney et al., 2018). Despite research showing the benefits of SE skills and SEL programming, recent research with parents suggests that the term "social-emotional learning" is relatively unpopular (Tyner, 2021). To examine caregiver support, the authors surveyed a group of parents and caregivers, asking them to rate their support for the 12 programs examined in the Tyner (2021) study. Parents/caregivers were informed that the survey was voluntary, and no incentives were given. The results show overall support was high for all the programs. Support ranged from 77.8% for Soft Skills to 90.7% for Life Skills, and 84.5% of parents/caregivers reported some level of support across programs. Additionally, 81.8% of parents/caregivers supported the Social-Emotional Learning program. [For the 2021 study "How to Sell SEL: Parents and the Politics of Social-Emotional Learning," see ED616280.]