Do Effects of Social-Emotional Learning Programs Vary by Level of Parent Participation? Evidence From the Randomized Trial of INSIGHTS

ABSTRACT

Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) programs aim to improve students' social-emotional competencies in order to enhance their achievement. Although SEL programs typically implement classroom curricula, some programs also include a component for parents. Yet, little is known about the types of parents likely to participate in services, and whether parent participation moderates program effects on student outcomes in low-income urban schools. This article aims to fill these gaps in the literature using data from the randomized trial of the SEL program INSIGHTS into Children's Temperament (N = 435 parent/child dyads), which was conducted in 22 low-income urban elementary schools during children's kindergarten and first-grade year. Descriptive findings revealed that children at lower risk for poor achievement had parents who were more likely to participate in program services. In addition, findings from inverse probability of treatment-weighting models demonstrated larger effects of INSIGHTS on academic, attentional, and behavioral outcomes for children whose parents participated at lower rates. Implications for prevention science and SEL program implementation and scale-up are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• social-emotional learning
• parent programs
• parent involvement
• elementary school
• achievement
• behaviors
• attention

EDITORS

This article was reviewed and accepted under the editorship of Carol McDonald Connor and Spyros Konstantopoulos.

Funding

The research reported here was conducted as a part of a study funded by Grant R305A080512 from the Institute of Education Sciences and with the support of Institute of Education Sciences Grant R305B080019 to New York University. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or the U.S. Department of Education. The writing of this study was supported by an American Psychological Foundation Elizabeth Munsterberg Koppitz Dissertation Fellowship and a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellowship. Additional research costs were supported with dissertation grants from the Society for Research on Child Development and the New York Community Trust.

Notes

¹ Missingness (meaning a child was missing at least one variable from the analysis) was 5% for T1, 7% for T2, 8% for T3, 14% for T4, and 20% for T5.

² A simple examination of the decrease in the variance explained in parent participation after including the school fixed effect for the treatment schools revealed that school membership explained about 22% of variation in parent participation.

³ We conducted a sensitivity check by also included a covariate to measure whether parents participated during children's kindergarten or first-grade year. Results were nearly identical after including this covariate. This finding was expected given that student outcomes did not differ for children whose parents participated in kindergarten and first grade.