A scale development for social and emotional learning skills of middle school children

The purpose of the current study is to develop a self-reported social emotional learning (SEL) skills scale based on the Taxonomy Project designed by the Ecological Approaches to Social Emotional Learning (EASEL) Laboratory of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The scale is planned to include 5 of these major dimensions and 56 items for the analysis. A group of 5 students was interviewed prior to administering the study to determine the length of time and the clarity of the scale. Then, the scale is further tested by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with a sample of the 893 5th and 6th graders (10-12 years) from different public schools. Once the proper CFA results are obtained, item response theory (IRT) is utilized to assess item performance in the SEL assessment tool, providing a more profound insight into the measured construct. In brief, to create greater precision and transparency in the field, the current study developed a standardized common SEL skills scale in line with SEL framework provided as an outcome of the Taxonomy Project.