Content area
Social-emotional and character development (SECD) programs promote the development of youth’s social-emotional skills (e.g., empathy) and cultivation of pro-social character virtues (e.g., gratitude). When provided universally within the school context, these interventions have been shown to increase students’ social-emotional learning (SEL) and decrease emotional distress. Higher levels of program implementation have been associated with more positive student outcomes. The acquisition of SEL has been hypothesized as a pathway between intervention and mental health outcomes. However, the majority of research has been conducted in schools serving predominantly middle-class and White students.
The current study sought to address this gap by evaluating the association of program implementation quality and student outcomes in an SECD intervention (“MOSAIC”) in three urban middle schools. Participants were 6-8th grade students, predominantly students of color from low-income households, who attended an intervention school for two years (n = 308). Utilizing multilevel modeling, program implementation quality was tested as a predictor of teacher-rated SEL and self-reported negative mental health in Year 1 and Year 2 of the MOSAIC intervention. Teacher-rated SEL was also tested as a mediator of program implementation quality and student negative mental health.
Program implementation quality was found to significantly predict student negative mental health in Year 2, such that students with stronger implementation quality presented with less mental health problems. Program implementation quality did not predict SEL in Year 1 or 2. SEL was not a significant mediator between program implementation quality and negative mental health. However, post-hoc analysis revealed that Fall SEL was a significant moderator of program implementation quality in predicting student negative mental health in Year 2. Students with higher SEL at the start of the year appeared to benefit more from high quality program implementation, resulting in fewer mental health problems at the end of the year.
These findings suggest that in the urban middle school setting, high quality implementation of SECD interventions is positively associated with student mental health outcomes. Results also illuminate the complexity of implementation and measurement in this setting and the need for a context-specific approach for future research in this area.