Are Changes in Reported Social-Emotional Skills Just Noise? The Predictive Power of Longitudinal Differences in Self-Reports

Prior work has shown that students’ self-reported levels on social-emotional measures predict achievement levels and gains, but we have little evidence on whether within-student changes in self-reports on social-emotional surveys are predictive of changes in theoretically related academic and behavioral outcomes. We use large-scale data from the California CORE districts to examine whether changes in individual reports on social-emotional measures from one school year to the next predict changes in state math and English language arts test scores and attendance. We show that changes in self-reported social-emotional measures predict changes in both achievement and attendance. These results are robust across model specifications. Moreover, the relationships between SEL and achievement and attendance outcomes are consistent across student subgroups.