Student Social and Emotional Development and Accountability - Perspective of Teachers - Research Reports

Oct 15, 2026

Research report examining how measures of social and emotional learning (SEL) relate to educator evaluation, focusing on effectiveness and accountability. Using a literature review and three teacher focus-group panels, the study synthesizes views from State and National Teachers of the Year and state teacher finalists on measurability, malleability, and fairness of SEL characteristics such as empathy, caring, and persistence. Key findings describe potential benefits for student outcomes alongside skepticism about applying SEL measures to teacher appraisal systems.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages22

Reading Time55 min

AccessFree to download

Student Social and Emotional Development and Accountability

Perspective of Teachers

Acknowledgements

Student Social and Emotional Development and Accountability: Perspective of Teachers National Network of State Teachers of the Year Elizabeth J. Glennie, Ph. D. Jeffrey A. Rosen, Ph.D. Rebecca Snyder, Ed.D. Maryann Woods-Murphy, Ed.D. Katherine Bassett, M. Ed. April 2017 We at the National Network of State Teachers of the Year (NNSTOYare most pleased to share with you the latest in our series of Research Reports. In this report, we focus on measures of social and emotional learning and their efficacy in educator evaluation. Using multiple approaches – literature review and three focus group panels – we examined what the field says about these measures and well as what expert teachers – State and National Teachers of the Year and Finalists for State Teacher of the Year think. I worked for twelve years at Educational Testing Service in the area of performance based assessment across a continuum of educator practice. One of the first maxims that I learned was: ‘ …not everything that is important can be measured and not everything that can be measured is important.’ A second was ‘ …we must not use assessment measures for purposes for which they have not been developed or validated.’ I also had the privilege of working with a team of expert research scientists, including Dr. Richard Roberts, to examine the efficacy of assessing social and emotional characteristics and their malleability in educators. So, this study is of particular interest to me. Can we actually measure social and emotional characteristics, and, are they malleable? In other words, can we teach things like empathy, caring, persistence? Should we include measures of these characteristics in teachers as part of consequential evaluation? As expert educators, we deeply desire accountability measures. We want those measures to be grounded in research and to be valid, reliable, and fair. Working with our study partners, EducationCounsel on the policy side and Research Triangle Institute on the science end, we are eager to share our results. We found the following key points: • Current research shows that social emotional skills can help students achieve successful school outcomesand that teachers can play a fairly sizable role in developing students’ social emotional skills. • Teachers in our focus groups agreed with much of the current research that social emotional development is critical and teachers and schools, through classroom-based and extracurricular activities, do contribute to students’ social emotional development. • Teachers in our focus groups agreed that professional development around social emotional development would be helpful and states should place focus there, but many questioned the feasibility of doing so given the current emphasis on cognitive development (i.e. test score performance) . • Teachers in our focus groups questioned whether they currently had sufficient resources or supports to devote time to social emotional learning. • Teachers in our focus groups thought that reports about students’ social emotional learning could be helpful, but they were highly skeptical of using social emotional development in teacher evaluation systems. At NNSTOY, we believe that educators should always be at the table when education policy is being crafted, debated, or modified. As professionals, we know the most about what is likely to directly impact students and the work in the classroom, both positively and negatively. We are excited to share this paper with you and look forward to working with you in bringing the voice of educators to the policy process. With warm regards, Katherine Bassett, Chief Executive Officer, NNSTOY Acknowledgements NNSTOY wishes to thank the following individuals and groups for their support and contributions to this project: Our Partners Our partner in this work, EducationCounsel, specifically Ms. Bethany Little, for her commitment to learning what a group of outstanding educators

FAQs

What does the report investigate about social and emotional learning (SEL)?

It examines measures of SEL and their efficacy in educator evaluation, including whether social and emotional characteristics can be measured and whether they are malleable in educators.

How was the study conducted?

The study used multiple approaches: a literature review and three focus group panels with expert teachers.

What is the teachers’ overall stance on using SEL measures in teacher evaluation systems?

Teachers found SEL development important and helpful for students, but many were skeptical about using SEL development in teacher evaluation systems, questioning feasibility, resources, and reliability of implementation.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Aria Callaghan