Contextually Relevant Emotional and Social Wellbeing Tools (CREST) Study
Supporting Holistic and Actionable Research in Education (SHARE) is a five-year cooperative agreement by USAID’s new Bureau for Development, Democracy, and Innovation/Center for Education (DDI/EDU) with the University of Notre Dame (UND) that advances global education learning priorities to improve learning outcomes.
Supporting Holistic & Actionable Research in Education (SHARE)
Background and Context
There has been a growing emphasis on the subject of social and emotional learning (SEL), given the positive effects that it has on children. Effective SEL interventions require more than including SEL content in lesson plans; rather, they necessitate an approach that includes their teachers, peers, administrators, and other personnel in the process of supporting students’ social and emotional development. However, how SEL skills and teacher wellbeing are defined, codified, and operationalized in research, and its translation into practice, is not always consistent or agreed upon. Moreover, most of the tools for measuring children’s SEL and teachers’ are not easy to use in conflict-affected and fragile contexts. This is especially important since the skills and support systems that make up children’s SEL and teacher’s wellbeing are likely shaped by an individual’s surrounding environment. Therefore, it is critical to conduct research on children’s SEL skills and teacher wellbeing that is grounded in the perspectives of teachers, children, and caregivers.
Research Questions
To achieve these objectives, the present study addresses the following questions:
- How do primary school-age children, parents, and educators define and prioritize the social and emotional skills they believe are important in the lives of children? What are the psychometric properties (validity and reliability) of a measure that is developed using this context-specific information?
- How do primary school teachers define and prioritize teacher wellbeing and the factors that affect this wellbeing? What are the psychometric properties (validity and reliability) of a measure that is developed using this context-specific information?
Research Goals
- Country-level goal: Understand how children, parents, and teachers define and prioritize SEL and teacher wellbeing, and produce context-relevant, validated assessments for each.
- Cross-country goal: Develop a data-informed process that any country or activity, but especially those in crisis- or conflict-affected contexts, can use to develop feasible, reliable, valid, context-relevant and conflict-sensitive child SEL and teacher wellbeing assessments.
Partnership Locations
In the current iteration, this study will focus on partnering with the education ecosystem in Haiti, Honduras, Colombia, and Liberia.
Study Timeline
Core Research Team
Principal Investigator: Dr. Nikhit D’Sa, Assistant Professor and Senior Associate Director of Research, University of Notre Dame
Co-Principal Investigator: Dr. Jeongmin Lee, SHARE Technical Research Advisor, University of Notre Dame
Program Manager: Aimee Lyons, SHARE Program Manager, University of Notre Dame