The Importance of Social and Emotional Learning in Students' Academic Success

What is Social and Emotional Learning?

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The development of students' emotional intelligence plays a huge role in their long-term academic success. Emotional intelligence involves acquiring academic intelligence skills, such as management of stress. According to MacCann, Jiang, Brown, Double, Bucich, and Minbashian (2020), students with socio-emotional skills are more likely to finish college and high school education. Psychologists Salovey and Mayer (1990) defined emotional intelligence as a person's ability to accurately and effectively process, perceive, and regulate emotional information to guide their thinking and actions. Students who exit school without social and emotional learning strategies refer to a framework that stakeholders can use to identify a cohort of learners who pass through the school system but leave without absorbing any emotional or social learning strategies (Greenberg, Domitrovich, Weissberg & Durlak, 2017).

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) provides students with a framework to set and pursue their individual goals, understand and manage emotions, and cope with school challenges. SEL equips students with a set of social skills that allow them to participate in social relationships, collaborate with other students, and make informed decisions (MacCann et al., 2020). Existing studies show that SEL has improved students' academic and social well-being (MacCann et al., 2020). However, schools do not have practical and actionable ways to measure the success of SEL programs. SEL surveys administered in schools are limited in different ways (MacCann et al., 2020). Survey responses depend mostly on the perception of teachers. Current SEL programs limit teachers from addressing one student to identify their SEL skills, thus reducing the educators' capacity to highlight students' strengths and weaknesses (Chicago, 2006). This process is time-consuming and increases a teacher's workload (Chicago, 2006). To reduce this workload, most teachers do not want SEL programs implemented within the classroom curriculum to only focus on the student's academics (MacCann et al., 2020). However, the type of support that teachers offer determines the social and emotional attributes of a student.

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) is one of the most common educational movements affecting the education system in different countries. Therefore, it can be stated that emotions can ease or hinder the academic engagement of children, obligation, and crucial success in the school since the children's interactions and emotional procedures. As per the study of Cristóvão, Candeias, and Verdasca (2017), it was reported that in the year of 1994, a team of professors, health care professionals, and the researchers conducted a summit at the Fetzer Institute to know the process of improving the social and emotional competences of the students and along with their school performances. From this meeting, the idea of the SEL was evolved, and so it can be stated as an approach to cherish students' social and emotional capabilities by a technique of obvious teaching. The SEL mainly uses a student-centered method that inspires students' participation in learning, collaborative activities, and analytical communication.

Therefore, the children's learning process mainly takes place in the case of the social context. The children's ability to successfully negotiate and understand the conflicts and interpersonal relationships can also affect social and emotional well-being and academic achievement. Moreover, the school culture and the school environment can also affect the children's readiness to learn positively or negatively. Therefore, it is reported that the application and the effectiveness of such programs are not well documented. There are a few studies that addressed the issue of SEL among the students and their academic performances. However, most of the studies mainly focus on the academic performances of the students reading in a conventional school setting. In this present study, the researcher will assess SEL's impact on the students' academic performances in alternative schools (Panayiotou, Humphrey, & Wigelsworth, 2019).

Research suggests that social and emotional learning (SEL) directly connects with students' overall school performance. Many educators have expressed that educators' primary focus should be on students' academic progress at all costs, balancing the students' social and emotional development, preparing them for learning. Therefore, schools need to implement improved social and emotional learning practices within the classroom to optimize experiences for both the child and the teacher, given the resources provided for teaching.

According to the study of Berkowitz, Moore, Astor, and Benbenishty (2017), poor academic performances of the students are associated with the support from the schools and climates of the classroom. In this context, the study reported that these factors could impact the students' academic outcomes, thus possibly decreasing the gaps between students and schools of different socioeconomic status (SES) conditions in terms of academic achievement. However, most of the scientific evidence is inconclusive in establishing the link between the SEL and the academic performances of the students reading in schools (Gregory, & Fergus, 2017). Therefore, the students' case reading situation in an alternative setting is an unexplored research area.