Experimental Evaluation of a Program to Foster Socioemotional Competence of Children in Third Grade and Their Teachers

NCT ID: NCT06515444

Last Updated: 2024-07-23

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: NOT_YET_RECRUITING
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 750 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2024-07-22
• Study Completion Date: 2026-12-20

Brief Summary

The 10-minutes project is an experimental study to assess the impact of a SEL program for children in 3th and 4th grade and their teachers called 10-minutes.

The program is a curriculum that provides 10-minute activities (thus the name) for children to be implemented by the teachers daily throughout the school year. The activities do not require prior knowledge of teachers on SEL development, nor planning or material preparation.

The 10-minute project is a quantitative study developed to evaluate whether the 10-minute curriculum and an expanded version with professional development activities for teachers or counselors, 10-minute plus, at third grade would improve students and teachers' socioemotional competence. The randomized control trail involves 30 schools in Chile, matched on socioeconomic measures, size, and urban/rural conditions, assigned randomly to 1 of 3 conditions. Ten schools will receive 10-minutes only, the SEL curriculum taught by teachers or school counselors, during the 2024 and 2025 school years. Ten schools will receive 10-minutes plus during the 2024 school year. Ten schools will serve as "delayed program" control, which will have the opportunity to receive the program (10-minutes plus) after the final follow-up. To examine the possibility of fade-out of the effects of the SEL intervention on students, the first experimental condition (10-minutes only) will be randomly divided into two groups, one will receive the intervention for one year only, whereas the second one will receive the intervention for two consecutive years.

It is expected the program will yield positive effects on the experimental groups (both students and teachers), and effects are expected to be greater in the group offered the 10-minutes plus intervention which entails both a curriculum for children and professional development for teachers, than the effects in the group offered the 10-minutes curriculum exclusively. If the program proves to be effective, then cost-benefit analyses will follow to assess the efficiency of the program. The estimated benefits of the program are expected to be lower than the costs.

Detailed Description

Over the last 20 years the science of learning and economics of education has uplifted the relevance of socioemotional competence both for learning and other societal outcomes. Findings from neurobiology have illuminated how environmental factors such as poverty, exposure to stress or experiencing trauma, affect children's development of brain systems that support neurocognitive functions such as language, memory and self-regulation and therefore affecting their behavior, lifelong learning, and health (Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007; Twardosz & Lutzker, 2010; Noble, 2014; Chapko, 2015; Kolb & Gibb, 2015; Thomason & Marusak, 2017). Findings from the economics of education consistently indicates positive relationships between noncognitive skills and societal outcomes such as educational attainment (Farrington et al., 2012; Levin, 2012; Garcia, 2015), labor productivity and adult earnings (Casner-Lotto & Barrington, 2006; Heckman, Stixrud & Urzua, 2006; Murnane et al., 2001), and civic participation (Almlund, Duckworth, Heckman & Kautz, 2011). This has led educators to pursue new strategies to support the social and emotional competence of children as well as their academic learning. Socioemotional learning (SEL hereafter) is the process through which individuals acquire socioemotional competence, the "process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions" (Niemi, 2020).

The 10-minutes project is a pilot study to assess the impact of a SEL program for children in 3th and 4th grade and their teachers called 10-minutes.

The program is a curriculum that provides 10-minute activities (thus the name) for children to be implemented by the teachers daily throughout the school year. The activities do not require prior knowledge of teachers on SEL development, nor planning or material preparation. Each activity is presented along with knowledge for teachers on how to develop socioemotional skills in children. The curriculum is complemented by professional development for teachers on the development of their own socioemotional competencies.

The 10-minute project is a pilot study, primarily exploratory. It will provide data on the feasibility of the program, and its acceptability. The 10-minute project also has a quantitative study developed to evaluate whether the 10-minute curriculum and an expanded version with professional development activities for teachers or counselors, 10-minute plus, at third grade would improve students and teachers' socioemotional competence. The randomized control trail involves 30 schools in Chile, matched on socioeconomic measures, size, and urban/rural conditions, assigned randomly to 1 of 3 conditions. Ten schools will receive 10-minutes only, the SEL curriculum taught by teachers or school counselors, during the 2024 and 2025 school years. Ten schools will receive 10-minutes plus during the 2024 school year. Ten schools will serve as "delayed program" control, which will have the opportunity to receive the program (10-minutes plus) after the final follow-up. To examine the possibility of fade-out of the effects of the SEL intervention on students, the first experimental condition (10-minutes only) will be randomly divided into two groups, one will receive the intervention for one year only, whereas the second one will receive the intervention for two consecutive years. Surveys will be used to collect data on student, classroom, and teacher outcomes in the 30 schools in fall 2024 (baseline), spring 2024 (first follow-up), and among fourth grade students in the same schools in spring 2025 (final follow-up). The intervention will take place after the baseline data is collected in March and April 2024.

It is expected the program will yield positive effects on the experimental groups (both students and teachers), and effects are expected to be greater in the group offered the 10-minutes plus intervention which entails both a curriculum for children and professional development for teachers, than the effects in the group offered the 10-minutes curriculum exclusively. If the program proves to be effective, then cost-benefit analyses will follow to assess the efficiency of the program. The estimated benefits of the program are expected to be lower than the costs.

Why this program and study matters? This program and study are relevant for two main reasons: First, children and adults are facing a mental health crisis in Chile and elsewhere (Humphreys & Irarrazaval, 2022; World Health Organization, 2022), and SEL programs have proven to be an effective way to increase children and adults' socioemotional competence (Durlak et al., in press), fundamental skills to cope with environmental stressors and daily challenges. Second, Chilean teachers have received little to no training in pre-service education (Milici & Alcalay, 2020) and admit not having the necessary tools to tackle SEL in schools (Berger et al., 2009). This project presents an intervention that helps tackle both challenges and present a robust study design to argue for the causal impact of the intervention on children's and teachers' socioemotional competencies.

Conditions

Social Skills; Emotion Regulation

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: TREATMENT
• Blinding Strategy: SINGLE

Study Groups

10 minutes only

Group will only receive a socioemotional development material for teachers to implement with their students

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

10 minutes program

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

The curriculum component offers 10-minute daily doses of activities targeting the development of eight socioemotional competences in children: (i) emotional knowledge and management, (ii) developing a healthy identity, (iii) establishing and maintaining positive relationships, (iv) feeling and showing empathy, (v) establishing and reaching goals, (vi) responsible decision-making, (vii) contributing to the community and (viii) developing spirituality. The activities do not require the teacher to plan or to prepare material for the students.

10 minutes plus

Group will receive socioemotioanl devleopment material for teachers to implement with their students plus professional development for teachers

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

10 minutes program

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

The curriculum component offers 10-minute daily doses of activities targeting the development of eight socioemotional competences in children: (i) emotional knowledge and management, (ii) developing a healthy identity, (iii) establishing and maintaining positive relationships, (iv) feeling and showing empathy, (v) establishing and reaching goals, (vi) responsible decision-making, (vii) contributing to the community and (viii) developing spirituality. The activities do not require the teacher to plan or to prepare material for the students.

1 hour PD program

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

The professional development (PD) component is a 1-hour dose of activities targeting each of the eight SECs on which the curriculum focuses. The focus of PD is not to teach about SEC development in children but to develop SEC in teachers. Thus, this is an 8-hour PD program distributed throughout the academic year.

Delayed

While intervention in arms 1 and 2, this arm will not receive internvention. It will receive the 10 minutes plus, once the other two arms have their second year follow up measure.

Group Type: OTHER

10 minutes program

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

The curriculum component offers 10-minute daily doses of activities targeting the development of eight socioemotional competences in children: (i) emotional knowledge and management, (ii) developing a healthy identity, (iii) establishing and maintaining positive relationships, (iv) feeling and showing empathy, (v) establishing and reaching goals, (vi) responsible decision-making, (vii) contributing to the community and (viii) developing spirituality. The activities do not require the teacher to plan or to prepare material for the students.

1 hour PD program

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

The professional development (PD) component is a 1-hour dose of activities targeting each of the eight SECs on which the curriculum focuses. The focus of PD is not to teach about SEC development in children but to develop SEC in teachers. Thus, this is an 8-hour PD program distributed throughout the academic year.

Interventions

10 minutes program

The curriculum component offers 10-minute daily doses of activities targeting the development of eight socioemotional competences in children: (i) emotional knowledge and management, (ii) developing a healthy identity, (iii) establishing and maintaining positive relationships, (iv) feeling and showing empathy, (v) establishing and reaching goals, (vi) responsible decision-making, (vii) contributing to the community and (viii) developing spirituality. The activities do not require the teacher to plan or to prepare material for the students.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

1 hour PD program

The professional development (PD) component is a 1-hour dose of activities targeting each of the eight SECs on which the curriculum focuses. The focus of PD is not to teach about SEC development in children but to develop SEC in teachers. Thus, this is an 8-hour PD program distributed throughout the academic year.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• . The inclusion criteria for schools: at least one third and one fourth grade class.

Exclusion Criteria:

• The exclusion criteria for schools are as follows: schools implementing a similar intervention in grades 3 and 4, and special needs schools.

• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Sponsors

Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo

OTHER

Sponsor Role: collaborator

Universidad de los Andes, Chile

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Barbara Hanisch Cerda

PhD

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

Barbara Hanisch-Cerda, PhD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Universidad de los Andes, Chile

Central Contacts

Barbara Hanisch-Cerda, PhD

Role: CONTACT

barbarahanisch@gmail.com

56996975001

Other Identifiers

CEC2024029

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id