Ng, Betsy Ling Ling

This book approaches the field of socioemotional learning from the perspective of self-determination theory (SDT). The volume examines socioemotional learning (SEL) in schools, higher educational institutions, and workplaces. It is a timely work in its comprehensive presentation of a means of understanding motivation for one’s own work, the motivation of others, stress tolerance, team-working, conflict resolution, as well as dealing with critical situations. Socioemotional learning relates to competencies in a combination of behaviors, cognitions, and emotions that are essential for all individuals’ success, including educational and employment settings. This book presents the most comprehensive discussion of SDT perspectives on socioemotional learning in various domains, ranging from formal to informal settings. This book is an essential resource for social scientists, educators, and researchers working in education, organizational psychology, and family sociology.

This is a conceptual chapter that aims to postulate the framework of self-determination theory (SDT) on promoting socioemotional learning (SEL) in schools. As SDT promotes self-determination in which individuals act according to their own volition toward their goals or desires, it could be the avenue to understand how individuals relate to each other, promoting individual self-efficacy, socioemotional skills, and mental well-being. Hence, the key purpose of the chapter is to identify the strategies of SDT to promote SEL in schools. The main research question is: what are the SDT-based research and strategies that can promote SEL in students? There is a strong relevance of this research in the current educational context. Specifically, SDT-based practices in relation to SEL are not widely investigated, and there is no existing SDT-SEL approach to support teachers, educational leaders, and schools to adopt relevant strategies of SEL. This chapter suggests that SDT-based practices could promote SEL in schools, thereby supporting teachers and students toward better physical and mental well-being. Practical implications and recommendations for this field of research will be discussed. Furthermore, insights into the strategies in SDT to promote SEL in schools will be included.

Autonomy-supportive teaching has been associated with a variety of positive student outcomes, such as psychological need satisfaction, self-efficacy, and classroom engagement (Ng et al., 2016; Olivier et al., 2020). Nevertheless, there is significantly less research attention on the teacher benefits of autonomy-supportive teaching. With the complex emotional and social demands of the teaching profession, it is important to understand the ways to cultivate teacher social-emotional competencies (SECs). The social and emotional well-being of teachers affects their classroom functioning, and eventually student outcomes. Furthermore, the teacher SECs are linked to teacher well-being. As autonomy-supportive teaching focuses on building a pleasant and supportive learning environment for the students, it is a plausible idea to investigate how such teaching practices may cultivate teacher SECs as well. As expected, the findings suggest that the five SECs were demonstrated by the teachers while being autonomy supportive. Out of the five SECs, self-awareness and relationship management seem to be most frequently demonstrated by the teachers, while self-management seems to be least presented, during autonomy-supportive teaching.

Research on whether peer support benefits primary school students’ social and emotional learning is still in its infancy. This study aimed to investigate the benefits of a peer support program (PSP) on the acquiring of social-emotional competencies and self-determination in a primary school context. In this primary school context, the peer support champions (PSCs) were trained to carry out their roles in looking out for their peers. The program continued for a semester before 11 primary four and five students were interviewed to study the impact of PSCs on them. Results showed that the PSCs had a close relationship with their peers. Additionally, they were found to be positive influences on their peers and had benefited them. These findings suggest that the PSP can be an effective intervention for students to learn SECs and become self-determined individuals. Overall, this study highlights the importance of peer influence on students in school. Further research is required to substantiate this argument and explore the long-term effects of the program on students as the study was relatively small-scale.