"Many students have inadequate social-emotional skills, which, can negatively affect academic performance, behavior, and overall well-being (Blum, Libbey, Bishop, & Bishop, 2004; Rimm-Kaufman, Pianta, & Cox, 2000; Zigler & Bishop-Josef, 2006). Schools, because of their public educational role and the significant time that children spend there, can provide an ideal context for social-emotional development and intervention (Rones & Hoagwood, 2000; Weisz, Sandler, Durlak, & Anton, 2005). Students who have experienced high quality, schoolbased, social-emotional learning (SEL) programs have demonstrated improved academic performance, attitudes toward school, and social-emotional skills as well as reduced conduct problems, anxiety, and aggression (Durlak et al., 2011; Payton et al., 2008). Yet, school infrastructures often fail to support the integration of SEL programming in ways that are sustainable and embedded in the day-to-day functioning of students and educators. The purpose of this study was to examine the potential benefits of integrating Second Step (Committee for Children, 2012), a widely disseminated school-based SEL program, into an existing tiered model of educational programming. As such, the study addressed the following research questions: Controlling for baseline skills, do students receiving Second Step show greater improvement in social-emotional competence and academic achievement than students in a wait-list comparison group? If so, do improvements depend on student level of learning risk at baseline? Are intervention effects moderated by gender? The primary research questions are answered through secondary analysis of existing data using a quasi-experimental wait-list comparison group design with pretest and posttest. The dataset included teacher ratings of social-emotional competence and academic achievement data collected at baseline and following SEL intervention for all students attending one elementary school. The hypothesis that all students would benefit similarly from Second Step received mixed support. Statistically significant improvements for the intervention group were found only for academic outcomes and not social-emotional competence. Post-hoc analysis revealed that grade level moderated the effects of treatment, indicating that Second Step produced significantly greater gains in social-emotional competence and academic achievement for lower elementary students compared to upper elementary students. Lower elementary students' empathy skills, reading scores, and math scores significantly improved among those receiving Second Step compared to lower elementary students in the comparison group. The positive effects of Second Step participation on reading scores were specific to students demonstrating a moderate level of learning risk at baseline., Overall, girls showed greater improvements in social-emotional competence from pretest to posttest than boys, but gender did not moderate students' response to intervention as predicted."--Pages ii-iii.
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