A review of school-based interventions for the improvement of social emotional skills and wider outcomes of education

This paper presents a review of interventions which have the evidence of impact on students' non-cognitive skills. The review included 3000 studies out of which 138 studies were found relevant. Only 13 studies could be considered for the final results of the review process. Aggregating the results from the selected studies, we conclude that there is weak but positive evidence that some non-cognitive skills can be improved by school-based interventions. The most effective interventions involved schools and parent collaboration, freedom for students to communicate and express their feelings and regular implementation of the interventions. However, there is very less evidence concerning the persistence of intervention effects and to what extent they contribute to students' life-long achievements.