Past Projects

Funding Source: Wend Ventures

Team Members: James Floman, Annette Ponnock, Marc Brackett, Hannah Asis, Jahnvi Jain

Educators’ well-being plays an influential role in student social-emotional health and academic achievement, which is becoming all the more important now because students (and teachers) are having to navigate the uncertainty and trauma of overlapping national crises, between the coronavirus, pervasive economic insecurity, and pernicious effects of continuing racial injustice. This project aims to identify and longitudinally track the factors that best predict educator resilience and well-being. This includes protective factors that buffer against stress and risk factors that exacerbate stress. Further, understanding the dynamics of the ‘psychological pandemic’ and the coping patterns of a nationally representative sample of US educators will be essential to learning how to best support the well-being and effectiveness of all educators. The latest intervention science indicates that an array of factors drive changes in psychological functioning, and so attaining a nuanced understanding of these factors in educators will be valuable to tailor supports.

Funding Source: Sanford Harmony/National University

Team Members: James Floman, Annette Ponnock, Marc Brackett, Hannah Asis, Jahnvi Jain

This project aims to build off of the Teacher Well-Being and Resilience Longitudinal Study by specifically aiming to understand the well-being and resilience of Black and Latino/a/x educators. We partnered with community organizations that support and work with Black and Latino/a/x educators to recruit an overly representative sample of Black and Latino/a/x educators. This project aims to identify and longitudinally track the factors that best predict Black and Latino/a/x educator resilience and well-being. This includes protective factors that buffer against stress and risk factors that exacerbate stress. Further, understanding the dynamics of the ‘psychological pandemic’ and the coping patterns of a diverse sample of US educators will be essential to learning how to best support the well-being and effectiveness of teachers of color. The latest intervention science indicates that an array of factors drive changes in psychological functioning, and so attaining a nuanced understanding of these factors in educators will be valuable to tailor supports.

• LaPalme, M. L., Luo, P., Cipriano, C., & Brackett, M. A. (2022). Imposter syndrome among pre-service educators and the importance of emotion regulation. Frontiers in Psychology, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.838575
• Luo, P., LaPalme, M. L., Cipriano, C., & Brackett, M. A. (2022). The association between sociability and COVID-19 pandemic stress. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 828076. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.828076

Funding Source: American Psychological Association - Division 15

Team Members: Annette Ponnock, James Floman, Hannah Asis

This project aims to explore the lived experience of Black and Latino/a/x educators’ motivation and well-being during COVID-19. Using community-based participatory research, we have partnered with organizations that work with Black and Latino/a/x educators to recruit and train teacher-researchers who are conducting interviews with teachers from around the country. The qualitative data will be integrated with the quantitative data from the Equity, Well-Being, and Resilience Longitudinal Study. We will be working with our partner organizations to analyze and interpret the data and create a plan for reflective action to support Black and Latino/a/x well-being.

Funding Source: Wend Ventures

Team Members: Marc Brackett, James Floman, Chris Cipriano, Michael Strambler (The Consultation Center at Yale), Joanna Meyer (The Consultation Center at Yale), Maegan Genovese (The Consultation Center at Yale), Annette Ponnock, Almut Zieher, Linda Torv, Hannah Asis, Alessandra Yu, Beatris Garcia

This project is a three-year investigation of educator emotional well-being and social and emotional learning implementation fidelity by the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence (YCEI) in partnership with The Consultation Center at Yale. Over the course of the project period, the project team will:

1. design, validate, and make widely available a measure of educator well-being;
2. design, validate, and make widely available a measure of educator social-emotional learning (SEL) program implementation fidelity (to gauge associations and potential interaction effects between SEL implementation and well-being); and
3. develop an accompanying set of resources to help schools improve teacher well-being (as driven by survey results).

The combination of enhanced measurement and actionable resources will raise awareness among school leaders and policymakers about the state of teacher well-being and engagement and of steps that can be taken to improve it.

• Cipriano, C. (Chair, 2020). "The Development and Initial Validation of Four Ecologically Valid,Multi-Dimensional, and Scalable SEL Assessment Tools. Symposium to be presented at the American Educational Research Association Meeting in San Francisco, California (Cancelled due to COVID-19).
• Cipriano, C., Floman, J., Hoffmann, J., & Willner, C. (2019). Building the Assessments We Need: The Development of new actionable SEL data-points for teachers. CASEL SEL Exchange, Chicago, IL

• Brackett, M. & Cipriano, C. (2020). Teachers are Anxious and Overwhelmed: They Need SEL Now More Than Ever. Ed Surge, Published April 7, 2020
• Cipriano,C., & Brackett. M. (2020). How to Support Teachers’ Emotional Needs Right Now, Great Good Science Center. Published April 30, 2020
• Cipriano, C., Naples, L.H., & Eveleigh, A. (2020). Feeling Overwhelmed and Overlooked, Special Educators

• Hamilton, L.S. & Doss, C.J. (2020) Supports for Social and Emotional Learning in American Schools and Classrooms: Findings from the American Teacher Panel. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA397-1.html.
• Strambler, M.J., Meyer, J.L., Zieher, A.K., & Genovese, M.A. (2020). Surveying Educators about Social Emotional Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic. New Haven, CT: The Consultation Center at Yale. https://osf.io/ekr2h/
• Zieher, A. K. Cipriano, C., Meyers, J., & Strambler, M. (2021). Educators’ implementation and use of social and emotional learning early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of School Psychology, Online First

Funding Source: Yale Well-Being Office, Yale Secretary’s Office, Donor

Team Members: James Floman, Marc Brackett, Megan Kirk Chang, & Hannah Asis

The Yale Equity in Student Well-Being Project will be a randomized controlled trial (RCT) that compares the effectiveness of different psychological well-being interventions on college students at Yale that will run during the 2021-22 school year. We are interested both in what interventions are most effective for whom (moderators) and why (mediators or mechanisms). We’ll recruit a large, diverse sample of students and measure outcomes at multiple levels of analysis to address these research questions. The ultimate goal is to learn how to better support college students given the significant challenges and demands they face, especially during the pandemic with the major disruption in social connection and emotional health they’ve experienced.

Funding Source: FAAS Foundation

Team Members: Matt LaPalme & Peihao Luo

Funding Source: FAAS Foundation

Team Members: James Floman, Marc Brackett, Annette, Ponnock, Dena Simmons, & Meiko Lin

This is a large-scale national epidemiological study of US educators’ emotions and well-being. It is one of the largest studies ever conducted on the health and well-being of educators. Multiple papers are currently being written with these data.

Funding Source: Capital One

Team Members: Jessica Hoffmann, Maneeza Dawood, Julie McGarry

This project aims to build inter-organizational capacity through collaboration on a chatbot designed to support college-bound and college-enrolled students. Prospective and enrolled college students, as well as the colleges and universities supporting them, face many challenges like summer melt (students who are accepted and intend to enroll but do not attend, often due to barriers), difficulty navigating and accessing financial aid, and challenges with retention or degree attainment. These challenges are particularly present for first-generation or low-income (FGLI) students. The Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence has partnered with the Partnership for Education Advancement, Norfolk State University, Paul Quinn College, and Mainstay to promote cultural responsiveness, emotional intelligence, and career readiness in Oli, Mainstay’s supportive chatbot.

This project seeks to promote:

• Capacity-building among the partner organizations
• The infusion of cultural responsiveness, emotional intelligence, and career readiness knowledge and skills into the bot
• A better understanding of the impact on students attending historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs)

• Dawood, M., Alexander, J., Habib I., Hoffmann, J. D., Wilson, T. (2023, June 25-28). Blending cultural responsiveness and emotional intelligence in a chatbot for HBCU enrollees [Listen and Learn Interactive Session]. International Society for Technology in Education Live EdTech Conference, Philadelphia, PA.

• Alexander, J., Dawood, M., Delich, J., & Willson, T. (2023, September 20). How you say it matters: AI texting with cultural responsiveness and emotional intelligence [Webinar]. Mainstay.
  https://mainstay.com/resources/how-you-say-it-matters/
  
• Seltzer, R. (2022, September 9). How one nonprofit is looking beyond 'generic tools' to help HBCUs boost retention. Higher Ed Dive.

Team Members: James Floman, Marc Brackett, Annette Ponnock, Hannah Asis, Chris Cipriano, Signal Barsade (Wharton) Matthew LaPalme, Peihao Luo, Alessandra Yu

This project aims to develop, validate, and publish a new measure of emotional intelligence for adults. The multi-component assessment will include tests of emotion expression recognition, understanding emotions, and regulating emotions. A second aim of this project is to measure whether the new test explains incremental variance in satisfaction with life, anxiety/depression, academic achievement, prosocial behavior, self-compassion, and peer-rated interpersonal status, among other outcomes, compared to prior measures of emotional intelligence. All study measures will be conducted in an online format and consists of standard questions and assessments pertaining to emotional awareness, personality, and self-reports. The test will treat emotional intelligence as a set of abilities. There will be three sections:

• The Subtle Multimodal Affect Recognition Test (SMART): This assessment tests the ability to perceive emotions through facial, vocal, and bodily cues and also assesses how well individuals can recognize hidden or masked emotions.
• The Emotion Understanding Test (EUT): This assessment test the ability to understand emotion language; this includes: 1) the ability to differentiate among emotion words and to use emotion language with granularity, 2) the ability to understand the root causes of emotions, and 3) the ability to understand the relationship between families of emotion words.
• The Emotion Regulation Test (ERT): This assessment is a situation judgment test (SJT) that uses a vignette-based paradigm to assess the ability to regulate emotions in the self and others. Each vignette describes a situation at work where participants are asked to think about how they would regulate their emotions or the emotions of others.

Team Members: Jessica Hoffmann, Marc Brackett, Chris Cipriano, Julie McGarry, Jennifer Seibyl, Kalee DeFrance, Sean McFarland, Elinor Hills, Rachel Baumsteiger

The School Climate Walkthrough is a web-based school climate assessment tool for secondary schools. Students complete “the Walkthrough” in two parts over the course of a typical school day - 15 minutes in the morning, answering questions about their overall opinions of their school, and 15 minutes in the afternoon, completing a checklist of their observations from that day at school. The tool offers instantaneous scoring and a digital report covering nine domains of school climate including safety, relationships, teaching quality, and respect for diversity. Results of the survey are automatically displayed once all participants submit their responses and are interpretable by the students themselves. Interactive features of the report allow users to explore overall scores as well as any areas in which various demographic groups of students may be reporting significantly disparate experiences.

• Hoffmann, J. D., Baumsteiger, R., Seibyl, J., Hills, E., Bradley, C., Cipriano, C., & Brackett, M. A. (2022). Building useful, web-based educational measures for students, with students: An illustrative demonstration with The School Climate Walkthrough Tool for high schools. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice.

• Baumsteiger, R. & De France, K. (2022, July). Adolescents' affective experiences: The influence of home, school, technology, and a school-based program [Conference Symposium]. International Society for Research on Emotion Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, CA.
• Hoffmann, J. D., Baumsteiger, R., & Seibyl, J. (2022, April). School Climate Walkthrough measure: A validation study [Paper presentation]. American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, San Diego.
• Hoffmann, J. D., Baumsteiger, R., & Seibyl, J. (August, 2021). The School Climate Walkthrough: A tool for understanding school climate in secondary schools [Poster presentation]. American Psychological Association Annual Convention, Virtual.
• Seibyl, J., Baumsteiger, R., & Hoffmann, J. (2021, August). Same School, Different Experience: Exploring Group Differences Through School Climate Profile Analyses [Poster presentation]. American Psychological Association Annual Meeting, Virtual.
• Hoffmann, J. D., Baumsteiger, R., McGarry, J., Seibyl, J., Brackett, M.A. (April, 2021). How to Create More Useful Measures: The Development of a Web-based Application for Assessing School Climate in Secondary Schools. In J. Montgomery (Chair). Innovative Approaches to Measuring Social Emotional Learning. Presentation at the American Educational Research Association annual convention.
• Hoffmann, J.D. (2019, November). The Importance of a Person-centered Approach to Measuring School Climate: Raising Every Student’s Voice. Presentation at the International Bullying Prevention Association Conference, Chicago, IL.
• Cipriano, C., Floman, J., Hoffmann, J., & Willner, C. (2019, October). Building the Assessments We Need: The Development of new actionable SEL data-points for teachers. CASEL SEL Exchange, Chicago, IL.
• Bradley, C. Hoffmann, J. D. & McGarry, J. (2019, March). A Person-Centered Approach to Measuring School Climate: Capturing Between- and Within-School Variability in Student Experiences. Poster presentation at the meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Washington, DC.

Team Members: Zi Jia Ng, Jessica Hoffmann, Craig Bailey, Chris Cipriano, Marc Brackett, Linda Torv, Beatris Garcia, Alexandra Harrison, Morgan Mannweiler, Cynthia Willner

This project is focused on the development and validation of the Student Emotion Regulation Assessment (SERA). The SERA is a new direct assessment that measures students’ use of various emotion regulation strategies (e.g., problem solving, emotional support-seeking, somatic relaxation, distraction, rumination, and experiencing the emotion) to deal with emotional situations that commonly occur in school. There are two versions of the SERA: the SERA-P for use with students in grades 1-5 and the SERA-S for use with students in grades 6-12. In both versions, students are presented with age-appropriate vignettes (see examples below) and asked how they would respond in these situations. Both versions are computer-based, illustrated, and narrated to enhance student engagement and accessibility.

The purpose of the SERA is to (1) enhance educators’ awareness and understanding of their students’ emotion regulation strategy use and competency; (2) increase adolescent students’ awareness of their own emotion regulation strategy use and knowledge of effective emotion regulation strategies; and (3) provide guidance to educators on how to support their students’ development of effective emotion regulation strategies in classroom settings. To meet these goals, we are conducting research to ensure that the SERA has strong psychometric quality, is feasible for schools to use, and has high utility.

• Ng, Z. J., Willner, C. J., & Mannweiler, M. D. (August 2021). The Student Emotion Regulation Assessment: A tool for measuring students' emotion regulation skills. Poster presented at the 2021 annual convention of the American Psychological Association (virtual conference).
• Mannweiler, M. D., Willner, C. J., Harrison, A. P., Ng, Z., Hoffman, J. D., Bailey, C. S., Cipriano, C., Brackett, M. A. (August 2021). Age-related differences in students’ emotion regulation strategy endorsement patterns. Poster presented at the 2021 annual convention of the American Psychological Association (virtual conference).
• Ng, Z. J., Willner, C. J., Cipriano, C., & Brackett, M. (April 2021). A review of emotion regulation assessment in schools. Poster presentation (virtual) at the 2021 biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development.
• Mannweiler, M., Willner., C. J., Ng, Z. J., Hoffmann, J., & Brackett, M. (April 2021). Educators systematically over-predict student anxiety in response to hypothetical vignettes. Poster presentation (virtual) at the 2021 biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development.
• Willner, C. J., Hoffmann, J. D., Bailey, C. S., Ng, Z. J., Harrison, A. P., Garcia, B., & Brackett, M. A. (April 2020). Developing an objective assessment of students' emotion regulation for use in elementary school through high school. Presentation accepted for the 2020 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA (conference canceled).
• Willner, C. J. (2019). Directly assessing students’ emotion regulation skills in elementary school through high school. Presentation at the CASEL Social & Emotional Learning Exchange 2019, Chicago, IL.

Team Members: Kalee DeFrance, Chris Cipriano, Jessica Hoffmann, Cynthia Willner, Marc Brackett, Beatris Garcia, Rachel Baumsteiger, Violet Tan

The purpose of the Momentary Emotion Assessment Tool is to track how students feel and how they respond to their emotions at school. This tool could be used by researchers and educators to understand momentary emotions and how they change, and also to capture the effects of interventions designed to improve students’ experiences at school. The tool will also provide students with individual reports and in-the-moment feedback on how to improve their emotional experiences.

Schools will receive reports of similar information, but with results aggregated across students, and with resources for supporting students. Data collected through the process of validating this tool will contribute scientific insights to how adolescents’ momentary emotions vary across time, physical setting, activity, social company, and based on their responses to their emotions. These data can also be used to evaluate how emotional experiences differ across different students.

• Baumsteiger, R., Garcia, B., Cipriano, C., Hoffmann, J. D., Willner, C. J., & Brackett, M. A. (2020, January). How do teens feel at school? New directions for assessing momentary emotional experiences. Poster presented at the Western Positive Psychology Association Conference, Claremont.
• Garcia, B., Baumsteiger, R., Hoffmann, J. D., & Brackett, M. A. (2020, April). Testing the directional influences between interpersonal relationships and emotion regulation: Support for a new approach. Poster presented at the annual Society for Affective Science Convention, San Francisco. (online)
• Hoffmann, J. D., Baumsteiger, R., Hills, E. & Brackett, M. A. (2020, April). A web-based, student-centered approach to school climate measurement. In Cipriano, C. (Chair), The development and initial validation of four ecologically valid, multidimensional, and scalable SEL assessment tools [Symposium]. American Education Research Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA. (conference cancelled due to COVID)
• Hoffmann, J. D., McGarry, J., & Baumsteiger, R. (2020, October). Tools for assessing and addressing adolescents’ emotional experiences at school [Workshop]. Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), Social & Emotional Learning (SEL) Exchange, Virtual. (conference cancelled due to COVID)
• Baumsteiger, R., Willner, C., Hoffmann, J. D., Cipriano, C., Garcia, B., Tan, V., & Brackett, M. A. (2020, November). Adolescents’ emotions and emotion regulation during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Poster presented at the Yale Child Studies Center 2020 Associates Week.

• Baumsteiger, R., Garcia, B., Cipriano, C., Hoffmann, J. D., Willner, C. J., & Brackett, M. A. (under review). Assessing adolescents’ momentary emotions and emotion regulation at school: A systematic review and future directions.

Team Members: James Floman, Marc Brackett, Annette Ponnock. Alessandra Yu, Beatris Garcia, Chris Cipriano, Sigal Barsade (Wharton) & Matthew LaPalme

Project Description: This project aims to develop, validate, and publish a new measure of emotional intelligence for adults. The multi-component assessment will include tests of emotion expression recognition, understanding emotions, and regulating emotions. A second aim of this project is to measure whether the new test explains incremental variance in satisfaction with life, anxiety/depression, academic achievement, prosocial behavior, self-compassion, and peer-rated interpersonal status, among other outcomes, compared to prior measures of emotional intelligence. All study measures will be conducted in an online format and comprised of standard questions and assessments pertaining to emotional awareness, personality, and self-reports. The test will treat emotional intelligence as a set of abilities. There will be three sections:

• Emotion Perception
• Emotion Understanding
• Emotion Regulation

There will be six subsections, and approximately eight items per subsection for a total of 48 items.

Team Members: Cynthia Willner, Jessica Hoffmann, Craig Bailey, Zi-Jia Ng, Alexandra Harrison, Beatris Garcia, Chris Cipriano, & Marc Brackett

Project Description: This project aims to develop and validate new assessments of students’ emotion regulation for use by educators of 1st through 12th grade students. The assessments will provide data on the strategies students use to manage anger, anxiety, sadness, and boredom in school. These computer-based assessments ask students to report how they would likely respond to specific emotional situations in school. The assessments will provide automatic data reports for educators on the kinds of emotion regulation strategies their students use (e.g., support-seeking, distraction, avoidance, reappraisal/reframing, etc.) and the overall adaptiveness of their emotion regulation strategy choices. We will also conduct research to establish age-level benchmarks for scores on these assessments.

Team Members: Jessica Hoffmann, Marc Brackett, Chris Cipriano, Kari Olsen, Julie McGarry, Jennifer Seibyl, & Rachel Baumsteiger

Project Description: The school climate walkthrough is a project to develop a web-based digital school climate assessment tool. This app is intended to be used by secondary school students to measure their school climate and take action on making positive change in their school communities. Students use the app to answer a series of school climate survey questions at the start and end of a single school day, creating a snapshot of their school climate across the domains of safety, relationships, environment, teaching quality, and social media. Results of the survey are automatically displayed once all participants submit their responses and are interpretable by the students themselves. Repeated use of the tool allows for tracking of school climate over time.

Team Members: Kalee De France, Rachel Baumsteiger, Beatris Garcia, Chris Cipriano, Jessica Hoffmann, Cynthia Willner, & Marc Brackett

Project Description: The purpose of the Momentary Emotion Assessment Tool is to benchmark students’ momentary emotions in regular classrooms and individualized learning settings, as well as compare both settings in terms of the emotions they elicit. This project will contribute scientific insights to the search for determinants of momentary emotions at school, develop brief in-the-moment interventions helping students to cope with their emotions at school, develop technology that assesses students’ momentary emotions, and provide students and teachers in-the-moment feedback about these emotions in innovative ways.

Funding Source: Oak Foundation and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

Team Members: Christina Cipriano, Lauren Naples, Almut Zieher, Joseph Durlak (Loyola University Chicago), Melissa Funaro (Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library, Yale University), Abigail Eveleigh, Michael J. Strambler (The Consultation Center, Yale University), Jason Chow (The College of Education, University of Maryland), Annette Ponnock, Michael F. McCarthy (School of Education and Human Development, University of Rochester)

This systematic review and meta-analysis provides an update of the evidence base for universal school-based (USB) social and emotional learning (SEL) interventions for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. First, we describe how significant developments in the operational definition of SEL, implementation science, and meta-analytic methodologies necessitate an updated review. Next, we will execute a fully replicable cumulative meta-analysis of USB SEL interventions, in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) standards, using the most rigorous and contemporary methodological practices available in educational and psychological science. Lastly, we will discuss findings and implications of the empirical evidence base for SEL as it informs current and future SEL policy and practice to promote evidence-based practice and data-driven decision-making. Access the study in Child Development.

Funding Source: Oak Foundation

Team Members: Christina Cipriano, Gabrielle Schlichtmann (EdTogether), Lauren Naples, Abigail Eveleigh, Colleen Cassidy, Amanda Cook (EdTogether)

To support the generalizability of USB SEL interventions at the intersection of student disability and race, a systematic review was conducted to update the current state of evidence available for elementary school USB SEL interventions and their intersectional identities within. This project is pre-registered with Open Science Framework.

• Cipriano, C., Naples, L.H., Eveleigh, A., Funaro, M., Cook, A., Cassidy, C., & Schlichtmann, G. (Under Review). A Systematic Review of Student Disability and Race Representation in Universal School-Based SEL Interventions for Elementary School Students, Review of Educational Research

Funding Source: Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

Team Members: Cynthia Willner, Jessica Hoffmann, Craig Bailey, Alexandra Harrison,Beatris Garcia, Zi Jia Ng, Chris Cipriano, & Marc Brackett

Cognitive reappraisal is an important emotion regulation strategy that shows considerable developmental change in its use and effectiveness from early childhood through adolescence. In this project, we have systematically reviewed the literature on cognitive reappraisal in early childhood through adolescence. We aimed to answer two questions: (1) at what age do children begin to effectively use cognitive reappraisal to regulate their emotions, and (2) how does the use and effectiveness of cognitive reappraisal change from early childhood through adolescence? The answers to these questions can inform practitioners’ efforts to support the age-appropriate use of cognitive reappraisal as an emotion regulation strategy in students across all grade levels.

Funding Source: Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

Team Members: Zi Jia Ng, Cynthia Willner, Craig Bailey, Jessica Hoffmann, Chris Cipriano

To date, only one review of ER assessment in children and adolescents has been published (Adrian, Zeman, & Veits, 2011). While it provided valuable information on the different methodologies used to study ER, it focused on measures utilized in research settings and did not address their practicality for use in schools. The aim of this qualitative review is to examine the availability, operationalization, feasibility, psychometric quality, and utility of currently available ER assessments for use in schools, and in turn illuminate gaps in the ER assessments that are available to educators. This paper is intended to serve both as an overview and as a call for further work and discussion.

Team Members: Marc Brackett, James Floman, Rachel Baumsteiger

The purpose of this investigation is to answer the question: How do teachers want to feel at work? We surveyed a large (N = 4936), diverse sample of teachers from across the U.S. (Study 1); obtained 151 “charters” (i.e., collective agreements) from educators regarding their ideal affect at school (Study 2); ran an experiment in which 418 educators were randomly assigned to report how they hoped to feel either in the classroom versus at school (Study 3); surveyed 397 educators about how they wanted to feel at school amidst the COVID-19 pandemic (Study 4); and collected data on 475 teachers regarding specific supports that may assist them in experiencing their ideal affect (Study 5). Overall, the results suggest that educators’ most desired to feel happy, successful, appreciated, and excited at school. That said, ideal affect varied based on whether educators responded individually (Study 1) or collectively (Study 2), with reference to the classroom or school context (Study 3), and based on sociohistorical context (i.e., before or during the COVID-19 pandemic; Study 4). The top supports identified for promoting educators’ ideal affect included seeing evidence of student success and being recognized for their work, especially by administrators. These findings may help to guide efforts for promoting educator emotional health and well-being.

Funding Source: Dalio Education

Team Members: Christina Cipriano, Almut Zieher, Rachel Baumsteiger, Jessica Hoffmann, Violet Tan, Jennifer P Seibyl, Linda Torv, Morgan Mannweiler, Robin Stern, Marc Brackett, Lauren Naples, Abigail Eveleigh, Miranda Wood, Tia Navelene Barnes (University of Delaware), Melissa Stoffers (University of Delaware)

To support the psychosocial health and well-being of educators during the COVID-19 pandemic, the YCEI, with funding from Dalio Education (#19-07517) developed a free online certificate course for school personnel. This 10-hour course launched on October 1st and provides school staff with the knowledge, skills, and strategies to understand and manage their emotions. Course participants begin by learning about why social and emotional learning is an important component of education. Then, they explore how to identify and manage emotions, including how to support their students with their emotions in scientific and culturally responsive ways. Participants complete “Weekly Action Plans” to build a comprehensive and personalized guide for lasting change. As part of the course experience, participants are invited to participate in a short survey study to inform the scientific and educator practitioner communities about their emotional experiences, impacts, and opportunities for cultivating resilience in both educators and students during this time of crisis. To support the real-time dissemination of findings and to offer support to educators as we continue to move through the challenges of pandemic teaching, we present results from the surveys in white papers here for dissemination. The project is pre-registered on Open Science Framework.

Funding Source: Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI)

Team Members: Chris Cipriano, Marc Brackett, Linda Torv, Jeremy Taylor (Possible Project), Clark McKown (xSEL Labs), Roger Weisberg, & Rob Jagers (CASEL)

The purpose of this project was to bring together constituents reflecting the social and emotional learning (SEL) assessment landscape for a targeted, action-oriented discussion. The constituents met in the form of a pre-conference prior to the inaugural SEL Conference offered by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) in Chicago, IL in October 2019. As a collective, the constituents produced the Appendices to the State of the Field Report. These Appendices advised the launch and completion of the most essential next steps of work related to assessment in the field of SEL.

• Connecting the Dots of SEL Assessment: Methodologies that Matter for Students, Teachers, and Policy
• Catalyzing Future Directions of Social and Emotional Learning Assessment - Summary Report
  
• The Future of SEL Assessment – 5 Essential Directions
  

Funding Source: Susan Crown Exchange

Team Members: Jessica Hoffmann, Julie McGarry, Jennifer Seibyl, Kalee De France, Sean McFarland, Violet Tan, Mary Holsopple (International Bullying Prevention Association)

The project’s purpose is to engage students in examining technology use at their school and leading their peers in making a positive change. This will be done using inspirED’s ABCD process: assess school climate with regards to healthy technology use, brainstorm solutions, complete projects, and debrief impact.

Through collaboration with the International Bullying Prevention Association, we will invite teams of 4-8 students per school to attend our online training program (up to 80 schools total from around the United States). The 4-6 hour training supports teams through the Assess and Brainstorm phases, and teaches skills in creative problem solving, leadership, and team communication which allows students to commit to and complete a project of their choosing. Following the training, teams are supported through coaching from the inspirED team at the YCEI through completing their project, measuring impact, and debriefing.

We anticipate two sets of deliverables. First, we will collect data on the impact of peer-led projects on healthy social media use among secondary school students, including their attitudes, intentions, and behaviors; students’ sense of agency to affect change; and the school’s climate. This will result in peer-reviewed and practitioner-focused publications and presentations. Second, we will collect detailed information on all completed student projects and build a comprehensive set of at least 65 project descriptions and school stories (including helpful artifacts and examples). These examples will be accessible through inspirED’s open-access digital resource library to benefit teens nationwide.

• Donaldson, C., Hoffmann, J., McGarry, J., & Sharma, S. (2020, December). Research-based Initiatives Targeting School Climate and SEL Skills in K-12. Social Emotional Learning Lightning Talk at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) annual conference [Virtual due to COVID-19].
• Hoffmann, J. D., & McGarry, J. (2021, January). Empowering Youth to Take Action on School Climate and Culture. In C. Jordan & J. Kerr-Vanderslice (Facilitators), Illinois Quality Afterschool at AIR webinar.
• Tan, T.Y. & McFarland, S. (2021, August). Tech for good: A scale for healthy technology use in adolescents [Poster Presentation]. Yale Postgraduate Research Symposium, Virtual.ices [Poster presentation].” Society for Research in Child Development 2021 Biennial Meeting, virtual convening.
• Tan, T.Y. & McFarland, S. (2021, August). Tech for good: A scale for healthy technology use in adolescents. [Poster Presentation]. Yale Postgraduate Research Symposium.
• Baumsteiger, R., Hoffmann, J., Tan, T. (2022, April). A Multidimensional Measure of Adolescent Technology Use. [Paper presentation]. American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, San Diego.
• Baumsteiger, R. Seibyl, J., & Hoffmann, J. (2022, July). How to support adolescents’ social and emotional development: A study of “inspirED.” In R. Baumsteiger and K. De France (chairs), Adolescents' affective experiences: The influence of home, school, technology, and a school-based program [Conference Symposium]. International Society for Research on Emotion Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, CA.
• McFarland, S., Tan, T. Y., & De France, K. (2022, July). Healthy technology use and affective well-being: The protective role of online citizenship and school preparation. In R. Baumsteiger and K. De France (chairs), Adolescents' affective experiences: The influence of home, school, technology, and a school-based program [Conference Symposium]. International Society for Research on Emotion Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, CA.
• McFarland, S., Tan, T. Y., Baumsteiger, R., DeFrance, K., & Hoffmann, J. (2022, August).Technology use and affective well-being in adolescents across different grades [Poster presentation]. American Psychological Association Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, MN.

• Highlights of our Spring 2021 Cohort of Schools
• Check out the inspirED team projects possible through this grant by visiting inspirED blog page

Funding Source: Institute of Education Sciences

Team Members: Marc Brackett, Chris Cipriano, Sara Rimm-Kaufmann (University of Virginia), Jason Downer (University of Virginia), Rebecca Rubin, Dena Simmons

The Goal 3 Efficacy Study examines the impact of RULER, a widely-used, whole-school social and emotional learning (SEL) intervention, compared to a business-as-usual counterfactual. The study examines the impact of RULER implemented in ideal conditions on school climate and teacher well-being, classroom climate, and students’ social and emotional skills and academic outcomes across students in grades 1-5. This study will result in “evidence regarding the impact of a fully developed intervention on relevant student education outcomes relative to a comparison condition using a research design that meets the Institute’s What Works Clearinghouse evidence standards.”

Funding Source: Oak Foundation and American Educational Research Association

Team Members: Chris Cipriano, Lauren Naples, Elizabeth Kilgallon, Miranda Wood, Kaveri Sehgal, Gabbie Schlichtmann (EdTogether), Amanda Cook (EdTogether), Abigail Eveleigh

This is a collaborative initiative between the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and EdTogether to create a more equitable education system through social and emotional learning (SEL) by catalyzing and supporting sustained change toward the meaningful inclusion of all students. Our goal is to systematically identify specific malleable factors within the design and implementation of RULER that can be improved under the UDL framework, and articulate strategies to ensure equal opportunities to access, fully participate in, and benefit from RULER. Results will directly inform and impact RULER offerings, providing the foundation for an empirical investigation of the efficacy of RULER for students with learning differences.

Together with our educator and student partners, we are demonstrating how SEL can be improved by the integration of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) through:

• A rigorous UDL analysis of the barriers to students with learning differences within RULER, as well as the outcomes for students with learning differences therein,
• Applied illustrations of what RULER done well looks like for students with learning differences in general and special education classrooms, and
• A systematic suite of UDL-SEL recommendations and practical implications for the field to promote the inclusion of, access for, and study of students with learning differences.

Funding Source: Yale China Fund for Emotional Intelligence

Team Members: Craig Bailey, Marc Brackett, Whitney Sanders, Lely Evans, Zhenlan Wang, Fuzhe Xie, Xiaosong Gai & Songliang Li (Northeast Normal University), Dan Kang (Hunan Normal University) Clarice Lee, Ruhi Khan, Nicole Park, Colleen Cassidy, Gina Schnur, Jinjia Yu, Tianxin Yang, Yile Zou, Yingjie Zhang, Jiangping Liu, Meiko Lin, Daphnee Nicolas, Sarah Kadden, Miriam Miller, Huicong Zhang

The purpose of this project is to lay the groundwork for introducing and infusing RULER into Kindergartens across China as well as studying SEL, RULER, and emotional intelligence. Beginning in 2018, project activities include:

• Developing Chinese-based strategic partners to support RULER in local Kindergartens and to promote research
• Translating and culturally adapting RULER's approach to school-based SEL for use in Chinese Kindergartens based on our emerging understanding of the role of emotional intelligence with Chinese children and their teachers
• A systematic review of SEL in China
• A meta-analysis of school-based SEL programming in China
• An investigation of how teachers use stories for children’s SEL
• Cultural adaptation and validation of assessments of children’s emotional intelligence

Partners for this project include the Yale Center Beijing, Yale China Association, Northeast Normal University, Fujian Preschool Education College, Hunan Normal University. More information can be found on our Open Science Framework page.

Funding Source: Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI)

Team Members: Chris Cipriano & Luma Mufleh (Fugees Academy)

The goals of this project are to share knowledge and expertise to (1) promote educator authenticity, retention, and emotional well-being among the Fugees Academy Faculty and Staff and (2) promote cultural responsiveness of RULER tools and educator trainings. To achieve this goal, we are immersing ourselves in each institution’s programming and philosophy, sharing knowledge and resources, and building an integrated participatory action research plan to support the implementation of culturally responsive RULER for Fugees Academy faculty and students.

Learn more at the Fugees Academy website.

Funding Source: Hartford Foundation for Public Giving

Team Members: Craig Bailey, Whitney Sanders, Kathryn Lee, Tony Nelson (Fathers in Education), Lovey Brown*, Vincent Hatten*, Ivoni Montes*, Carmen Morales*, Bobie Jo Parker*, Susan Sarmiento*, Maria Vasquez* (*Parent Leaders*), Nicole Park, Lauren Costello, Daphnee Nicolas, Elisa Laudati, Sarah Kadden

This three-year research-to-practice partnership (2018-2023) is tasked with ensuring coordinated, high-quality SEL programming and supports for the early childhood educators, young children, and families in and around Hartford, CT. The Initiative

• Offers RULER access to family-based childcare providers in the Hartford region
• Fosters a collaboration local Parent Leaders to develop brief, accessible, relevant, and culturally responsive and inclusive content to enhance family and family-childcare provider emotional intelligence
• Leverages existing community stakeholders in finding unique ways to evaluate community impact of RULER with new and existing data.

First piloted in Norwalk, Connecticut with funding from the Grossman Family Foundation, this Initiative exists alongside the Bridgeport Early Childhood SEL Initiative across Connecticut to provide access to RULER at the community level in early childhood settings and in the home by emphasizing mutual collaboration, intentionality, and shared vision, a direct parallel to implementation within a district or within a school for systematic approaches to SEL.

Funding Source: St. Luke’s School

Team Members: Jessica Hoffmann, Jennifer Seibyl, Christina Cipriano, Linda Torv

This three-year collaboration between the YCEI and St. Luke’s School is focused on how schools can build policies and practices that establish and maintain the well-being of the entire school community including students, educators, leaders and families. This project includes exploring the utility of a suite of assessment tools built by the YCEI and their accompanying resources for next steps and supports, and repeated learning circles with educators, students, and families to uncover best practices, obstacles, and successes in whole-school community well-being work.

Funding Source: iRead Foundation, Shenzhen, China

Team Members: Zhenlan Wang and Craig Bailey

SEL Rubric for Children’s Storybooks in China is a two-year project that aims at creating an accessible and practical SEL Rubric by integrating empirical research on storybooks and Chinese culture. The Rubric will be created based on the analysis of 200 children’s storybooks (1st year) and the research of teachers’ application of the rubric (2nd year). Upon the completion of this project, we will publish the Rubric along with an SEL book list.