International Survey on Social and Emotional Skills globally and in Ukraine

The Survey on Social and Emotional Skills (SSES) was launched in 2019 by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the researcher behind the well-known PISA study.

1 Objective

What are the objectives of SSES?

  1. To provide participating cities and countries with information on social and emotional skills of students.
  2. To identify how the students’ environment at home, at school, and among peers contributes to the development of social and emotional skills or suppresses them.
  3. To explore how politics in its broadest sense, as well as cultural and socioeconomic contexts influence these skills.
  4. To form an understanding of how students’ social and emotional skills affect their future lives.
  5. To display that valid, reliable, and comparable information on social and emotional skills can be obtained from different communities and settings.
photo

Other countries are already using the preliminary results of SSES to change educational policies in their cities and regions. For instance, the administration of Helsinki has amended the city development strategy for 2021–2025, emphasizing the need to improve and expand the practice of developing social and emotional skills of students in educational institutions.

photo

The results of SSES in Ukraine can also become a driving force for changes in educational policies on the state level, become a priority in the implementation of the NUS on the level of basic education, and support the durability of the reform.

2 scale

Where does SSES take place?

15 countries photo participate in SSES
photo photo
  • SSES in the world

    In most countries, the Survey is only conducted in some regions or cities. For instance, in Finland, it takes place in the capital city of Helsinki, in Italy — in the cities of Turin and Bologna, and in Brazil — in the state of São Paulo. The research samples in other countries is an average of 75 schools and 3,000 students aged 15 years.

  • SSES in Ukraine

    The organizers of SSES in Ukraine have an ambitious goal: to conduct the Survey on the national level, not just in a certain city or region.

    As of today, about 450 urban and rural schools have been sampled for the Survey.

    230+ schools

    sampling for the Survey

    Learn more about sampling
3 stages

How will SSES be conducted?

Internationally, SSES is already in its second year: the pilot stage took place last year, and the main stage was scheduled for March 2023.

Ukraine joined SSES only in 2023: the organizers of the Survey made an exception for our country, realizing how unique and valuable the Ukrainian experience is.

  • Preparation of the main stage:

    Q3 2022 – Q1 2023

  • Data gathering stage:

    Q2 and Q3 2023

  • Analysis and report drafting stage (internationally and nationally):

    Q3 2023 – Q2 2024

Survey stage

Survey stage and timeline

Timeline
Conducting media campaign, participating in international meetings and seminars on organization and conduction of SSES
February –December 2023
Creating the samples of SSES participants
February – March 2023
Working with SSES program documents and materials (translation, adaptation)
February – June 2023
Approval of the list of general secondary education institutions participating in SSES
March 2023
Preparation, processing, and summarization of lists of potential SSES participants, informing them and their parents (legal representatives of minors) about the conditions of conducting SSES
April – October 2023
Conducting SSES in general secondary education institutions
September 15 – October 6, 2023
Monitoring the quality of SSES implementation in general secondary education institutions
September 15 – October 6, 2023
Preparation and summarization of information on the results of SSES for informing the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
October – December 2023
Drafting a report based on SSES results
January – June 2024
Publication of the report on SSES results
August 2024
4 measures

What does SSES measure?

SSES is based on the “Big photo 1 Five” model that measures the level of formation of 17 social and emotional skills photo 2 of students, which group into five key dimensions and an additional one.
  • Responsibility: able to honor commitments and be punctual and reliable.
  • Self-control: able to avoid distractions and sudden impulses and focus attention on the current task in order to achieve personal goals.
  • Persistency: persevering in tasks and activities until they get done.
  • Stress resistance: effectiveness in modulating anxiety and able to calmly solve problems (is relaxed, handles stress well).
  • Optimism: positive and optimistic expectations for self and life in general.
  • Emotional control: effective strategies for regulating temper, anger and irritation in the face of frustrations.
  • Empathy: understanding and caring for others and their well-being that leads to valuing and investing in close relationships.
  • Trust: assuming that others generally have good intentions and forgiving those who have done wrong.
  • Co-operation: living in harmony with others and valuing interconnectedness among all people.
  • Curiosity: interest in ideas and love of learning, understanding and intellectual exploration; an inquisitive mind-set.
  • Tolerance: іs open to different points of view, values diversity, is appreciative of foreign people and cultures.
  • Creativity: generating novel ways to do or think about things through exploring, learning from failure, insight and vision.
  • Sociability: the ability to empathize, understand others, care for their well-being and, as a result, value close relationships and make efforts to maintain them.
  • Assertiveness: the assumption that other people generally have good intentions and the ability to forgive those who have done wrong.
  • Energy: approaching daily life with energy, excitement and spontaneity.
  • Achievement motivation: setting high standards for oneself and working hard to meet them.
  • Self-efficacy: the strength of individuals’ beliefs in their ability to execute tasks and achieve goals.
  • Source:

    Assessment Framework of the Survey on Social and Emotional Skills (Kankaraš and Suarez-Alvarez, 2019)

5 SSES in Ukraine

What are the specifics of SSES in Ukraine?

Considering the national context, additional focuses of attention have been defined which are optional in the international Survey.

The age of students

To track the level of mastery of social and emotional skills among 10-year-olds who study in the New Ukrainian School, as well as among 15-year-old students who went to school before the start of the reform.

photo
photo

The national scale

To investigate the difference in how teachers, school leaders, and children work with social and emotional skills in different areas, including rural and urban schools, as well as in schools from different regions, including those that survived the occupation by russia.

photo

The involvement of parents

To involve mothers and fathers (or persons who substitute for them) in the Survey to get an idea of ​​their influence on formation of social and emotional skills and the vision of the need for these skills in the modern world.

photo

The consideration of the context

To adapt the research tools to the reality of the russian federation’s war against Ukraine: an additional set of questions that help taking the national context into account, and psychological expertise of the questionnaires to make them as trauma sensitive as possible.

The experience of the experimental schools

To discover the efficiency of the state programs for development of social and emotional skills based on the example of 26 schools participating in the national-level experiment on introduction of social, emotional, and ethical learning (SEE Learning).

photo

SEEL in the world

About

Social, emotional, and ethical learning (SEE Learning) is an international program based on philosophy and methodology that has been created, photo tested, and improved for 20 years photo by a world-class team of scientists led by Emory University (Atlanta, USA).

Supported by

They are informed by Daniel Goleman’s works on emotional intelligence and the best practices for social and emotional learning, and inspired by the 14th Dalai Lama’s calls for peace, understanding, empathy, and acknowledgment that planet Earth is our shared home for all human beings.

SEEL in Ukraine

Initiative

Since 2019, EdCamp Ukraine NGO has been piloting SEE Learning in Ukraine as part of the nationwide experiment with the participation of the Institute of Education Content Modernization, the Institute of Current Challenges in Education at the National Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of Ukraine, with support of the Civil Peace Service — GIZ Ukraine.

Coverage

A total of 5,023 students and 425 teachers in 26 schools are testing the SEE Learning program and elective courses for grades 1–2, 3–4, 5–6, and 7–9, developed and approved by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.

26

educational establishment

5 023

children

425

teachers

Educational materials

To ensure SEE Learning teaching in Ukraine, methodology materials and textbooks, manuals for parents, teachers and pedagogues, an introductory online course for educators, and a professional learning community for discussion and exchange of experiences are available free of charge in Ukrainian.
Learn more about the SEE Learning program in Ukraine