Socio-Emotional Development Program in Elementary School Students: impact evaluation in Southern Chile

Our intervention is designed to develop socio-emotional skills in children from vulnerable contexts. To achieve this, the intervention group will receive a program based on three core pillars: 1) Teacher training: we train educational teams to provide them with practical strategies to apply HSE (Health, Safety, and Environment) in their school community, leaving installed capacity and producing a change in the school culture; 2) Educational workshops through which students acquire socio-emotional skills aligned to disciplines that awaken their tastes and preferences; 3) Inter-school circuits: we coordinate and manage a network of cultural, sports, and scientific events where students can put into practice what they have learned, feel safe and validated. In these instances, we involve families, forming school ecosystems and raising awareness of the importance of socio-emotional well-being.

Our intervention is designed to develop socio-emotional skills in children from vulnerable contexts. To achieve this, the intervention group will receive a program based on three core pillars: 1) Teacher training: we train educational teams to provide them with practical strategies to apply HSE (Health, Safety, and Environment) in their school community, leaving installed capacity and producing a change in the school culture; 2) Educational workshops through which students acquire socio-emotional skills aligned to disciplines that awaken their tastes and preferences; 3) Inter-school circuits: we coordinate and manage a network of cultural, sports, and scientific events where students can put into practice what they have learned, feel safe and validated. In these instances, we involve families, forming school ecosystems and raising awareness of the importance of socio-emotional well-being.

2024-04-01

2025-11-30

1) Self-understanding
2) Executive function through Heart and Flowers task at baseline and endline. Wright, A. & Diamond, A. (2014). An effect of inhibitory load in children while keeping working memory load constant. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 36-44

We construct self-understanding by using four instruments:

1) Optimism using the optimism subscale from "Self-Report Scale of Socio-Emotional Well-Being". Milicic, N., Arab, M.P., Alcalay, L., Berger, C. y Torretti, A. (2008). Programa para el Bienestar y Aprendizaje Socioemocional en estudiantes de tercero y cuarto grado: descripción y evaluación de impacto. Revista Latinoamericana de Psicología, 46(3):169-177.

2) Lack of motivation and achievement motivation using the "Scale for measuring motivation for children in the second cycle of elementary school". Israel, R., Villagrán, M. (2012). Motivación escolar en niños y niñas de 10 a 14 años (EMONIS). Reflexiones sobre la sociedad chilena. Una mirada desde la universidad. RIL Editores

3) Self-esteem using the "School Self-Esteem Test". Marchant, T., Haeussler, I., & Torretti, A. (2016). TAE Batería de Tests de Autoestima
Escolar. Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Católica de Chile.

1) Understanding of others

We construct understanding of others using two instruments:

1) Sense of belonging using the sense of belonging and emotional conection with peers from The Community sense scale in classroom. Petrillo, G., Capone, V., & Donizzetti, A. (2016). Classroom sense of community scale: Validation of a
self-report measure for adolescents. Journal of Community Psychology, 44(3), 339–409. https:// doi.
org/ 10. 1002/ jcop. 21769

2) Awareness of others using the awareness of others subscale from "Self-Report Scale of Socio-Emotional Well-Being". Milicic, N., Arab, M.P., Alcalay, L., Berger, C. y Torretti, A. (2008). Programa para el Bienestar y Aprendizaje Socioemocional en estudiantes de tercero y cuarto grado: descripción y evaluación de impacto. Revista Latinoamericana de Psicología, 46(3):169-177.

The intervention will be stratified at the school level in Araucania, Chile. - municipalities were selected using purposive sampling out of the total of 38 municipalities of Araucania. The selection of municipalities was based on the criteria that the municipality has public or government-subsidized schools and they are not difficult to access territorially. From the municipalities elected, 47 schools were eligible to participate in the study, of which 23 schools were assigned to treatment and 24 schools to control group. The intervention will be randomised at the school level. Randomization will be done on the computer using Stata. There are two study arms: 1) Treatment Arm receiving the socio-emotional intervention. The schools in the treatment arm will receive the program only for those classroom of children aged in average 9-10 years old. 2) Control Arm receiving the statuo quo: The students in the control arm will receive the statuo quo services provided by the school.
Since the foundation in charge of the intervention did not have enough capacity to work with all the schools in the treatment group, this study was divided into two cohorts. The first cohort includes 10 treatment schools and 12 control schools that joined the study in the first year. The second cohort consists of 13 treatment schools and 12 control schools that will enter the study in the second year. The randomization into treatment and control groups, and between cohort 1 and cohort 2, was conducted at the beginning of the study.

Computer on Stata

School

Yes

47 schools

1269 students

23 schools treatment
24 schools control

0.244 std