Assessing social-emotional skills in youth—is a commonly used framework lacking?

A study in the PsyCh Journal uncovered numerous limitations when applying a popular framework for assessing social-emotional skills (such as empathy, persistence, and curiosity) to children and adolescents around the world.

Researchers assessed the framework (the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Survey on Social and Emotional Skills) across 9 countries (US, Canada, China, South Korea, Finland, Colombia, Russia, Portugal, and Turkey). The adult-derived framework, which groups 15 skills into 5 categories aligned with the Big Five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability), was not supported by data from more than 60,000 10- and 15-year-olds across 10 international cities.

The structure of skills changed with age and varied significantly by culture. A 10-year-old's “skill map” looked more like a blended mix, while a 15-year-old’s map showed more distinctions but was still not the same as the adult map the test was based on. Also, the pattern of skills looked different in different cities—from Houston to Helsinki to Suzhou—suggesting that local values, education systems, and social expectations influence which skills cluster together.

“Our findings challenge the assumption that a single, adult-based framework of social emotional skills works equally well for children and adolescents across different cultures,” said corresponding author Bo Ning, PhD, of Shanghai Normal University. “To measure these skills fairly and effectively, we need age-appropriate and culturally-sensitive approaches.”

URL upon publication: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pchj.70108

New guide for AI in higher education

 With artificial intelligence tools available on every phone, laptop and tablet, higher education has struggled to implement consistent recommendations for how and when AI can be used. A new national guide seeks to change that.

"The Norton Guide to AI-Aware Teaching" (W.W. Norton and Co., 2026) will offer instructors strategies for teaching in the age of AI, whether the instructor hopes to embrace the technology, prohibit it or strike a balance in the classroom. The e-book will be available in July, and the hard copy will be published in September.

"This guide is for teachers to start really thinking about their values, learning outcomes and how AI can either complement or complicate those," said Marc Watkins, director of the Mississippi AI Institute for Teachers at the University of Mississippi and co-author of the book.

"That takes a lot of work and a lot of time. We're trying to make many different options available for faculty and to show different approaches that we've seen work at other universities, as well as what we're using at our university."

Watkins, who is also a lecturer in the Ole Miss Department of Writing and Rhetoric, wrote the guide alongside Annette Vee, associate professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, and Derek Bruff, associate director of the University of Virginia's Center for Teaching Excellence.

The guide helps instructors handle the ubiquity of artificial intelligence, Vee said. A recent study in the journal Science found that approximately one-third of college students at major public universities are using AI on a regular basis, but only 9% have used it to cheat.

"Students are using this technology in a variety of ways, and it's not just cheating," Vee said. "They're using it to augment their reading, understand subjects better, plan study guides and structure their study habits. Students with disabilities are even using it for accessibility purposes."

Students can record lectures on their phones, use the built-in, AI-powered transcription system to turn those lectures into notes and use another AI to condense those notes into summaries, flash cards and slideshow presentations.

"Cheating is an issue, and we recognize that, but when we paint all (AI use) as cheating, it paints any student who uses it in a negative light," Vee said. "There are a lot of policies that are banning AI outright without an understanding of how students are using it and the ways that AI can be used productively."

Students, too, need guidance on when AI can improve learning and when it hampers it, Vee said.

"We use the word discernment in the book often," she said. "We have to help students discern when to use AI, when not to and how to evaluate those outputs.

"I think it's important for us – even if you're not teaching with AI – to make it clear you're not using AI in your classroom and tell students the reasons why. Because there are good reasons not to use it, but there are good reasons to use it, too."

Other faculty, seeing how common AI has become in certain jobs, feel pressured to help students learn to use the technology to prepare them for careers, Watkins said.

"The reaction you get from faculty is mixed, and for good reason," Watkins said. "A lot of faculty are upset by the fact that Silicon Valley has foisted this upon us, and they're concerned about students and the skill loss that can come with that.

"There's also a pressure to try to upskill students for the workforce and what role AI plays in their careers. We're not trying to be AI cheerleaders, but students do need to learn about AI, warts and all."

The book is neither meant to instruct faculty to use AI nor tell them not to use it, Watkins said. Instead, it offers a guide for deciding whether AI is right for a particular classroom and how to implement regulations that set expectations for students early.

"This technology is very powerful, but we need ground rules about disclosure and transparency when it's used, if it's used," he said. "We're trying to give them different pathways so if they want to use or refuse AI, here's what that might look like in your class and here's how to communicate that to your students.

"Regardless of whether you use it or to what extent you use it, there have to be ground rules in place. It's just not realistic to take your entire class up on academic misconduct charges when students don't understand the technology and instructors haven't asserted the guidelines."

Guidance for schools looking to create outdoor education programs

 Just outside the doors of Stearns Junior-Senior High School in Millinocket, Maine, students and staff have access to world-class outdoor recreation opportunities: paddling, mountain biking, skiing and, of course, hiking in nearby Baxter State Park.

For Stearns English teacher Anna Loome, the region’s natural resources serve as a classroom where she provides outdoor instruction to middle and high school students. The classes cover the fundamentals of wilderness preparedness and safety, including navigation, trail building and maintenance and outdoor cooking, as well as the skills needed to take part in outdoor activities for all seasons. Loome has even led students on overnight trips to Haskell Hut in Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument.

 “We have a mix of students who have done a lot of things already, and students who have never done any of it. So we try to offer something for everyone,” Loome said. “My goal is to help kids get access to the skills they need to participate in a lot of the amazing recreational activities we have right in our backyard.” 

While some schools like Stearns have offered outdoor programming for decades, others struggle to provide such learning opportunities. That’s why a new study led by University of Maine researchers and published in The Rural Educator identifies strategies to make it easier for schools to make outdoor education part of their school curricula and culture.

“There’s a lot of research that shows decreased behavioral issues, better self-regulation, increased motor-skill development, improved social skills. Some research suggests that it can help with chronic absenteeism,” said Lauren Jacobs, the study’s lead author and senior lecturer of outdoor leadership at UMaine. “What our study allows is to identify some real-world solutions to common barriers or problems that could help other schools achieve the desired outcome of providing more opportunities to get kids outside.”

Maine, like other states, is working to make outdoor education a greater part of the public school experience for all children across the state.

The study builds on research Jacobs conducted for her doctoral dissertation at UMaine. For that project, she examined nine PreK-12 rural schools in Maine during the 2021-22 school year to better understand what factors facilitated or hindered outdoor learning and activities.

Lessons from a successful model

The new study examined a rural Maine school that stood out for the breadth of its outdoor learning opportunities. Through interviews with teachers, administrators, parents and community partners, Jacobs identified several factors that helped make outdoor education successful, including strong community support, collaboration among staff, dedicated outdoor learning spaces and a school culture that valued learning outside the classroom.

Jacobs interviewed members of the school community and observed students during the school day. The COVID-19 pandemic was also cited as a facilitator because it encouraged teachers and students to spend more time outdoors, where the virus was less likely to spread.

Overall, Jacobs said the study revealed a strong culture of outdoor learning.

“This is a school where the outdoors is part of the physical education curriculum at all grade levels, and where there are specific outdoor education classes at upper-levels,” she said. “It’s incorporated into the general education classroom, teachers receive professional development, and community members, especially parents, support outdoor learning.” 

Although it was not one of the schools included in Jacobs’ research, Loome said she recognizes many of the same characteristics at Stearns. For instance, her school has dedicated outdoor learning spaces, and she has been able to take professional development classes with Jacobs to better align her curriculum with state and national learning standards. 

Stearns also has a variety of community partners. Juniors and seniors can do the Outdoor Leadership and Skills Program at the Northern Penobscot Tech Region 3 center in Lincoln, which offers preparation for the Registered Maine Guide Exam. There’s a gear library in Millinocket where anyone from the community can borrow equipment to help them explore the outdoors. The nonprofit Friends of Katahdin Woods and Waters has a place-based learning program that Loome said has been a valuable collaborator, connecting the school with gear and learning opportunities.

Overcoming barriers

The study also identified some factors that may impede outdoor opportunities for schools. Although time management was viewed as a facilitator, time was also seen as a barrier, especially when it came to issues like professional development for teachers, documenting student outcomes and upholding curriculum standards. Other obstacles included making sure students and staff were prepared with the proper gear, as well as weather conditions. 

“One of the things we found through the interviews was that the positive outlier school did things to address these challenges,” Jacobs said. “For example, to address issues of time and time management, they schedule PE (physical education) classes back-to-back with science classes so kids have the opportunity to be outside for both while spending less time transitioning. 

“Another thing they did was create safe spaces for teachers to bring students outside. The school has a dedicated outdoor classroom space that includes woods, timber frame structures, a garden, an orchard and a barn,” she said. “A lot of community groups are willing to collaborate with schools to make these types of spaces available.”

For other teachers who are interested in incorporating outdoor education into their schools, Loome offers this piece of advice: You’re not going to be the best at every activity and that’s OK. 

“I’m not the best mountain biker in the world. In fact, some of my students are probably better than me, but I think it’s a really good way to model how to learn something new and push yourself out of your comfort zone,” Loome said. 

Jacobs reached a similar conclusion in analyzing the positive outlier school.

“One of the surprising revelations from the interviews with teachers was when we asked them if they liked outdoor education because they were outdoorsy themselves. A lot of them laughed at the question, because they said they weren’t that into the outdoors, but they did it because they saw the benefits for students,” said Jacobs. “I think that’s a very powerful insight.” 

Jacobs recommends that schools interested in expanding outdoor programming focus on making time for activities during the school day, aligning outdoor learning with standards across the curriculum, creating outdoor opportunities that are relevant to their students and the communities they serve, and keeping the sustainability of any efforts in mind.

“There’s a lot of planning involved to make these programs successful, but the long-term rewards for kids and rural communities is worth the investment,” Jacobs said.

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Journal

The Rural Educator

DOI

10.55533/2643-9662.1526 

College students with highest distress use AI for mental health at elevated rates

 

College students have rapidly adopted generative AI, but critical questions remain about its use for mental health support. In a study co-led by investigators at Mass General Brigham, 18% of surveyed college students reported using artificial intelligence (AI) for mental health. Students with more severe mental health symptoms were more likely to do so. The findings are published in the Journal of Affective Disorders.

“College students who are most drawn to AI for mental health may also be the most vulnerable to its risks,” said lead author Cindy H. Liu, PhD, director of the Developmental Risk and Cultural Resilience Laboratory in the Mass General Brigham Departments of Pediatrics and Psychiatry. “College students who are struggling may seek out AI, and we worry that these unregulated tools could stand in for human support. At the same time, many students clearly find these tools useful, which is a reason to understand where they help and where they fall short.”

Liu and her colleagues analyzed data from the 2024–2025 Healthy Minds Study, an annual web-based survey on mental health and related experiences among U.S. college students. Among 675 students from two institutions, those with severe mental health symptoms reported AI use for mental health at rates higher than the 18% observed overall. Moderate depression, severe depression, severe anxiety, and suicidality were each associated with an approximately two-fold higher likelihood of AI use for mental health. Asian students also had about twice the odds of using AI for mental health.

“Conversations with AI for mental health may pose a risk because of how appealing they are: AI can act as a relational partner that is always available, never rejects, and offers unconditional validation,” said Liu. “We don’t yet know whether using general-purpose AI for mental health is beneficial or whether it undermines critical capacities such as emotional regulation or perspective-taking.”

The investigators provide actionable guidance. They note that AI platforms should embed crisis detection and referral mechanisms, institutions should consider how to support students who may turn to AI when formal care may feel inaccessible—a pattern seen among students with severe depression and Asian students—and mental health practices should seek to understand how patients are using these tools alongside or in place of formal care.

Authorship: In addition to Liu, Mass General Brigham authors include Wenbo Zhang, Felix Lou, and Chang Zhao. Additional authors include Angela Chow and Tiffany Yip.

Disclosures: Liu serves as an advisor for youth mental health for Surgo Health, The Asian American Foundation, and a youth-oriented project funded by The Manton Foundation. All other authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Funding: None.

Paper cited: Liu CH et al. “Clinical and sociodemographic predictors of AI use for mental health among college students” Journal of Affective Disorders DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2026.122058

Writing with AI demands more thought from students, not less

Writing with AI can look deceptively simple. Effortless, even.

Type in a prompt and a polished paragraph appears in seconds. Tidy, confident, clean.

But that apparent ease is also deceiving, says Abram Anders, associate professor of English and the Jonathan Wickert Professor of Innovation at Iowa State University.

“Writing with AI doesn’t take the work out of writing,” he said. “It changes it.”

In a new study published in Computers and Composition, Anders and co-author Emily Dux Speltz, an Iowa State alum and assistant professor in the Department of Humanities & Communication at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, suggest the biggest hurdle in teaching students to write with AI isn’t the technology — it’s the students’ assumptions about what writing is.

“Students often expect AI to function as a shortcut, but the truth is, AI-assisted writing demands more thought from students, not less,” said Anders, who also serves as associate director of the Student Innovation Center at Iowa State. “As a tool, AI only handles the surface-level writing, and the real heavy lifting — idea formation, judgment, revision strategy and quality control — remains with the student writer.”

Crossing threshold concepts

To conduct the study, Anders and Dux Speltz designed an experimental “AI and Writing” course that followed 38 undergraduate students from 22 majors as they learned to collaborate with generative AI tools over the course of two semesters. The students completed structured assignments, reflected on their process and documented how their thinking changed as they experimented with AI tools.

At the start of the course, Anders said students carried a variety of assumptions, including “better tools should require less effort” and “AI will do the work for me.” But reality quickly challenged those beliefs, he added, with one student reflecting, “I had to learn how to think about my thinking.”

What also emerged, the researchers found, were three “threshold concepts” — or big ideas — that students need to understand before they can write effectively with AI.

The first? Writing with AI is experimental, and students must learn to try, test and tinker. 

“AI isn’t going to provide a ‘perfect’ answer or automatically spit out what you need,” Anders said. “It requires trial and error — trying, testing, revising and trying again.”

The researchers said some students reported they initially treated AI like a search engine: enter a vague prompt, accept whatever comes back. But as the course progressed, they learned that effective prompting required planning, clarity and rhetorical awareness — the same skills strong writers use without AI.

Which brings us to the second threshold concept: writing with AI still requires human expertise.

“AI writes in confident sentences, uses the right tone and sounds smart,” Anders said. “But that polish can trick students into trusting it, even when it’s wrong, shallow or missing the point entirely.”

This potential pitfall is sometimes to referred as the “fluency trap,” Anders said.

However, once students learn to read AI content critically and question it, they begin to see that fluency is not the same as understanding.

“It’s crucial that students learn to interrogate what AI produces and not just edit it,” Anders said. “This means checking claims, refining logic and ensuring the writing aligns with different expectations related to different disciplines — all work that requires human judgment.”

This also leads into the idea of ownership, which Anders and Dux Speltz address with a third threshold concept: writing with AI should ultimately augment human agency, not replace it.

“Students must recognize that while AI can generate text, it can’t generate purpose — only the writer can do that,” Anders said. “Generative AI can’t decide what it’s arguing, what matters or why the writing exists. It’s a tool that requires human direction, judgement and boundaries.”

The researchers describe this as a shift from “outsourcing work to orchestrating it.” 

“After crossing the third threshold concept, students are using AI to explore possibilities, test ideas and refine thinking rather than to avoid the cognitive load of writing,” Anders said.

Why this research matters now

As AI tools become more common in academic, professional and everyday writing, Anders and Dux Speltz say students will not only need technical proficiency, but also a deeper understanding of how writing works.

“AI changes the workflow, but it doesn’t change the fact that writing is thinking,” Anders said. “Students still have to make decisions, set direction and shape meaning.”

Students who moved through the thresholds as part of the “AI and Writing” course reported becoming more reflective, more critical and more intentional about their choices, the researchers said, and instead of treating AI as a shortcut, they began using it to evaluate ideas, explore alternatives and strengthen their arguments  — a shift that mirrors the demands of real-world writing.

“When students learn to direct AI rather than depend on it, they become stronger writers, and that’s the skill that will matter long after the tools change,” Anders said.

– 30 –

Read the paper: Abram D. Anders & Emily Dux Speltz. “Threshold concepts for writing with AI: Experimentation, expertise, agency," Computers and Composition, Vol. 81. Published online May 2026.

Third-grade impulses linked to lower academic achievement and education into adulthood

Children who showed larger spikes in activity by the end of the school day were found to have lower math and reading scores in school and fewer years of education as adults

Can your behavior in third grade predict outcomes in high school and beyond? A new study, published in Developmental Psychology, says yes.

Using longitudinal data tracking individuals from birth to adulthood, researchers found that third-graders who were more active and impulsive during the school day (indicators of lower self-control) were more likely to have lower academic achievement in elementary and high school, and fewer years of education as adults. 

“Being in the classroom requires some degree of self-control. Children are expected to walk instead of run, keep their hands to themselves, and stay in their seats when the situation requires,” says the study’s lead author Andrew E. Koepp, assistant professor of applied psychology at NYU Steinhardt. Applying this self-control takes effort and by the final ring of the school bell, children have been doing it for hours.”

“Our findings imply that, behaviorally speaking, most children tend to ‘lose it’ a bit by the end of the school day,” notes Koepp. “Interestingly, those who could ‘keep it together’ for longer tended to do better in school and were more likely to achieve educational success long-term.”

Researchers used data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development for outcomes on a cohort born in 1991 whose data were collected from birth to the age of 26. They analyzed information for 747 individuals whose gross motor activity (e.g., running, jumping) was collected in third grade, measured by accelerometer devices worn daily around their waists for up to seven consecutive days.

“We focused on third grade because it marks a transition to middle childhood and greater independent control of behavior,” the authors note in the study.

To assess children’s self-regulation, the researchers evaluated activity levels in addition to teacher assessments regarding hyperactivity, academic achievement measured by math and reading scores, and self-reported data on the highest degree earned by age 26. 

They found that children’s activity tended to increase as the school day progressed. However, third-graders who showed greater spikes in daily activity were rated as more impulsive and disruptive by teachers, had lower math and reading scores in elementary and high school, and completed fewer years of education as adults. Children with more self-control had higher math and reading scores and 20% greater odds of completing a four-year degree.

“We know that self-control helps children ignore distractions and focus on learning. Our findings imply that self-control is not just a personality trait, but something that can wear out and also perhaps something that could be restored,” says Koepp. “As a society, we should value activities like recess that could let children blow off some steam and potentially recover some of this self-control. It might even benefit their learning.”

This research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (2045095) and the National Institutes of Health (P2CHD042849).

 

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Journal

Developmental Psychology

DOI

10.1037/dev0002212 

Teenage risk-taking may reflect a compensatory response to lower baseline dopamine

 

Lower dopamine may drive teen substance use that fades with age– T

eenage risk-taking, such as experimentation with alcohol, cannabis, nicotine and other substances, may reflect a compensatory response to lower baseline dopamine, the brain chemical for reward activity, suggests a new University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine study, published today in Nature Communications.

The study’s nuanced findings challenge previous beliefs associating higher dopamine with risk taking and could reshape how scientists think about brain development in adolescence. While additional research is needed, new evidence suggests that non-invasive measurements of brain dopamine could help inform research into which teens might benefit from additional support while navigating this critical stage of development and growth.

“Our results suggest that, for some teens, risk-taking may act as a way to ‘get the system going’ when dopamine-related reward biology is lower at the start of adolescence,” said lead and corresponding author Ashley Parr, Ph.D., research assistant professor of psychiatry at Pitt. “This finding is a big shift for the field because many people would assume higher dopamine activity would be linked to more substance use.”

Adolescence, a dynamic period during which a young person develops from a child into an adult, is a time when many teens begin testing boundaries and taking risks, including substance use experimentation. This exploratory behavior is well-known to many parents and is considered to be a normal part of growing up, an evolutionarily established biological process that is critical for brain development and progressing toward independence in adulthood.

Among a group of more than 800 teenagers, Parr and her team found that those who had lower levels of dopamine in the brain’s reward system were more likely to try substances than those with higher dopamine. But as the teens got older and their dopamine systems matured, their substance use tended to decrease. Most teens who experiment with substances do not develop substance use disorder as adults, and the researchers found that, as a whole, the study cohort’s substance use declined after the college years.

Unlike many adult-focused studies that measure brain dopamine after years of substance use, here researchers analyzed data from the National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence and Young Adulthood (NCANDA-A), which captured changes in dopamine levels over time, including before, during and after patterns of substance use had been established. That approach helped the scientists understand whether dopamine-related differences may precede substance use behaviors rather than simply reflect the effects of substance exposure over time.

To better understand the biological underpinnings of risk-taking behavior, researchers analyzed more than 6,000 repeated assessments across years of self-reported drinking and drug use, impulsivity and ability to control those impulsive behaviors. Scientists also analyzed participants’ brain scans, collected annually for up to nine years, using a technique that measures brain tissue iron as proxy for dopamine content. This technique was pioneered in the lab of Pitt professor of psychiatry Beatriz Luna, Ph.D., by then-postdoctoral fellow Bart Larsen, Ph.D., now at the University of Minnesota.

The adolescent participants did not all follow the same path. Some showed low or minimal substance use, while others fit a “youth peak” pattern — increasing use earlier in adolescence followed by declines in their mid-twenties. Notably, adolescents in the “youth peak” group had significantly lower dopamine levels in comparison to all other groups, including those whose substance use continued to increase over time, or those who engaged in substance use in adulthood. As participants in the “youth peak” group got older, their brain dopamine levels steadily but rapidly increased, coinciding with the drop in substance use.

“The key question isn’t who experiments, but who continues, and who escalates their use into adulthood,” said Parr. “By tracking teens over time, we were able to pinpoint early brain and behavioral markers that help distinguish temporary, developmentally typical experimentation from patterns that may signal greater long‑term risk.”

This study did not measure social media behavior, though researchers noted that fast-paced, highly reinforcing digital environments may engage related reward processes, making this an important area for future research. Recent reports show that fewer youth are engaging in substance use behavior than in the past, and social media engagement could reflect a modern-day alternate means of reward-seeking. Parr’s findings identifying distinct patterns of risk-taking across adolescence could be used in the future to understand the development of other forms of reward seeking, including social media behavior.

“Risk-taking is a normal part of being a teenager, and for most kids it’s a phase that peaks and then eases,” said Luna, senior author of the study. “Parents can help by steering that drive for new, rewarding experiences toward positive social outlets like team sports, so teens can chase that ‘reward’ in healthier places.”

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Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-026-73611-1