Date
12-19-2024
Department
School of Behavioral Sciences
Degree
Doctor of Education in Community Care and Counseling (EdD)
Chair
Mollie Boyd
Keywords
Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), Emotional Intelligence (EI), Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), Middle School teachers
Disciplines
Counseling | Education
Recommended Citation
Parrish, Kutana Nichol, "A Phenomenological Study of Middle School Teachers Implementing Social-Emotional Learning, Post COVID-19 at a Predominantly Hispanic School" (2024). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 6392.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/6392
Abstract
The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study is to understand the lived experiences of the ten middle school teachers implementing social and emotional learning, post COVID in a predominately Hispanic suburban school in Gwinnett County School District in Georgia. The theory guided by this study is emotional intelligence by psychologist Daniel Goldman but was first used by Peter Salovey and John Mayer in 1990. Daniel Goldman defines emotional intelligence as having the ability to identify nonverbal cues, using emotion to guide one’s thinking, understanding information that is communicated, and actions of emotions, and the capability to self-regulate emotions. Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) framework also guided this study which supports students socially, emotionally, and academically. Social-emotional learning is defined as acquiring the knowledge, attitudes, and necessary skills that are needed to understand and manage one’s emotions, and feelings. The goal for emotional intelligence and CASEL is that students and educators be self-aware, responsible, caring for self and others, and be a positive, productive citizen. The method used to collect data was a qualifying screening survey and a 30 to 45 minutes Zoom interview with each participant. In this qualitative study, there were four research questions, one central question and three sub-questions. How do middle school teachers describe their experiences implementing social-emotional learning (SEL) in post-COVID-19 pandemic classrooms? What do middle school teachers say about SEL’s impact on students? How do middle school teachers say that SEL has impacted them personally? How do teachers implementing SEL in their classroom describe the challenges they face? After analyzing the participants’ data, three themes and their subthemes were discovered.