AERA Open - January-December 2024, Vol. 10, No. 1 - Effectiveness of a Social-Emotional Learning Program for Both Teachers and Students

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Adam

Study examines the effects of the Leader in Me (LiM) social-emotional learning program, implemented across thousands of schools. A mixed-methods approach combines a collective case study in four high-implementing elementary schools with a post hoc quasi-experiment comparing achievement and discipline incident rates between 117 LiM and 348 non-LiM schools via propensity score matching. Findings indicate improved social-emotional competencies for teachers and students, better school climate, and fewer discipline incidents; test scores show higher mathematics and ELA, but not science.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages17

Reading Time43 min

AccessFree to download

Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) of Students and Teachers

The Leader in Me (LiM) Program

Methods and Study Design

Collective Case Study

Post Hoc Quasi-Experiment

Findings and Results

AERA Open January-December 2024, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 1–17 DOI: 10. 1177/23328584241281284 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)© The Author(s) 2024. [https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero) Effectiveness of a Social-Emotional Learning Program for Both Teachers and Students Christi Bergin University of Missouri Chia-Lin Tsai University of Northern Colorado Sara Prewett Riverside Insights Eli Jones University of Memphis David A. Bergin Bridget Murphy University of Missouri This study investigated the effects of the Leader in Me (LiM), a social-emotional learning program implemented in thousands of schools. A mixed-method design included (1) a collective case study in four diverse, high-implementing elementary schools and (2) a post hoc quasi-experiment using propensity score 1:3 matching of 117 LiM and 348 non-LiM schools to compare achievement and discipline incident rates. The case study indicated that participants perceived LiM as improving socialemotional competencies for both teachers and students. Teachers reported being more prosocial, feeling more camaraderie, using more effective discipline, developing better teacher-student relationships, and enjoying teaching more. Students were more prosocial, confident and motivated, and had fewer problem behaviors. School climate improved. Results replicated across four diverse schools. The quasi-experiment supported results of the collective case study. Schools implementing LiM had higher mathematics and ELA, but not science, scores on state proficiency exams and fewer discipline incidents. Keywords: Child development, elementary schools, mixed methods, motivation, program evaluation, prosocial, social processes/development, social-emotional learning, teacher SEL, teacher-student relationships In a recent survey of U.S. educators, 84% responded that social and emotional learning (SEL) has become more important since the COVID-19 pandemic due to students’increased distress and decreased confidence and engagement in school; half (56%) said their schools planned to implement an SEL program inAY21-22 (Hanover Research, 2021) . Thus, it is important to investigate the effectiveness of popular SEL programs. The Leader in Me (LiM) is a school-wide SEL program that has been implemented in over 5,000 schools in 50 countries and continues to grow. Notably, it is among the few SEL programs that develop teachers’ social-emotional competencies in addition to students’ competencies. We used a convergent, exploratory mixed-methods design (Creswell & Plano-Clark, 2018) to investigate the effectiveness of LiM, with the qualitative strand being a collective case study of four diverse elementary schools and the quantitative strand being a state-wide quasi-experiment. In a meta-analysis, Corcoran et al. (2018) argued that more qualitative research is needed to “better understand the ‘blackbox’ of SEL programs”(p. 69) . Case studies paint a rich picture of participants’ perspectives on how and why a Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License ([https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages ([https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage](https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage)). Bergin et al. program works in specific contexts. Although LiM is widely used, this is one of the first mixed-methods studies examining the effects on both teachers and students in authentic school settings. LiM developers did not conduct the study, nor were the researchers involved in

FAQs

What methods were used to evaluate the Leader in Me (LiM) program?

The study used a mixed-method design combining a collective case study in four elementary schools and a post hoc quasi-experiment comparing LiM and non-LiM schools using propensity score matching.

How did teachers perceive the LiM program?

Teachers reported improved prosocial behavior, more camaraderie, more effective discipline practices, stronger teacher-student relationships, and greater enjoyment of teaching.

What academic and discipline outcomes were associated with LiM implementation?

Schools implementing LiM showed higher mathematics and ELA proficiency scores and fewer discipline incidents, while science scores were not higher.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Adam