Major
Psychology
Advisor
Dewsbury, Bryan
Advisor Department
Biological Sciences
Advisor
Willis, Grant
Advisor Department
Psychology
Date
5-2017
Keywords
Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), Mindfulness, The Mindful Attention Awareness Scale- Adolescents (MASS-A), The Child and Adolescent Mindfulness Measure (CAMM), Devereux Student Strengths Assessment – mini (DESSA-mini)
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Abstract
In the American education system, students’ abilities in subjects like math and social studies are calculated using quantitative metrics. When it comes to their social and emotional skills, these same systems of evaluation may not be transferable. As schools begin to invest resources in social and emotional learning (SEL) and mindfulness programs, it becomes even more important to investigate and understand rigorous methods of evaluation. These methods must be able to offer an accurate picture of a student’s diverse set of social and emotional skills including competencies in self/social awareness, good decision making, and community engagement, to name a few. Beyond this, schools need to be equipped with valid measures to determine if the programs they implement actually increase these skills in their students.
The current study aimed to first examine the psychometric properties of two mindfulness self-report surveys, the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale – Adolescents (MASS-A) and the Child and Adolescent Mindfulness Measure (CAMM), as well as one SEL external rater survey titled Devereux Student Strengths Assessment – mini (DESSA-mini). Its second goal was to identify a survey that is sensitive to the type of SEL and mindfulness programming the Center for Resilience offers students in an urban charter middle school.
Pre- and post-tests were given to students both in the fall before they started the curriculum with the Center for Resilience and in the spring after completing most of the program. The surveys themselves were analyzed for their psychometric properties using coefficient alphas, and a Pearson correlation matrix was calculated among all variables. Paired-sample t-tests were used
to assess potential changes in students’ scores from the first to second testing periods.
This study has the potential to contribute to the rapidly growing area of mindfulness in education research. Little has been written on the mindfulness measures in comparison to each other, as they have only recently been developed. It also has the potential to encourage a deeper understanding for how the two constructs of mindfulness and social and emotional learning are supported as individual constructs and how they might relate to each other. Lastly, the current research can act as an informative tool for other SEL/mindfulness programs looking to better study the efficacy of their own curricula.
Comments
The following content offers a poster presented at the U. of Rhode Island's Honors Conference. It encompasses a brief expose into a year long study on Social and Emotional Learning and Mindfulness in a sixth grade classroom. The research paper is not included, however, the poster details the essential points of the work.