What amount of growth can be expected in DESSA-mini or DESSA results?

Overview

The DESSA-mini and DESSA have been used to evaluate growth in students’ social and emotional competence across a variety of educational settings and with different curricula and interventions. Across these studies, we have generally found that districts who implement high-quality social and emotional programming well will typically see an improvement of about 2-3 T-score points during a semester and 4-5 T-score points across a school year, on average for all students in aggregate. This translates to about half a standard deviation improvement during a single school year which would be regarded as a moderate impact in the research literature. A good rule of thumb for interpretation (based on Cohen’s effect size) is that change of only 1 T-score point is negligible.  A change of 2, 3, or 4 points is a small change.  A 5, 6, or 7-point change is a medium change, and any change of 8 points or more is a large change. 

When examining change in students’ social and emotional competence across multiple school years, we have generally found that this growth over time was non-linear. In other words, we have observed a “summer slide” (similar to that seen on academic measures) in which students’ scores decline over the summer months, but then improve again across the following school year, often ending the year with higher scores on average than those observed at the same time the previous school year.

Importantly, the above findings represent average change in scores when looking at all students scores together. Across many evaluations, we have also observed variability in individual student’s social and emotional growth trajectories. Specifically, we have observed that students who initially begin the school year with low social and emotional competence (i.e., Need for Instruction range on the DESSA-mini or DESSA), demonstrate significantly faster and larger growth over a school year compared to their peers who have typical or strong social and emotional competence at baseline. Additionally, the amount of change observed can also depend on factors such as how much risk and adversity students are experiencing outside the school setting.

At the school level, the amount of growth over time can also be impacted by factors such as the degree to which teachers implement programs with fidelity. In a recent study, we found that students showed more growth in their social and emotional competence when their teacher implemented the program well.

References:

Lee, J., Shapiro, V. B., Robitaille, J. L., & LeBuffe, P. A. (2023). Measuring the development of social-emotional competence using behavioral rating scales in the context of school-based social and emotional learning. Social and Emotional Learning: Research, Practice, and Policy, 2, 100015. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sel.2023.100015 

Lee, J., Shapiro, V.B., Robitaille, J.L., & LeBuffe, P.A. (2021, April). Measuring the growth of social-emotional competence in elementary school years using behavioral rating scales. Poster presentation for the Society for Research in Children Development Conference (Virtual).

Shapiro, V.B., Kim, B.K.E., Robitaille, J.L., LeBuffe, P.A., & Ziemer, K.L. (2018). Efficient implementation monitoring in routine prevention practice: A grand challenge for schools. Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, 9(3), 377-394. https://doi.org/10.1086/699153