Teacher training improves preschool children's social–emotional well-being

 Social–Emotional Learning (SEL) plays a vital role in shaping children's ability to understand emotions, build healthy relationships, and navigate social environments effectively. Developing social–emotional skills in the early years is critical for children's overall growth and future academic success. A lack of emphasis on SEL makes children more susceptible to risky behaviors, substance abuse, delinquency, violence, and mental health challenges. 

The school curricula predominantly emphasize language and cognitive development, and SEL often remains on the periphery of classroom instruction. Consequently, a notable disparity exists in policies, interventions, and services aimed at addressing socioemotional issues at the school level.

Led by Dr. Seema Lasi of Aga Khan University in collaboration with researchers from Ball State University, the study demonstrates that structured teacher training in SEL significantly improves classroom environments and enhances preschool children's well-being in Pakistan.

Published in ECNU Review of Education (2026), the study examines the impact of a four-month SEL professional development program for preschool teachers in public schools across Karachi. The findings highlight the transformative role of teacher training in addressing early childhood behavioral and emotional challenges.

Transforming Classrooms Through Teacher Development

The quasi-experimental study involved 12 public schools, 24 teachers, and 410 preschool children, comparing outcomes between intervention and control groups. Teachers in the intervention group received 48 hours of SEL-focused training, along with ongoing mentorship to implement strategies in real classroom settings.

Results showed significant improvements in classroom quality across key domains, including:

• Emotional support (p = .036)
• Classroom organization (p = .009)
• Instructional support (p < .001)

These improvements reflect stronger teacher–student interactions, better classroom management, and more engaging instructional practices.

Positive Impact on Children's Well-Being

Children in classrooms led by trained teachers exhibited meaningful gains in social–emotional outcomes, including:

• Significant reduction in overall behavioral difficulties (p < .001)
• Improved peer relationships (p < .001)
• Increased prosocial behaviors such as cooperation and empathy (p < .001)

Notably, the proportion of children with behavioral difficulties was substantially lower in intervention schools compared to control schools. While improvements in emotional symptoms, conduct problems, and hyperactivity were not statistically significant, researchers emphasize that the overall gains highlight the effectiveness of SEL-focused teacher training.

Addressing a Critical Gap in Education

Social–emotional learning remains underdeveloped in many low- and middle-income countries, including Pakistan, where a significant proportion of children enter school lacking essential emotional and social skills. The study underscores that teacher preparedness is central to addressing this gap.

“Teachers are at the heart of early childhood development. When equipped with the right tools and support, they can create nurturing environments that profoundly influence children's lifelong outcomes,” said Lasi et al.

Policy and Practice Implications

The research highlights the urgent need to integrate SEL into teacher education programs and early childhood policies. Key recommendations include:

• Embedding SEL training in pre-service and in-service teacher education
• Scaling up professional development programs in public schools
• Prioritizing classroom interaction quality alongside curriculum delivery
• Designing culturally relevant SEL curricula tailored to local contexts

The study also demonstrates that effective educational interventions are feasible even in resource-constrained settings, offering a scalable model for similar contexts.

A Step Toward Holistic Education

The findings add to a growing body of international evidence showing that early investment in social–emotional development leads to long-term benefits in education, health, and social outcomes. By strengthening teachers' capacity to promote SEL, Pakistan can take a critical step toward more inclusive and holistic early childhood education.

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Journal

ECNU Review of Education

DOI

10.1177/20965311261421647 

A new approach to teacher professional learning through classroom assessment

 

Teachers engage with classroom assessment data every day, but barely as an intentional tool for their own professional growth. Researchers from Singapore have developed a novel methodological tool — the Classroom Assessment-Informed Reflection Laddering (CAIRL) method — that uses teachers' own classroom assessment activities as a springboard for deep professional reflection and practice change. Dr. Heng Jiang and Mr. Saminathan s/o Moghan from the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, shared their findings from a single case study, as part of their larger-scale research project on CAIRL.

The CAIRL method draws on Dewey's theory of reflective thinking, Argyris's laddering framework, and situated theories of teacher professional learning to construct a three-tier structure linking observable classroom assessment results to pedagogical intention to underlying values and beliefs. By making this reasoning visible, CAIRL enabled the teacher in the study to identify and challenge deeply held assumptions, a process the researchers characterize as analogous to double-loop learning. As the researchers noted, CAIRL created a structured space for teachers to interrogate not just what they do, but why — and whether their beliefs still hold up against the evidence in front of them.

The study challenges the dominant assumption that classroom assessment exists primarily to serve student learning. Instead, it argues that the daily acts of designing, implementing, and interpreting classroom assessments constitute a powerful and underutilized reflective tool for teacher professional growth. Specifically, the study traces one primary school English language teacher in Singapore across four months of lesson observations and post-lesson interviews, using CAIRL — a structured laddering approach that surfaces the purposes, intentions, and reasoning behind teachers' instructional decisions, informed by classroom assessment results. Findings reveal a significant evolution in the novice teacher's professional thinking: from an initial preoccupation with examination preparation and content coverage toward a more adaptive, student-centered pedagogy grounded in close attention to evidence of student learning.

The findings have implications beyond Singapore's high-stakes examination context, speaking to global reform efforts that seek to move teachers from technical compliance toward genuine adaptive expertise and professional judgment.

Recognized with the sole Honorable Mention for the Distinguished Paper Award of the Classroom Assessment SIG at the 2026 American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Conference, this study was subsequently published online in ECNU Review of Education in June 2026.

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Journal

ECNU Review of Education

DOI

10.1177/20965311261450992 

Early Literacy Screening Practices and Outcomes

 

How are schools using literacy screening data to identify students for reading support under Alaska’s early literacy policy? The Alaska Reads Act requires districts to screen students in grades K–3 and assign Individual Reading Improvement Plans (IRIPs) to students who score well below benchmark. The Regional Educational Laboratory Northwest partnered with the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development and the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District to examine how schools use screening data and other information to assign students to IRIPs and determine when students exit those supports within a multi-tiered system of supports for reading.  Key findings include:  Most schools rely primarily on mCLASS literacy screening scores to assign IRIPs, though many consult additional data sources —including other assessments and student work — as well as input from parents, teachers, interventionists, and principals, when deciding whether students should exit IRIP supports.  Students who scored in the “Well Below” benchmark mCLASS performance level had about a 90 percent probability of receiving an IRIP, indicating close alignment with Alaska Reads Act requirements.  About a third of K–3 students in Kenai were assigned an IRIP during the 2023/24 school year.  More than half of students assigned an IRIP exited the plan by the end of the school year.  End-of-year mCLASS benchmark levels were strongly associated with IRIP exit decisions, suggesting schools rely heavily on screening results when determining when students no longer need additional support.  Read the full report and technical appendix at: https://ies.ed.gov/use-work/resource-library/report/descriptive-study/examining-early-literacy-screening-practices-outcomes-kenai-peninsula-borough-public-schools.

1,800 schoolchildren: specific risk factors for bullying and cyberbullying

 Over 1,800 schoolchildren took part in a study by the Laboratory for Studies on Coexistence and Violence Prevention (LAECOVI), focused on specific risk factors for bullying and cyberbullying.

Identifying risk factors is crucial for designing prevention strategies effective against bullying and cyberbullying. A study conducted by the Laboratory for Studies on Coexistence and Violence Prevention (LAECOVI) at the University of Córdoba has jointly analyzed emotional, cognitive, and behavioral risk factors to identify different student profiles and determine which cognitive strategies are associated with them.

"To understand why some young people end up attacking their peers, both physically and online, it's not enough to study aggressive behavior on its own. We also need to understand if there are underlying emotional and cognitive factors driving these behaviors," explained Antonio Cabrera Vázquez, one of the authors of the study published in the journal Psychology of Violence.

To this end, the study used a survey involving nearly 2,000 elementary and secondary school students from 27 schools in Córdoba. It examined emotional variables, such as schadenfreude, a moral emotion associated with satisfaction at the suffering of others; cognitive variables, such as moral disengagement, understood as strategies that allow one to justify harm caused to others; and behavioral variables, represented by aggression in bullying and cyberbullying.

This integrative approach is aligned with the latest research, which addresses bullying from a more comprehensive perspective by considering the interplay of emotional, cognitive, and behavioral factors. "We wanted to see whether the combination of different levels of bullying, cyberbullying, and schadenfreude led to different student profiles, and if the moral disengagement strategies assessed a year earlier could predict belonging to those profiles," said Cabrera Vázquez.

The research team—which also includes Daniel Falla and Eva Romera from the University of Córdoba and Robert Thornberg from Linköping University—identified three distinct student profiles, two of which exhibited low levels of bullying and cyberbullying, while the third displayed more concerning characteristics, reflecting a more hostile and malicious affective pattern associated with greater involvement in aggressive behaviors. This profile was specifically characterized by a combination of high levels of bullying and cyberbullying, with a greater tendency to experience schadenfreude at the suffering of others, especially when that emotion was associated with feelings of rejection, dislike, or aversion toward the victim.

Furthermore, considering how students justify these aggressive behaviors, the study examined whether various moral disengagement strategies assessed a year earlier could predict subsequent classification into these profiles. The results showed that blaming the victim was the only strategy that significantly predicted belonging to the profile characterized by high levels of schadenfreude, bullying, and cyberbullying. Specifically, students who were more inclined to dehumanize victims and hold them responsible for what happened to them were nearly four times more likely to fall into this highly concerning profile a year later.

Thus, dehumanization emerges as a relevant factor in understanding the development of profiles where schadenfreude and aggressive behaviors converge. "If we curb the tendency to blame victims for what happens to them, or to think they deserve the harm they suffer, we may reduce the likelihood of students falling into higher-risk profiles," concluded Cabrera Vázquez.

Reference:

Cabrera-Vázquez, A., Thornberg, R., Falla, D., & Romera, E. M. (2026). The identification of profiles in bullying, cyberbullying, and schadenfreude and their relationship to moral disengagement: A latent profile analysis. Psychology of Violence. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/vio0000692

Shaping Major Choice: The Role of High School Counselors

 Existing studies show that high school counselors can significantly influence students' graduation rates and college enrollment; less is known about their ability to direct students toward particular fields of study. 

This study evaluates an information intervention aimed at increasing counselors' awareness of economics, a major often associated with misconceptions about its content and career opportunities, and characterized by substantial under-representation of women and racial and ethnic minorities. Counselors from randomly selected Texas high schools were invited to participate in a one-day information workshop on the economics major. 

The authors evaluate the impact of the intervention on students' major preferences and outcomes using application and admissions data from a large public university attended by many graduates from the treatment schools, as well as enrollment and course-taking records from the Texas Education Research Center. 

The intervention led to substantial increases in interest in economics at the college application stage, particularly among high-achieving women, but did not lead to significant changes in college major outcomes. 

The authors conclude that high school counselors can play an important role in shaping students' field-of-study preferences, but translating preferences into enrollment requires additional exposure and reinforcement.

An Informational Rationale for Viewpoint Neutrality in Education

 Consider a society that faces uncertainty about a payoff-relevant state and wants to train students to make correct decisions. In educational institutions, students learn from their teachers, but they also get outside information, and later learn from peers. 

In this study the authors show that privately Bayesian actions need not be optimal inputs into social learning: when students' actions reflect teacher-side information that is correlated across peers, observing many such actions can give this information excessive social weight. A social planner may therefore optimally reduce the precision of instruction, inducing students to rely more on outside information before their actions become signals for others, and students can end up better informed despite learning less from their teachers.

 The case for a precision cap is stronger when peer interaction is homophilous, because same-teacher information is more likely to survive aggregation, and weaker when outside information is itself systematically distorted. This provides an informational rationale for viewpoint neutrality as an institutional policy: it limits the social overrepresentation of correlated teacher-side information when students mostly learn from peers exposed to similar sources.

Air Pollution and Early Childhood Outcomes

 Many effects of pollution exposure on health and education outcomes of children have been identified, but little is known about education effects on preschool-aged children. 

This study estimates the effect of particulate matter air pollution on preschool attendance using restricted administrative data from the state of Georgia, using thermal inversions, weather phenomena that trap pollutants, as an instrumental variable for pollution. 

A one-unit increase in the county-week average ambient particulate pollution level decreases attendance by around 2 percentage points. Effects seem to be larger for racial minorities and for children with working parents.