The effect of mindfulness based on social-emotional learning on the components of social-emotional competence and academic performance of children

Mindfulness is one of the methods that affect different areas such as improving social and emotional skills and educational performance of children. Thus, mindfulness training as a factor on controlling emotions and interpersonal relationships can play an important role in learning process and academic performance. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of mindfulness program based on social-emotional learning on the components of social-emotional competencies and academic performance in children.

The quasi-experimental with pre-test and post-test design and control group was employed. The study population consisted of male students in the second stage of elementary school. The sample method was randomly clustered so that two schools were randomly selected from all schools and among all, two fifth grade classes were selected and randomly assigned as experimental (18 subject) and control group (18 subject). Social-emotional competencies scale (Zhou & Ee, 2012) and academic performance test were used as research instruments. Subjects in the experimental group were trained in mindfulness audio files for 90 days and the control group did not receive any intervention.

The results of covariance analysis showed that mindfulness training had a significant effect on increasing the components of social-emotional competencies and academic performance (p <0.01).

Based on these findings, it can be concluded that the mindfulness training program used in this study can be an effective method for promoting social-emotional competencies and academic performance in primary schools