Developing and Validating the International Social and Emotional Learning Assessment: Evidence from a Pilot Test with Syrian Refugee Children in Iraq

Abstract

The growing focus on social and emotional learning (SEL) for children of primary grade age in conflict-affected and fragile contexts necessitates an understanding of the effects these programs have. However, the dearth of valid and reliable measures of SEL skills in low-resource and crisis contexts has constrained the generation of this evidence. The few tools that have robust psychometric properties were developed for use in high-resource contexts; they often have usage costs, limit adaptations, and focus on adults as respondents. To address this gap, we developed the International Social and Emotional Learning Assessment (ISELA), an adaptable, cost-free, open-source, performance-based measure of self-concept, stress management, perseverance, empathy, and conflict resolution in children between ages 6 and 12. In this study, we focused on establishing the validity and reliability of the ISELA when used with Syrian refugee children in Iraq. We tested the latent structure, criterion validity, internal consistency reliability, and interrater reliability of the ISELA with 620 Syrian children. We were able to establish a theoretically grounded factor structure for all of the skills except perseverance. The ISELA can be used reliably by groups of assessors (Krippendorf's alpha>.86) with strong internal consistency (KR-20>.70). Our findings for criterion validity were promising but preliminary; grade and exposure to interpersonal threats demonstrated a positive association with SEL skills.

Executive function mediates the association between cumulative risk and learning in Ghanaian schoolchildren.

“…At Wave 5, children reported on four risk factors from the International Social Emotional Learning Assessment, which was developed and tested in Uganda and Kenya (ISELA; D’Sa, 2019) and captured children’s lifetime exposure to different types of risk factors. For each of the four risk factors, we created a binary indicator variable (0 = no, 1 = yes).…”

Building an assessment of community‐defined social‐emotional competencies from the ground up in Tanzania

“…A review by Halle and Darling‐Churchill ( 2016 ) identified six SEL measurement tools having strong psychometric properties, all of which had been validated for use only in WEIRD contexts. More recently, two SEL assessments have been validated in populations of Syrian refugees—the International Social‐Emotional Learning Assessment measure of five domains of SEL in Iraq (D’Sa & Krupar, 2019 ), and the Social‐Emotional Response and Information Scenarios in Lebanon (Kim & Tubbs Dolan, 2019 ). Halpin et al ( 2019 ) also found that the SEL domain in the International Development and Early Learning Assessment had the same factor structure across five countries: Afghanistan, Bolivia, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Vietnam.…”

Social Emotional Learning with Refugees in East Africa

“…Evidence on the impact of SEL initiatives with refugee communities is significantly lacking (USAID, 2022) and it remains unclear if and how SEL functions as a tool of cultural imperialism, Westernization, or otherwise. As a result, some scholars have attempted to explore the effects of SEL with refugee and crisis-affected communities (Diazgranados Ferráns et al, 2019;D'Sa & Krupar, 2021;Torrente et al, 2019;. However, much of this work is largely quantitative and preoccupied with the measurement of Western SEL skills and academic achievement, rather than the interrogation of the Western assumptions and post-colonial logics that underly many SEL initiatives in refugee and crisis contexts.…”