By addressing bothlevels, teachers and schools would be better able to foster reachingmultidimensional educational goals that include cognitive andnon-cognitive outcomes

y. Additional principal andstudent interviews would be a valuable source for getting moreinsights into their perspective of SEL instruction practices andschool culture

eachers need to adopt a growth mindset and believe thatthese skills can be taught through formal instruction at school

(a) including all facets and (b) describing the facets and theirdifferences more precisely.

SEL policies.

Qualified teachers

As our results showed, there were hardly anydifferences between secondary school teachers’ SEL familiarity,beliefs, training, and perceived school culture compared tostudies focusing on preschool or elementary school teacher

national standards

Hence, although offering teacher training for allfacets seems to be important, our differential analyses showedan even higher need for providing an environment and teachertraining on how to focus on the emotional, cognitive, andbehavioral aspects of the self as compared to social aspects

According to our interviewdata, secondary schools do not provide resources (instructionmaterials, specific courses, or activities) or create conditions(training teachers, devoting teaching hours, increasing number ofcounselors at schools, receiving school administration support)that would promote SEL instructio

In addition, teachers’ social and emotional skillsmay be associated with the development of supportive teacher-student relationships, more effective classroom management,more effective SEL implementation in the classroom, and, at thesame time, to less stress and teacher burnout

skillful in SEL themselves

How teachers should be trained in delivering SEL instructionis not answered sufficiently ye

, it seems worthwhile to investigatemore closely the differences between teachers who feel insecureand unprepared because they have not been in touch with thetopic and the ones who feel uncomfortable regardless of thesupport they received in an SEL program

However, in our study, thismay have been an effect of teachers’ level of job experience, asour interviewees had less job experience (5 years) compared toteachers who participated in the survey (10 years)

In accordance with our hypotheses, we found a gap betweenthe quantitative and qualitative part as the quantitative datashowed, in general, higher levels of comfort as one would expectbased on qualitative results.

The results revealed that secondary schoolteachers reported to feel uncertain and lack the professional skillsand knowledge to deliver SEL instructions. In fact, it was hard forteachers in the present study to define or describe the meaningof SEL and its facets

Interviewed teachers reported lowlevels of comfort in teaching SEL, but the mean scores for thedifferent facets ranged between medium levels of comfort

After analyzing the quantitative and qualitative data separately,the results from each were compared at the point of interpretationin order to identify similarities and differences

Se-aw, self-awareness; S-man, self-management; So-aw, social-awareness.Coefficients significant at the p < 0.05 level are in bold type. N = 79

Pairwisecomparisons showed that teachers’ perceived school culture withregard to social awareness was significantly higher as comparedto their perceived school culture in teaching self-awareness[MDiff = 1.17, SE = 0.13, p < 0.001, 95% CI (0.85, 1.49)] andself-management

violated, χ2 = 14.52, p < 0.001. Therefore,the degrees of freedom were corrected using Greenhouse-Geisser estimates of sphericity

United States teachers showed across all three facets higherlevels of comfort as compared to teachers from other countries

The quantitative part examined the research question whetherthere were any differences in teachers’ reported self-awareness,self-management, and social awareness regarding their comfort,commitment, and school culture

implicit

In sum, teachers have mentioned that in their schoolenvironment, cognitive and non-cognitive skills are interrelated.However, they felt that, in most cases, cognitive learningoutcomes are more emphasized by schools or curricul

However, several teachers in our study mentioned that theyfeel obligated and expected to respond to students’ social andemotional needs by students’ families and society in general

n line with that, interviewees stated that they do not feelexpected by schools to teach SEL skills unless students themselvesshow or address social or emotional needs

Moreover, from their perspective, schools’ focus is moreon cognitive outcomes and managing the school and classesthemselves as compared to SEL

Most teachers reported that they share the perception thattheir schools do not emphasize and support SEL teaching atthe school level

nterviewees, who had experience in working at privateschools, explained that their schools particularly emphasizeddeveloping students’ SEL by providing a variety of extracurricularactivities such as arts, sports, or debating clubs

However, althoughnot part of curricula or study plans, some teachers pointed outthat they tried to incorporate aspects of self-awareness or self-management skills into their teaching through the reflectionand discussion of the content, personal initiatives of discussingthese terms with the class, or in personal conversations withstudents individually

To summarize, teachers’ reported discomfort with teachingSEL was mostly related to the lack of professional training,materials, and time during lessons. Nevertheless, they stated highinterest in receiving such trainings not only for teaching SEL butalso for developing these skills for themselves

In addition, interviewees highlighted that they would beinterested in getting professional training about teaching SELin general but were also interested in training about developingtheir own SEL skills

According to most interviewed teachers, their bachelor’s ormaster’s programs did not offer specific courses related toteaching SE

Their uncertaintieswere mostly related to worries and complaints about not havingenough time for delivering instruction on SEL besides the contentof the subject taught as well as a lack of materials and professionaltraining regarding SEL

Nevertheless, teachers explicitlypointed out the importance of SEL and personality developmentfor students’ lifelong learning, life satisfaction, and success inschool and also later in their career and relationship building.

In sum, teachers in the present study described the conceptsfrom their personal understanding rather than from professionalteacher education or training.

Qualitative Results

Hence, we furtherreport only the results including the covariate when it showed asignificant effect

SPS

Definition of and familiarity with SEL,”was developed based on prior interview studies showing thatteachers were not very familiar with the general concept of SEL(Triliva and Poulou, 2006; Esen-Aygun and Sahin-Taskin, 2017).The other three coding categories, “SEL instruction comfort,”“SEL experience and training,” and “SEL school culture,” reflectsimilar categories defined by Brackett et al. (2012), which wasalso the theoretical foundation for the questionnaire used inthe quantitative part

deductive and inductive qualitative content analysis

Cronbach’s alph

We substitutedthe term “social and emotional learning” from the originalitems with the corresponding face

Teachers’ comfort with teaching SEL, their commitment to learnabout SEL, and their perception about whether their schoolculture supports SEL were assessed using an adaptation of theestablished teachers’ SEL beliefs scal

However,the order of question emerged from the course of conversation

Appendix B

ll data are confidential and will be usedonly in the frames of this research.

8 respondents were recruited through the researcher’snetwork and social media platforms,

Research participation was confidential and on a voluntarybasis. All interviews were recorded with respondents’ permissionasked at the beginning of each interview (see Appendix B).The study was conducted according to the Ethical Principles ofPsychologists and Code of Conduct of the American PsychologicalAssociation, 2019. An ethics approval was not required byinstitutional guidelines or national regulations in line with the“German Research Foundation” guidelines, as the used data wereanonymized, and no disclosure outside the research is possibl

we excluded this teacher fromthe following analyses.

TABLE 1 | Description of the qualitative and quantitative sample

14

urposivesampling strategy was used that enables researchers to selectrespondents based on specific criteria

established, standardized, valid questionnaire could beadapted and use

integration involved merging the resultsfrom the qualitative and quantitative data so that a comparisoncould be made and a more complete understanding emerges

eachers had more space to answer questions more openly andelaborately. Moreover, their individual needs and ideas couldbe better addressed and their context and everyday settingcould be better taken into account.

A convergent parallel design was applied; that meansqualitative and quantitative data were collected in parallel,analyzed separately, and then merged

culture agreed with the quantitative results on secondary schoolteachers’ beliefs about the specific facets self-awareness, self-management, and social awareness (RQ3

we assumed that teachers might report to be more comfortablein teaching social awareness compared to self-awareness and self-management. For teachers’ commitment toward learning aboutSEL, we expected high levels of commitment in general, asprevious studies with elementary school teachers showed thatthey were highly committed to learn about how to teach SEL(Collie et al., 2011, 2015; Esen-Aygun and Sahin-Taskin, 2017;Poulou, 2017a). However, based on the finding that in teacherpreparation programs, only a few offered SEL course contentand, if so, they focused in particular on self-awareness andsocial awareness (Schonert-Reichl et al., 2016), we expected thatteachers’ reported commitment in learning about self- and socialawareness would be higher as compared to their commitment inlearning about self-management. A

We examined whether there were any differencesin teachers’ reported self-awareness, self-management, and socialawareness regarding teachers’ comfort, commitment, and schoolculture (RQ

howteachers describe SEL in general and its facets’ self-awareness,self-management, and social awareness in particular (RQ 1a).In addition, we were interested in exploring how comfortableand trained teachers feel for teaching SEL (RQ 1b). Based onprevious research with preschool and elementary school teachersand the assumption that secondary school teachers are lessexplicitly asked to address SEL, we expected that secondaryschool teachers would not be very familiar with and trained inteaching SEL. Moreover, we wanted to describe how supportiveteachers perceive their school culture for teaching SEL (RQ 1c).

only 13%of the United States teacher preparation programs offered at leastone course including information on relationship skills, 7% forresponsible decision-making, 6% for self-management, 2% forsocial awareness, and approximately 1% for self-awareness. Theseresults emphasize that training opportunities are overall scarcebut that almost no offers exist for social and self-awareness. Forthe perceived school culture, thus far, no studies investigatingdifferences between facets of SEL exist

Thus far, single facets of SEL or comparisons of different facetshave been investigated rarely.

time

In addition, high levels of elementaryschool principals’ support are positively related—and needed—to implement SEL teaching practices effectively

. A content analysis of requiredcourses in teacher preparation programs in the United Statesrevealed that only a few programs offered SEL course content(between 1% and 13% of almost 4,000 courses in 300 colleges ofeducation;

most studies have shown that neitherpre-service nor in-service teachers receive training in teachingSEL

A prescribedSEL curriculum was only used secondary to their interactions.In contrast, medium supportive teachers relied heavily onprescribed curricula during predefined times of the day

inconsistent

more in-depth qualitativestudies revealed that teachers report uncertainty in teaching SEL

Two important SEL beliefsare teachers’ comfort with and confidence in teaching SEL as wellas their commitment to improve their own skills in teaching SEL

Previous qualitative studies gave first hints that teachers seemto be not very familiar with the concept of SEL and that theirknowledge is limited.

Moreover, the match with the cultureof the school they are employed at can affect their SEL teachingpractices (cf. Brackett et al., 2012).

Hence, school and teaching canstill influence students’ social and emotional skills even at theselater stages of age

Social awareness is defined as having respect and empathyfor others and understanding others’ perspectives and feelings(Zins and Elias, 2007; Denham and Brown, 2010). It is alsothe ability to perceive similarities and differences among people

Self-management involves self-discipline, motivation, goalsetting, and stress management (Dusenbury et al., 2011). It isthe ability to regulate one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors invarious situations, and be able to set and monitor progress towardpersonal and academic aims

Self-awareness is characterized as the ability to carefullyidentify one’s emotions, thoughts, interests, and values, as wellas to understand how these impact one’s behavior (Eklundet al., 2018). In addition, it involves the ability to evaluateone’s strengths and limitations accurately and maintain a well-grounded sense of self-efficacy and sense of self-confidence

at the intersection of a number ofother SEL component

Five interrelated core social and emotional competenciesare defined: (1) self-awareness, (2) social awareness, (3) self-management, (4) relationship skills, and (5) responsible decision-making

than wouldhave been obtained by either approach separately. This is notonly valuable for researchers by enhancing their knowledge aboutteachers’ SEL familiarity, beliefs, training, and perceived schoolculture. It is also important for policymakers, administrators,and school staff by identifying critical aspects that preventsuccessful SEL in schools

only a few studies exploredschools’ and teachers’ own attempts, initiatives, and instructionalpractices to enhance students’ social and emotional competencies

but did not systematicallytarget specific SEL facet

only few qualitative and quantitative studieshave examined teachers’ perceptions of SEL

These skills foster learners’ performance(e.g., Corcoran et al., 2018) and facilitate positive social behaviors,goal orientations, emotion management, and social relationship-building skills (Elias and Arnold, 2006; OECD, 2015). Moreover,they reduce behavior problems and psychological distress(Harrell et al., 2009; Durlak et al., 2011; Sklad et al., 2012;Wigelsworth et al., 2016; Taylor et al., 2017). Hence, they areimportant skills that help students succeed in school, work,personal life, relationships with families and friends, and societyin general (cf. Mahoney et al., 2018)

Theyare characterized as constructs that are not identified withtraditional indicators of cognitive capability or intellectualfunctioning (Rieger et al., 2017) and are often described undersuch terms as socio-emotional skills, character, personality, or21st-century skills

However,over the past decade, the attention of which outcomes studentsshall achieve broadened from these cognitive to so-called “non-cognitive” factors as additional important school outcomes(e.g., Rieger et al., 2017) and concepts of educating the“whole child” became more prominent (Liew and McTigue,2010)

he results do not only add to researchers’ knowledge about teachers’ SELfamiliarity, beliefs, training, and school culture, but are also relevant for policymakers,administrators, and school staff by identifying critical aspects that prevent successfulSEL in schools

Therefore, in both study parts, teachers expressed strong interest in receivingprofessional SEL training

The reason for collecting both qualitative andquantitative data was to obtain different but complementary data on the sametopic in order to bring greater insight into this research question than wouldhave been obtained by either type of data separately.

Hence, the present studyinvestigated teachers’ familiarity, beliefs, training, and perceived school culturewith regard to social and emotional learning and its facets self-awareness, self-management, and social-awareness by applying a convergent parallel mixed-methoddesign.

Education advocates argue that effective schools should foster multidimensionaleducational goals that not only include cognitive but also non-cognitive outcomes.

nja Schiepe-Tiska*, Aiymbubu Dzhaparkulova and Lisa Ziernwald