In order to provide clinical utility for research of how art therapists perceive clients' inner change, the authors created a structured observational framework. This note-taking and assessment consist of five themes and sub-themes: Therapeutic Alliance, Creating, Affect-Awareness, Self-Awareness, and Ego-Strength. The framework was designed to be…

This article presents three cases of school districts/consortia in a southeastern state, where standardized measures focused on teacher/child interactions rather than student outcomes were implemented to guide decision-making. These three districts/consortia were funded annually for three years to implement innovative professional development…

Effectively directing school resources to support students needing behavioral intervention has been aided by advances in social-emotional-behavioral (SEB) assessments. Growing questions have emerged about whether SEB assessment advances are engaging equitable approaches to their utilization and serving as a catalyst for equitable access to…

Fair assessment in the classroom is a concern from student, teacher, principal and public perspectives. Standards and policies also underscore fairness as a key underpinning for assessments. Perceptions of fairness impact students' socio-emotional and learning outcomes, and build confidence, trust and legitimacy for the assessment outcomes.…

Social-emotional learning (SEL) refers to a set of competencies that form the basis of human interaction. So, SEL in schools is no fad. But what would happen if every school actively wanted to bring in SEL tomorrow? Using the articles in the special issue on SEL as a springboard, this article looks at the neurological basis of SEL, SEL best…

The concept of project-based learning (PBL) has garnered wide support among a number of K-12 education policy advocates and funders. PBL is viewed as an approach that enables students to develop the "21st century competencies"--cognitive and socioemotional skills--needed for success in college and careers. This issue focus, pulling from…

Emotional intelligence, or the ability to perceive, interpret, and regulate emotions, has been linked to numerous adaptive outcomes. However, recent investigations have demonstrated that emotional intelligence can exert a nonlinear impact on motivational, interpersonal, and affective factors. Although past work has provided evidence of optimal…

This case study is based on a program evaluation of a professional certificate program that trains early childhood care and education providers to build and support young children's emotional literacy. The research project described in the case study will address approaches to methodological combination, justifying research design and changes to…

The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Study Review Protocol accompanies the "WWC Procedures and Standards Handbook, Version 5.0" and guides reviews of studies by the WWC. The WWC uses this protocol to review all studies, including those cited as evidence for U.S. Department of Education grant competitions, studies that were funded by the…

Background/Context: The COVID-19 pandemic challenged the way we conduct research. For some modes of data collection, such as interviews, there was a ready (if not perfect) analog: face-to-face became phone-based; paper and pen surveys moved online. Others, such as direct assessments of child development, proved more challenging. Despite the…

Children in Liberia receive 2.2 learning-adjusted years of schooling, one of the lowest levels of educational attainment in the world. We study one approach to address low enrollment and low rates of learning: a 10-month accelerated learning program run by the Luminos Fund to help out-of-school children catch up to grade level. We conducted a…

Interest in school-based strategies to support student social and emotional learning (SEL) is strong. Although SEL policies and programs designed to support the development of student competencies have advanced significantly, less work has been done to develop methods of assessing student social and emotional competence. This article briefly…

Interest in school-based strategies to support student social and emotional learning (SEL) is strong. Although SEL policies and programs designed to support the development of student competencies have advanced significantly, less work has been done to develop methods of assessing student social and emotional competence. This article briefly…

This report reviews the "Social Skills Improvement System Social-Emotional Learning Edition" (SSIS SEL; Gresham & Elliott, 2017), a multicomponent rating scale that includes a criterion and norm-referenced measure of social-emotional and academic functioning--based on a reformulation of the "Social Skills Improvement…

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, PK-12 school buildings across the United States closed and educators quickly pivoted to remote and continuous learning opportunities to protect students and society as a whole from the deadly coronavirus. As educational leaders navigate the complexities for providing instruction during the 2020-2021 academic…