Meta-analysis of social and emotional learning interventions delivered by school counselors

Abstract

The purpose of this meta-analysis was to examine the effectiveness of school counselor-led social and emotional learning (SEL) interventions, including an exploration of the moderators that could influence variations in these effect sizes. Drawing from 28 published articles over the last 20 years in school counseling-affiliated academic journals, results indicated that school counseling SEL interventions result in a small to moderate significant mean effect size (Hedges's g = 0.308). While the moderator analyses did not yield statistically significant results, the different magnitudes of the effect sizes across the subgroups based on these moderators have implications for school counseling practice, research, and policymaking.