AI Insight
This study analyzed data from 23,560 Asian students to examine how school connectedness influences positive student development through social-emotional skills. Using structural equation modeling, researchers found that school connectedness promotes student development through a sequential pathway: first enhancing interpersonal skills, then improving emotion regulation abilities. Key factors included student-teacher and peer relationships contributing to school connectedness, while energy, stress resistance, and optimism emerged as critical social-emotional skills that ultimately predicted positive emotions and school engagement.
Why it matters
The findings provide evidence-based guidance for educators on how to foster student well-being and engagement by strengthening school relationships and systematically developing specific social-emotional competencies. This research offers a concrete framework for schools to optimize their environment and targeted skill-building programs to support comprehensive student development.
Understand the Science
by Yukai Wei, Xinyi Wang
Based on OECD’s Survey on Social and Emotional Skills (SSES) Asian data (n = 23560), this study examines the pathways through which school connectedness relates to students’ positive development using structural equation modeling. The findings reveal that school connectedness predicts student positive development through serial effect of interpersonal skills and emotion regulation skills. School connectedness is associated with social-emotional skills (student engaging with others). These two social-emotional skills both predict students’ positive development. Student-classmate relationship and perceived relationship with teachers contribute to school connectedness. Energy, stress resistance, and optimism are important social-emotional skills. The outcomes are primarily reflected in positive emotions at school and students’ school engagement. The study elucidates the internal mechanism through which the school environment predicts students’ development via a sequence of social-emotional skills, offering meaningful implications for optimizing school connectedness and cultivating student’s social-emotional skills.