The Development of a Measure of Parent and Teacher Perceptions of the Importance of Social-Emotional Learning in the Schools

This dissertation presents a project that included two main objectives: 1) creating and validating a scale of teacher and parent perceptions of the importance of social-emotional learning (SEL) in the schools; and 2) examining differences among perceptions of SEL based on a variety of factors. Exploratory factor analyses indicate that all 50 original items related to the importance of including SEL in the schools loaded onto a single factor, SEL attitudes. Additional analyses indicate that this scale was highly reliable. Two additional subscales, academic priority and SEL effectiveness were also highly reliable and significantly correlated to SEL attitudes. The second component of this dissertation examined parent and teacher perceptions of SEL. Results indicate that parents perceive SEL as more effective compared to teachers. General education teachers with children with disabilities in their classrooms rated SEL effectiveness lower compared to general education teachers without children with disabilities in their classrooms and special education teachers. Teachers also rated academic priority significantly differently based upon the grade level that they teach. Future research should further validate the measure created as well as further investigate differences between parent and teacher perceptions of SEL