This study explored how past students who attended the Learning Support Zone (LSZ) in Maltese secondary schools perceived their attendance at the LSZ and its impact on their home and work environments. In-depth interviews were conducted with eleven adults who attended the LSZ when they were in secondary school. Thematic analysis was used to elicit…

The present study addresses the concern for the well-being of teachers and school personnel by examining the efficacy of a multicomponent positive psychology intervention aimed at enhancing emotional well-being in the school environment. The study design comprised a clustered randomized controlled trial, targeting teachers and school personnel…

This article reports the findings of a pre-pandemic national survey of English primary schools (n=621) examining how Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) is prioritised and practiced in school. Perceived benefits and prioritisation of SEL, barriers and facilitators in supporting implementation, and the nature and extent to which whole school…

Practitioners' perceptions and understanding of bullying in schools is vital and can help to tackle bullying. The aim of this study is to investigate perceptions, attitudes, and challenges towards bullying amongst 135 practitioners (psychologists, social-workers, and medical professionals) (56.9% women; mostly aged 26-50 years) in Qatar. The…

Emotions have an essential impact on students' learning outcome. Empirical findings show negative correlations between negative emotions and learning outcome. Negative emotions during learning are quite common and become more frequent over the course of an academic career. Thus, regulating these emotions is important. Existing studies indicate…

A universal school-based intervention was developed to enhance coping with school-related stress by building students' social and emotional competence. The intervention was carried out in six classes in three upper secondary schools in southwestern Norway, and covered mindfulness, self-regulated learning, and social competence. Three focus groups…

A current trend in kindness research is to assess the effect of being kind on participants' well-being. To do this, participants are asked to complete a series of kind acts and the corresponding impact on their well-being is measured. As participation in school-based interventions can vary, the aim of the current study was to assess the extent of…

A rapidly growing body of research reveals that teachers' abilities to build positive relationships with students play a vital role in education. However, there is a lack of research regarding teacher education. This article aims to contribute by reporting from a project focusing on pre-service teachers' relational competence. More specifically,…

With early school leaving prevention being an agreed European Union headline target of 10% across the EU by 2020, emotional-relational dimensions to education are gaining renewed attention in European education policy. Against this backdrop, prominent criticisms of an emotional well-being agenda in education by Ecclestone and Hayes require further…

This study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of a brief Alcohol Expectancy Challenge, with the aim of reducing the prevalence of alcohol consumption amongst Maltese teenagers.119 students were randomly allocated to a control or a 3-hour expectancy challenge session. Alcohol consumption and alcohol expectancies were investigated via a…

The Cyber Friendly Schools Project was an innovative longitudinal study which engaged young people themselves in the process of developing and implementing whole-school strategies to reduce cyberbullying-related harm in Australian schools. This postscript describes how our research has developed since our findings were published in 2015, and…

There is growing evidence that social and emotional skills can be taught to students in school and teaching these skills can have a positive effect on later outcomes, such as better mental health and less drug use. This paper presents a benefit-cost analysis of a longitudinal social and emotional learning intervention in Sweden, using data for 663…

Implementation is the process by which interventions are put into practice and is critical to outcomes. Issues related to implementation for social and emotional learning (SEL) have largely focused on fidelity to the programme, dosage, clarity of guidance and the characteristics of the facilitator, although attention has also been paid to…

Social Perception Training (SPT) is a program focused on changing the perceptual and cognitive processes involved in suboptimal social interactions. It is administered with whole class of pupils over ten weeks. No previous studies have evaluated its efficacy. The present study investigated the outcome benefit of the program in 18 primary and…

In addition to the empirical validation of "health and happiness" determinants, theoretical models suggesting where to ground actions are necessary. In the beginning of the twentieth century, intervention models focused on evaluation and empirical validation were only concerned about overt behaviours (verbal and non-verbal) and covert…