An evaluation of social and emotional learning-based program for kindergarten and primary schools in Poland

The Meetings with Leon (ML) program is a prevention program implemented by teachers, embedded in the social and emotional learning (SEL) theory and addressed to preschool and primary school students aged 5-9. The purpose of the program is to develop social and emotional competencies that reduce the frequency of aggressive behavior. The short-term effectiveness of the program was assessed with an experimental design, based on a random sample and random assignment of teams to the intervention and control groups. The study participants were 628 students (323 from the intervention group and 305 from the control group) from 32 classes, from schools located in towns of different sizes in Poland. The schools were randomly sampled, and classes were randomly assigned to intervention and control groups. Using repeated measures ANOVA analysis, it was determined that the implementation of the program did not reduce the frequency of physical, verbal, and relational aggressive behaviors observed by teachers but contributed to greater recognition of one's own emotions and the emotions of others, as well as regulation of emotions by students. The probable cause of the mixed results is the relatively short time between measurements. The program contributed to the development of competences, the effects of which will probably be observed in the long term.