A Little SPOT:

Evidence for the Effectiveness of a Social and Emotional Learning Program Among Elementary School Students

Abstract

Social and emotional learning are critical aspects of children’s development. We conducted an experimental trial of A Little SPOT’s social-emotional learning program among elementary school students. We analyzed data from a total of 883 students across 44 classes, with 438 in the control group and 445 in the intervention group. Over a 12-week period, students participating in A Little SPOT’s program improved their social and emotional skills significantly more than students who did not participate. Students participating in the program improved on average by about 0.40 points on the four-point scale used to measure their social and emotional skills, an approximately 14% increase on a measure of skills including resolving problems with their peers, focusing on tasks, and empathizing with others.

Introduction

Social and emotional learning (SEL) are important aspects of children’s development (CASEL, 2024). The focus on SEL and programs to teach social and emotional skills has increased in recent years. These programs teach young students to manage their emotions and navigate social relationships. They support the development of skills such as self-control, self-concept, empathy, teamwork, and decision-making. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), a leader in research on the design and implementation of SEL programs, has identified five competencies developed through SEL programs: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making (CASEL, 2024).

We conducted an experimental trial of A Little SPOT’s social-emotional learning program among elementary school students. This program, designed, written, and illustrated by Diane Alber, teaches students to name their emotions with colors (“spots”), to recognize and acknowledge their emotions when they arise, and then to down-regulate and choose how to respond.

 As shown in Figure 1, we implemented our trial in six elementary schools across the country. Half of the participating classes in each school were randomly assigned to receive 12 weeks of the A Little SPOT program while the other half did not receive any social and emotional learning curriculum. Teachers rated their students’ social and emotional skills before and after implementing the program, allowing us to compare changes in skills among students who received A Little SPOT and those who did not.

Students who took part in the A Little SPOT program showed greater improvements in their social and emotional skills over the course of the 12 weeks than the students in the comparison group. On average, students participating in A Little SPOT demonstrated a 14% increase in scores on our measure of their social and emotional skills, whereas the control group students showed a smaller 4% increase. The results are strong evidence for the effectiveness of A Little SPOT in improving elementary school students’ social and emotional skills.

Method

Design

All participating classrooms within our six schools were randomly assigned to be fall or spring classrooms, indicating when they would teach A Little SPOT. The fall classes constituted the treatment group in our study, and the spring classes constituted the control group. Teachers in the control group were encouraged to teach A Little SPOT after the evaluation period concluded.

Procedure

The initial recruitment phase was carried out through social media. From schools that expressed interest in response to a call on social media, we narrowed our sample to six schools that were willing to commit to carrying out the trial according to our specifications. Components that each schools had to commit to in order to participate in the trial included:

• Agreeing to random assignment of the Little SPOT Program to fall or spring classrooms.  
• Including at least two classes per participating grade level. This allowed us to have at least one classroom per grade level in each condition.
• Not teaching any other SEL programs during the evaluation period.
• Completing surveys assessing student behavior before and after the 12-week trial period

Participating schools were compensated with free program materials. Parents and students did not consent specifically to the trial beyond the general understanding that social-emotional skills would be taught at school.

Once schools agreed to the components necessary to participate in the trial, they were provided links to the surveys to be completed on Qualtrics. On these surveys, teachers rated their students’ social and emotional skills. It was left up to the schools whether teachers or the counselor would deliver the program. School counselors taught the program in three of the six schools and teachers taught the program in the remaining three.

Once teachers completed the pre-program surveys, the classrooms in the fall group received the program. The teachers or counselors delivering the program were instructed to teach one lesson per week for at least 45 minutes. The program ran for 12 weeks, excluding any holiday weeks in which lessons were not taught. Once the 12 weeks concluded, teachers again rated their students’ social and emotional skills.

Curriculum

Instructors who taught the program as part of the trial received a program kit called the Social-Emotional Learning Educator’s Starter Kit. This kit is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Program materials for A Little SPOT provided to instructors.

The kit included a comprehensive Educator Guide with instructions for teaching the program; lesson plans and worksheets; 16 picture books, each focusing on learning to manage a specific emotion; a sticker book; and flashcards for students to practice identifying their emotions. It also included plushies representing the colored “spots” of various emotions.

The unique curriculum of the A Little SPOT program teaches students to identify emotions by colors (the “spots”). For example, anger is the red spot, sadness is the blue spot, and happiness is the yellow spot. Beyond teaching students to recognize their emotions by matching them to colors, students also learn how to react to and cope with the various emotions through the lessons, worksheets, and books.

Measures

Our outcome, social and emotional skills, was measured using the Child Trends Teacher Survey (CTTS), a measure designed to assess social and emotional skills related to academic success. Teachers rated the frequency with which each of their students performed the following behaviors on a scale of 1 (none of the time), 2 (a little of the time), 3 (most of the time), and 4 (all of the time):

1. Worked on tasks until they were finished.
2. Kept working on an activity that was difficult.
3. Waited in line patiently.
4. Sat still when they were supposed to.
5. Waited for what s/he wanted.
6. Focused on tasks until they were finished.
7. Worked well with peers.
8. Resolved problems with peers without becoming aggressive.
9. Was thoughtful of the feelings of their peers.
10. Cooperated with peers without prompting.
11. Understood the feelings of their own peers.
12. Resolved problems with peers on their own.

Ratings for each student were averaged across these 12 items to create composite scores representing students’ overall social and emotional skills. As expected, responses to these 12 questions are highly correlated (  

Participants

The participating schools were located in California, Kansas, New York, and Pennsylvania. All schools were in different districts and cities. Table 1 presents demographic information for each school. We used the percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches for our measure of socioeconomic status.

Table 1: Demographic information for the participating elementary schools

Participating classes ranged from pre-kindergarten to 3rd grade. Across all schools, we had 1160 students whose social and emotional skills were rated before the program. On the post-program surveys, 1179 students were rated. The final analytical sample of students who were rated both before and after the trial period included 883 students across 44 classes, with 438 in the control group and 445 in the intervention group.

The number of students in the analytical sample was lower than the number of students measured at the two time points because one teacher did not complete the pre-program survey while another did not complete the post-program survey. Additionally, some students were not labeled with consistent student IDs for us to match their pre- and post-program scores. Students who moved classes or schools during the study time period were excluded from the sample. We also dropped two grades from one school because their inclusion resulted in baseline differences between treatment and control groups.

Results

Analyses were conducted using the R statistical program. Missing data were handled by listwise deletion per model; students who had data on all variables in each specific model were included in that model.

Baseline Equivalence

We first tested whether the classes assigned to the treatment group and the classes assigned to the control group were equivalent in their social and emotional skills before the program. To test for baseline equivalence, we ran a regression model predicting ratings of students’ skills by a linear contrast code representing condition, including random intercepts for teachers. Scores were equivalent between the treatment group (M = 3.08, SD = 0.73) and control group at baseline (M = 2.96, SD = 0.73; b = 0.13, SE = 0.11, p = .265).[1]

Overall Effectiveness of A Little SPOT

On average, students in both the program and control groups improved over time in their social and emotional skills. Students in the control group improved by an average of 0.13 points (SD = 0.50) on the 4-point scale (b = 0.14, SE = 0.04, p = .001), from an average score of 2.95 to an average score of 3.08. Students in the program group improved by an average of 0.43 points (SD = 0.62; b = 0.42, SE = 0.04, p < .001), from an average score of 3.08 to an average score of 3.49. While all students improved over the course of the trial, students who participated in A Little SPOT improved substantially more than those who did not.

We used a multilevel model to evaluate the significance of this effect, regressing students’ post-program social and emotional skills on a contrast code indicating treatment assignment and controlling for pre-preprogram skills. The contrast code is constructed so that the regression coefficient can be interpreted as the mean difference between treatment and control conditions.[2] 

All model coefficients are listed in Table 2. As shown here, students who received the A Little SPOT program improved significantly more than students in the control group (b = 0.32, SE = 0.08, p < .001). This indicates that students’ social and emotional skills improve at a faster rate with A Little SPOT than they do without any SEL curriculum.

Table 2: Random intercept model predicting post-program social and emotional skills.

Lastly, Figure 3 shows mean social and emotional skills before and after program implementation, by treatment assignment. As shown here, students in A Little SPOT classrooms developed social and emotional skills at a faster rate than students in comparison group. On average, the measure of social and emotional skills increased by 0.42 in A Little SPOT classrooms and by 0.13 points in control classrooms.    

Success in Schools with Large Minority Populations

We added school-level demographic variables to our main model to test whether the program's effectiveness varied between schools based on their racial composition or socioeconomic status. Race was included in the model as the percentage of students who were non-White. Socioeconomic status was represented by the percentage of students receiving free or reduced lunch.

Schools with higher percentages of minority students had stronger effects of the program. In the school with the highest percentage of minority students (84%), the program group improved their social and emotional skills by an average of 0.55 points on the 4-point scale, compared to an average decrease of 0.17 points for control group students. Included in our main model, the statistical interaction of race with experimental condition was significant (b = 0.64, SE = 0.26, p = .020), providing evidence that the program had stronger effects in schools with greater percentages of minority students.[3]

There were no differences in program effectiveness based on the percentage of students receiving free or reduced lunch. We also examined whether grade level moderated the effect of the program, but we found no evidence that effectiveness varied by grade.

Conclusion

We tested how effective A Little SPOT was at improving students’ social and emotional skills by comparing changes in skills between elementary school students who received the program with those who did not. Over twelve weeks, across six schools, students who were randomly assigned to participate in A Little SPOT’s program showed significantly more skill development than students who received no SEL curriculum. Their teachers rated them as more likely to demonstrate skills such as resolving problems with their peers, focusing on tasks, and empathizing with others.

This research indicates that A Little SPOT advances students’ social and emotional skills. In turn, these skills help students to succeed academically and form healthy relationships with their peers. Educators can learn more about A Little SPOT, and order the products used in this study as well as additional A Little SPOT products, at https://www.dianealber.com.

References

Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. (2024, April 23). Fundamentals of SEL. https://casel.org/fundamentals-of-sel/

Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. (2024, April 23). What is the CASEL framework? https://casel.org/fundamentals-of-sel/what-is-the-casel-framework/

Child Trends. (2024, April 23). Measuring elementary school students social and emotional skills: Providing educators with tools to measure and monitor social and emotional skills that lead to academic success. https://cms.childtrends.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/2014-37CombinedMeasuresApproachandTablepdf1.pdf

[1] The results are substantively identical when these grades are included in the analysis. 

[2] The contrast code is constructed as follows: -0.5 = control condition, 0.5 = program condition. We include random-effects (teachers nested within schools)  to account for the for the clustered nature of the data.    

[3] Because there are only six schools in the sample, further research should explore more about how the effectiveness of A Little SPOT differs based on school characteristics.