Students and schools have distinct configurations of socio-emotional skills: a multilevel latent profile analysis

Abstract

Socio-emotional skills have attracted increasing attention due to their significance to students’ academic and well-being outcomes. However, there is ongoing debate in the literature over whether students’ socio-emotional skills vary quantitatively or qualitatively. Furthermore, existing research on these skills has primarily considered socio-emotional skills as individual attributes of students, with less attention devoted to the possibility that schools could also have distinct socio-emotional profiles. To address these gaps, this study employed a multilevel latent profile analysis to investigate profiles of socio-emotional skills at both student and school levels from a person-centered perspective. We also examined how these socio-emotional profiles are associated with school climates and academic and well-being outcomes. This study included 29,755 15-year-old students from nine countries. At the student level, we identified four distinct profiles that differed more in average skill levels: Low, Average, Moderately High, and High Socio-emotional Profiles. We also identified two types of schools: Lower Socio-emotional Schools and Higher Socio-emotional Schools. Positive school climates, characterized by high levels of school belonging, cooperation, positive teacher-student relationships, and a lower frequency of bullying, were associated with more adaptive socio-emotional profiles. Concerningly, only a small proportion of students (5%) and schools (28%) showed adaptive socio-emotional skills. Our findings suggest the need to implement targeted interventions to foster socio-emotional skills tailored to the needs of different subgroups.