School-Based Interventions For Developing Emotional Abilities In Adolescents: A Systematic Review

Abstract

There is a growing body of empirical literature on factors related to school performance and school completion in children and adolescents. Emotional intelligence (EI) abilities were repeatedly associated with school performance and several social and behavioural outcomes in adolescence. Previous studies suggest that emotional abilities trainings in educational setting may have multidimensional positive effects on individual functioning. The present study reviews the available evaluation studies (from 2000 to 2018) of school-based interventions targeting to develop students’ emotional abilities. Overall, the current analysis sought to identify particular aspects related to intervention effects and intervention design addressing the EI abilities, such as: targeted population, theoretical framework of the intervention, program content, etc. Quasi-experimental evaluation studies of the effects of school-based EI development programs were searched in several scientific databases based on specific keywords. The identified studies were filtered according to a list of inclusion criteria, such as the participants-related characteristics (e.g. early, middle or late adolescents, 11 to 19 years old students), emotional intelligence dimensions addressed by the interventions ( i.e. overall emotional intelligence or individual abilities) and other aspects. A number of 13 studies met the inclusion criteria and were further analyzed. Results and recommendations for the further development of intervention programs addressing the emotional abilities of adolescent students are discussed in this paper.

Keywords: Emotional abilities developmentadolescenceschool-based

Introduction

The concept of emotional intelligence (EI) was first introduced as "the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions" (Salovey & Mayer, 1990, p.189). Over the years, the definition of EI was further revised (Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey, 2016) and numerous studies have validated EI as a standard intelligence concept (Mayer, Caruso & Salovey, 1999; Mayer, Salovey, Caruso, & Sitarenios, 2001; MacCann, Joseph, Newman, & Roberts, 2014). Moreover, a growing body of research reported that EI abilities are linked to a variety of outcomes, such as psycho-social development indicators (Ruiz-Aranda et al., 2012), behavioural outcomes (Trinidad, Unger, Chou, & Johnson, 2004), social skills (Ciarrochi, Heaven, & Supavadeeprasit, 2008), educational outcomes (Gil-Olarte Márquez, Palomera Martín, & Brackett, 2006; MacCann, Fogarty, Zeidner, & Roberts, 2011), etc.

Considering the emotional abilities from a developmental perspective, previous research suggested a decline in emotional self-regulation capacities in middle adolescence ( i.e. 14 to 18 years), which may explain, at some extant, the occurrence of several negative developmental outcomes during these years (Bakracevic, Vukman, & Licardo, 2010). However, a large body of research indicates that emotional abilities can be developed or enhanced through specific interventions (Brackett, Rivers, Reyes, & Salovey, 2012; Di Fabio & Kenny, 2011; Ruiz-Aranda et al., 2012).

The school settings were described as propitious environments for developing EI abilities (Mayer & Salovey, 1997). Hence, an increasing number of pre-university and higher education institutions from several countries have become interested in integrating emotional abilities training within schools (Brackett, Rivers, Reyes, & Salovey, 2012; Di Fabio & Kenny, 2011; Ruiz-Aranda et al., 2012; Wigelsworth, Humphrey, & Lendrum, 2013).

Problem Statement

Although several individual studies found positive multidimensional effects of school-based emotional abilities development programs (Brackett, Rivers, Reyes, & Salovey, 2012; Ruiz-Aranda et al., 2012; Di Fabio & Kenny, 2011), some practitioners in the field of education questioned the efficiency of adding such programs, given the laden curricular content and the limited time resources (Zeidner, Roberts, & Matthews, 2002). Hence, in this study we will review the studies addressing the evaluation (outputs and outcomes) of school-based interventions targeting to develop students’ emotional abilities, focusing on interventions’ effects and program’s characteristics.

Research Questions

Overall, this analysis of the literature sought to identify the following aspects related to the EI school-based intervention programs:

1) Which are the intervention effects reported by the evaluation studies?

2) What are the aims of emotional abilities trainings/development programs in school settings?

3) What kind of population was targeted by the intervention programs ( i.e. general school population/at risk students)?

4) What type of emotional abilities are addressed by the identified intervention programs ( i.e. overall emotional intelligence/particular emotional abilities)?

5) What types of activities are included in the intervention programs targeting to develop the adolescent students’ emotional abilities?

6) How is the program delivered to the students ( i.e. implementation personnel, frequency and duration of the intervention sessions)?

7) Which are the underlying theoretical models of the interventions?

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study is to review the empirical literature on school-based programs aiming to develop adolescent students’ EI abilities. The first aim is to summarize the effects of school-based EI development programs. The second aim of the study is to highlight key features related to program design and implementation, such as: theoretical frameworks of the interventions, program aims, implementation characteristics, etc. Hence, the results may have practical implications concerning the development and implementation of further school-based EI abilities development programs.

Research Methods

Findings

The systematic searches based on the key-words combinations led to the identification of 15512 studies. The study titles and abstracts were inspected and a number of 48 studies were identified as relevant to the present analysis. Duplicates have been removed ( i.e. 6 research papers). Furthermore, studies conducted on 1^st to 12^th grade students (e.g. Bavarian et al., 2013) were excluded, as this study is focused on the effects of the interventions in adolescent students’ samples. In addition, studies conducted in special education institutions (e.g. study 3, presented in Merrell, Juskelis, Tran & Buchanan, 2008) were excluded. Thirteen studies met the inclusion criteria and were retained for the analysis. The results are summarized below and in Table 1 .

Conclusion

The present study presents a systematic analysis of the evaluation studies on interventions targeting to develop the emotional abilities of adolescent students. The study summarizes the effects of the school-based emotional intelligence development programs, reported by the evaluation studies. Furthermore, several key aspects related to program design and implementation (e.g. underlying theoretical models, program aims, and implementation characteristics) were identified.

Regarding the effectiveness of school-based emotional development interventions, the results obtained in this analysis suggest that emotional abilities development/training is related to several positive educational, behavioural and developmental outcomes (see Table 1 ). Hence, the results obtained in this paper can be interpreted as a plea for the implementation of school-based emotional abilities training. Based on the results obtained here, such programs may have multidimensional positive effects, extended beyond the educational environment, in the everyday life of students.

Furthermore, the analyzed studies aimed to enhance students’ overall emotional abilities as a final outcome, as well as to positively impact students’ outcomes in different areas of functioning by developing their emotional abilities. Several programs were structured as curriculum-based interventions and the majority of the programs were delivered to students by trained teachers and psychologists. The interventions described in the reviewed studies encompassed formal learning activities, carried out in classrooms, as well as non-formal, complementary activities, such as community-based activities, excursions, mentoring activities, etc. Concerning the theoretical framework of the intervention programs, the results presented above have highlighted several programs based on scientifically sound theoretical models, such as The four branches model of emotional intelligence (Mayer & Salovey, 1997), or Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (2005) framework.

The findings of this study may support clarifying some aspects related to the effectiveness and usefulness of school-based emotional intelligence development programs. Through this analysis, features of effective interventions were presented. Taken together, the results of the present analysis may be further used for developing intervention guidelines for improving emotional intelligence abilities and promoting the positive associated outcomes within schools.

Nevertheless, the present analysis was limited by restrictions to full text access studies. Hence, relevant evaluation studies might have been omitted.

Acknowledgments

The present study was part of the doctoral research project entitled „Identifying psychosocial factors for the development of an educational intervention program for optimizing school performance in adolescence” (PhD candidate: Alexandra Chiș; Supervisor: Associate Professor Alina S. Rusu, PhD). A declaration on publishing selected content of the doctoral dissertation has been submitted to the Institute of Doctoral Studies, Cluj-Napoca, Romania (declaration form available at http://doctorat.ubbcluj.ro/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/DeclaratiePublicareTeza.pdf). A summary of the doctoral dissertation is available at: http://doctorat.ubbcluj.ro/ro/sustinerile-publice-ale-tezelor-de-doctorat/.

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