Book Description

There is an increasing concern for our children’s social-emotional health. Social-emotional learning programs have been found to have a positive impact on children’s social-emotional health. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of physical education with an embedded social-emotional component on elementary-aged students’ self-management skills and social awareness. Procedures: Two 4th grade elementary classes were used in this experiment. One class, the experimental group, had social-emotional components embedded into six of their physical education classes while the other class, the control group, did not. It was hypothesized that the experimental class receiving a social-emotional component during six physical education classes will increase their social-emotional health more than the control class who will not be receiving a social-emotional component. Each group will improve from preassessment to post-assessment; however, the experimental group’s improvement will be greater. Methods: This experiment used a survey from Panorama Education to collect data on the student’s perceptions of their self-management and social awareness skills. Both the experimental and control group were given a pre-assessment survey before the first class and a post-assessment survey after the last lesson. Results: There was a statistically significant (p=0.04) difference when comparing the experimental and the control group’s post-assessments and their ANOVA interaction (p = 0.01). The experimental group’s post-assessment for social awareness increased more than the control group’s post-assessment. However, there was no effect on self-management. Conclusions and/or recommendations: These findings support the growing research on the importance of SEL programs in schools. Educators can use this information to improve their educational programs.