Integrating social, emotional, and behavioral skills with learning frameworks

Two cross-sectional studies in high schools

Tommaso Feraco

University of Padova

Gerardo Pellegrino

University of Padova

Barbara Carretti

University of Padova

Chiara Meneghetti

University of Padova

Social, emotional, and behavioral skills

Definition

Social, emotional, and behavioral skills represent the abilities to establish and maintain social relationships, regulate emotions, and effectively manage behaviors toward goals and learning and mainly fall into five areas1:

  • Self-management skills
  • Social engagement skills
  • Cooperation skills
  • Innovation skills
  • Emotional resilience skills

SEB skills at school

Self-management Innovation Social engagement Cooperation Emotional resilience
Achievement + +
Engagement + + +
Social outcomes + +
Well-being + +

These are linked to students’ academic achievement, school engagement, social relationships, and well-being2–5.

Who is a successful student?

From a personality perspective, we would say a student who has high openness and conscientiousness6,7.

From a skill perspective, we may say something very similar: high self-management and innovation

From an educational perspective

Learning is a complex activity and educational literature is maybe even more complex and vast. From this perspective, students need:

  • Cognitive abilities
  • Motivation
  • Beliefs
  • Study strategies
  • Emotions
  • Engagement

Merging the different perspectives

The two fields, however, remain largely separated and rarely integrated, but few proposals have been advanced:

  • The Integrative Development-in-Sociocultural-Context Model8

  • The integrated self-regulated learning model9

  • Social-emotional Competence School Model10

  • Social-Emotional Flourishing Framework Collie11

The studies

Main questions

  • Do SEB skills correlate with academic (and non-academic) outcomes in high school students, including SRL factors?
    • Study 1: emotional, motivational, and strategic factors
    • Study 2: school engagement
  • Do SEB skills predict academic (and non-academic) outcomes beyond SRL factors?
  • What are the main mechanisms linking SEB, SRL, and achievement?

Participants & materials

STUDY 1 Participants

  • 5075 students (18.23 yo [sd = .0.95])

Materials

  • SEB skills: BESSI-4512
  • SRL factors:13
    • SRL strategies
    • Academic self-efficacy
    • Learning goals
    • Growth mindset
    • Achievement emotions
  • Life satisfaction scale14
  • Peer acceptance15
  • Academic achievement: average grades

STUDY 2 Participants

  • 1642 students (15.5 yo [sd = 1.47])

Materials

  • SEB skills: BESSI-4512
  • School engagement16
  • School satisfaction17
  • Life satisfaction scale14
  • Burnout18
  • Fluid intelligence19
  • Academic achievement: average grades
Responses where screened for careless responding using multiple detection methods.

Study 120

Feraco, Bonelli, Da Re, & Meneghetti (2025) Social Psychology of Education

Results - Do SEB skills correlate with outcomes?

Results - Do SEB skills predict outcomes beyond SRL?

Study 2

Pellegrino, Meneghetti, Carretti & Feraco (under review)

Results - Do SEB skills predict outcomes beyond engagement?

Conclusions and Discussion

SEB at school

  • Social, emotional, and behavioral skills resulted important for
    • SRL factors (self-management + innovation + emotional resilience)
    • Academic achievement (self-management + innovation)
    • Non academic outcomes (cooperation + social engagement + emotional resilience)

BUT

  • When considering SRL factors:
    • Associations with academic achievement almost disappear
    • They keep their role for non-academic outcomes

Integrating SEB and SRL frameworks

  • Our results (may) support the multiple frameworks proposed:
    • SEB skills as broader capabilities that may lead to the adoption of positive SRL behaviors and beliefs [students who perceive themselves as having strong SEB skills are more likely to engage in behaviors that support both academic success and social-emotional development11]
    • SEB may lead to higher achievement through mediated processes

This perfectly aligns with SEB definition of functional capacities that people use when they want or need to do so1: students will gain from these skills if they want to use them for studying.

Thank you all

Chiara Meneghetti Barbara Carretti Gerardo Pellegrino

Free slides here!

Data, code, and materials needed to reproduce these slides are available at: https://github.com/feracotommaso/Slides/

tommaso.feraco@unipd.it

References

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2.
Soto, C. J., Napolitano, C., Sewell, M. N., Yoon, H. J. R. & Roberts, B. Going beyond traits: Social, emotional, and behavioral skills matter for adolescents’ success. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PERSONALITY SCIENCE 15, 33–45 (2024).
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Ringwald, W. R. et al. More skill than trait, or more trait than skill? Relations of (mis)matches between personality traits and social, emotional, and behavioral skills with adolescent outcomes. EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY (2025) doi:10.1177/08902070241309960.
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