The Piloting of a Mini Social-Emotional Program for Kindergartners
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Ruth Stolovitz
CoPIs:
Isabella Taormina, Amanda Nunes, Shoshana Linfield
College:
The College of Health Professions and Human Services
Major:
Clinical Psychology
Faculty Research Advisor(s):
Adrienne Garro, Jessica Trindade
Abstract:
Social-emotional competence sets the foundation for young children and has lasting positive effects on academic success and well-being (Graziano et al., 2007). Previous research has found that less than 50% of children have the skills to manage and understand their emotions (Ashdown & Bernard, 2012). Social-emotional learning (SEL) curricula teach students how to identify and regulate their emotions (Mondi et al., 2021). The current project implements an emotion-focused curriculum for kindergarteners, emphasizing awareness and understanding of emotions. The program was developed as a tier 1 intervention that consolidates research on mindfulness and emotion regulation techniques (Hemmeter et al., 2016; Sun et al., 2021). The piloting of the program began in January 2024 in a public kindergarten classroom in a metropolitan area of NJ. The curriculum spans ten weeks, with one session per week focusing on different emotions and skills. Students learn about six emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, worry, and embarrassment. The remaining sessions focus on emotion recognition and regulation. Graduate students, under the supervision of Dr. Adrienne Garro and Dr. Jessica Trindade, use books and art-based activities to engage students in the lessons. To assess the feasibility of the program and carry out quality improvement, qualitative data is gathered through survey and interview feedback from teachers and parents. While the goal of this phase is to improve upon the existing curriculum, some data was collected for internal use. Students’ emotional awareness skills were assessed with an emotion identification task before introducing any content (Sidera et al., 2017). The next phase of the project will assess the effectiveness of the curriculum in improving students’ emotion recognition and regulation skills using a pretest-posttest within-groups design. It is hypothesized that there will be an improvement in students’ skills after participation in the program. The long-term goal of this project is to provide a short, easily administered curriculum that educators, school psychologists, and/or counselors can implement with younger children to support emotion-based learning.