New study provides evidence that social-emotional learning programs improve academic performance

A few months after assistant research professor Cheyeon Ha arrived at USC Rossier, a major study she conducted with colleagues at Yale University was published. The article, which appears in the Review of Educational Research, presents a meta-analysis of 40 empirical studies on social-emotional learning (SEL) programs that assess their academic impact on students. The team’s findings have proven essential reading for school leaders and policymakers by providing a comprehensive picture of how SEL programs impact students. 

Major findings 

This study reviewed universal SEL programs—meaning programs in which no students were excluded—that were implemented during regular school hours. The included studies underwent a systematic analysis based on rigorous inclusion criteria. Beyond examining the average effects of the programs, “the study also conducted moderation analyses across various contexts, including evaluation type, subject area, school level and program duration,” Ha says. 

The results revealed that students who participated in universal SEL programs showed a statistically significant improvement—a 4.2 percentile-point increase—in overall academic achievement compared to a control group. In programs that lasted for more than a semester, the gap between the two groups widened to 8.4 percentile points. 

These results are important because they provide research-backed evidence that SEL programs can improve academic achievement in literacy and math. 

“Contrary to the common perception that SEL is implemented selectively in schools primarily to promote students’ social and emotional development,” Ha says, “our large-scale meta-analysis demonstrates that universal school-based SEL programs also improve students’ academic achievement.”

The study’s findings “highlight the close interconnection among the domains of social, emotional, and cognitive learning in child and adolescent development,” Ha says. She and her  colleagues say that “Integrating SEL into students’ experiences can be understood as a ‘pedagogical shift’ in terms of whole-person development.” 

The implications of this study provide valuable information for schools seeking to integrate SEL principles into academic instruction on their campuses. From the team’s findings, schools now know that programs are most effective when they run longer than a semester and that universal SEL programs offer a strong return on investment for academic growth.

Impact of the study

Since Ha and her team’s research was published in October of 2025, the study is making waves and impacting the way that SEL programs are discussed. The study has since been cited on a recent PBS segment about SEL programs and included in EduTopia’s top ten education studies of 2025. 

For educational policymakers, the study provides “rigorous scientific evidence that participation in SEL programs not only strengthens social and emotional skills but also contributes to meaningful academic gains, showing that success in school is closely tied to well-being and interpersonal growth,” Ha says. For schools and their leaders, “the study emphasizes the importance of including SEL as a core pedagogical approach in the curriculum across all grade levels,” Ha says. 

While the study’s findings underscore the academic benefits of SEL programs at the elementary level, Ha believes more work is needed at the secondary level, both in research and practice, to better understand how SEL experiences can help older students. 

What’s next?

Ha arrived at USC CANDLE in the fall of 2025, on the heels of the center’s launch of its Innovation Lab, bringing with her a body of SEL scholarship that strengthens CANDLE’s work on transcendent thinking—a core developmental capacity that allows adolescents to integrate emotion, cognition, identity and social understanding. 

“Dr. Ha’s work helps us see how learning environments shape the whole developing person, not just academic outcomes,” says USC CANDLE founding director Mary Helen Immordino-Yang. “By examining how SEL processes support and are reshaped by transcendent forms of reflection in classroom contexts, Ha’s research advances USC CANDLE’s efforts to understand how to foster adolescents’ social, emotional and intellectual growth in integrated and developmentally powerful ways,” Immordino-Yang says.

“I am deeply inspired by the opportunity to collaborate with such passionate and talented colleagues who bring diverse research backgrounds to the CANDLE team,” Ha says. In her new role, under the leadership of Professor Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, Ha and the USC-CANDLE team “aim to scientifically decode the unique brain development of adolescence and apply these insights to education, pioneering a distinct scientific approach to holistic human development.”

Ha will be involved in the center’s exploration of how to foster transcendent thinking in adolescents. Through the Innovation Lab’s new COLABS project, Ha explains, “We are building a sustainable, long-term vision to promote adolescents' social-emotional well-being and holistic growth within the school system.”