Social and emotional learning (SEL) has been embraced by many schools and districts around the country. Yet in the rush to adopt SEL practices and support student SEL competencies, educators often lack assessment tools that are valid, reliable, and easy to use.
Washoe County School District in Nevada has moved the needle on SEL assessment with support from an IES Researcher-Practitioner Partnership grant. The district partnered with the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) to develop the Social and Emotional Competency Assessments (WCSD-SECAs)—free, open-source instruments that schools can use to measure SEL competencies of students in 5th through 12th grade.
Long and short versions of the SECA are available to download from the school district's website, along with a bank of 138 items across 8 SEL domains that schools around the country can use to modify SECA assessments for their local context. The long-form version has been validated and aligned to the CASEL 5 SEL competency clusters and WCSD SEL standards (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making). The assessment is also available in Spanish, and the Metro Nashville Public schools offer the assessment in 8 additional languages.
Students complete the long-form SECA as part of Washoe's Annual Student Climate Survey by rating how easy or difficult SEL skills are for them. Under the Social Awareness domain, students respond to items such as “Knowing what people may be feeling by the look on their face” or “Learning from people with different opinions than me.” Under the Responsible Decision Making domain, students rate themselves on skills such as “Saying 'no' to a friend who wants to break the rules” and “Thinking of different ways to solve a problem.”
The SECA is one component of Washoe County's larger School Climate Survey Project that is marking its 10th anniversary this year. Washoe provides district-level and school-level reports on school climate to support the district's commitment to providing safe, caring, and engaging school environments for all of Washoe's students and families.
Written by Emily Doolittle, NCER's Team Lead for Social Behavioral Research
