Determining the Effectiveness of Integration of Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) and Social Problem-Solving Skills on Internalizing and Externalizing Emotional and Behavioral Problems and Academic Performance of Fifth- Grade Primary School Students

Social competence and skills to perform social tasks are essential to success in school and life. In particular, students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) and learning disabilities (LD) have frequently been targeted for social skills training. Lack of social competence has been considered either characteristic of or related to students with EBD and LD. Students with emotional and behavioral problems have difficulties establishing and maintaining interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers. In addition, they are often impulsive in responding, may not be aware of their own and others' feelings and views, and do not try to identify problematic situations. When students are unable to solve problems in difficult interactions, their chances of success in school are hampered. So the present study was performed to determine the effectiveness of the integration of two methods of Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) and social problem–solving skills on internalizing and externalizing emotional and behavioral problems and academic performance of fifth–grade primary school students.

The research method was quasi–experimental with a pretest–posttest and a three–month follow–up design with a control group. The statistical population included all fifth–grade male students who were studying in Pishva City, Iran in the academic year of 2017–2018 and were screened with their consent and through the test of Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL)–Teacher’s Report Form (TRF) (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001). Eligible students were randomly assigned to the experimental and experimental groups of 15 students each. Students with a T–score greater than 63 regarding the mentioned checklist were placed in the clinical domain and randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. The Cohen sampling method was used to determine the sample size. After four training sessions for teachers and parents, the experimental groups completed 15 training sessions. To collect data, CBCL–TRF (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001) and Academic performance test were conducted in three subjects: Persian, Mathematics, and Science. To calculate the content validity ratio index of the test questions, the content validity index (CVI) and the content validity index (CVR) were used. In this research, CVI=0.87 was reported for Science questions, CVI=0.79 for Math questions, and CVI=0.82 for Persian questions. Descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) were used to describe the data. The inferential analysis of the data was done with the analysis of variance with repeated measures and the Bonferroni post hoc test at an α level of 0.05. Data analysis was done in SPSS version 26.

The results showed that the integration of two methods of collaborative for academic, social and emotional learning and social problem–solving skills was effective in reducing internalized and externalized emotional and behavioral problems and increasing the academic performance of the experimental group (p<0.001). Also, in all three mentioned variables, in the experimental group, there was a significant difference between the pretest scores with their scores in the posttest and follow–up phases (p<0.05); However, there was no significant difference between the scores of the experimental group in the posttest and follow–up stages of the aforementioned variables, which indicated the stability and durability of the intervention effect in the follow–up stage (p>0.05).

According to the findings, the integration of two methods of collaborative for academic, social and emotional learning and social problem–solving skills decreases internalized and externalized emotional behavioral problems and improves academic performance.