Sel in Ms

APPDEV-00888; No of Pages 12
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology xxx (2017) xxxxxx
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology
Measuring social-emotional development in middle childhood: The

Middle Years Development Instrument
Kimberly C. Thomson , Eva Oberle, Anne M. Gadermann, Martin Guhn,
Pippa Rowcliffe, Kimberly A. Schonert-Reichl
Human Early Learning Partnership, School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia, Suite 440, 2206 East Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z3, Canada
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: This paper discusses the conceptualization, development, validation, and application of the Middle Years Devel-
Received 16 October 2016 opment Instrument (MDI) a population-based child self-report tool that assesses children's social-emotional
Received in revised form 30 January 2017 development and well-being in the context of their home, school, and neighborhood. The MDI is administered
Accepted 17 March 2017
at a population-level to 4th and 7th grade students within participating public school districts across British Co-
Available online xxxx
lumbia, Canada. Children respond to items in ve domains: (1) social-emotional development, (2) connected-
Keywords:
ness to peers and adults, (3) school experiences, (4) physical health and well-being, and (5) constructive use
Social-emotional development of after-school time. Results are aggregated for schools and communities and reported back in comprehensive re-
Well-being ports and community maps to inform planning and decision making at local and regional levels. Shared testimo-
Middle childhood nials exemplify how MDI results have been used by educators, community organizers, and city planners as a
Measurement catalyst for promoting children's social and emotional competence and facilitating collaboration between schools
Population-level and communities.
Knowledge translation 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
1. Introduction Further, educational policies that mandate teaching social-emotional

skills and assessing social-emotional growth alongside academic
Parents, educators, and society at large have long agreed that a main growth have emerged (e.g., school-district policies, state or provincial
goal for young people is to become independent, socially skilled, and policies) (Mart, Weissberg, & Kendziora, 2015; Meyers et al., 2015).
well-rounded citizens who are ready to responsibly navigate their per- Building on these milestones, scholars have discussed essential steps
sonal and professional pathways into adulthood (Greenberg et al., to advance the future agenda of supporting children's social-emotional
2003). Yet, until the turn of this century, students' social-emotional de- needs and prioritizing their social-emotional development in schools
velopment and well-being played only a negligible role in school-based and communities (Weissberg, Durlak, Domitrovich, & Gullotta, 2015).
assessments (Bridgeland, Bruce, & Hariharan, 2013; Elias et al., 1997; One essential step involves the development and implementation of
Schonert-Reichl & Hymel, 2007; Schonert-Reichl & Weissberg, 2014). psychometrically sound and developmentally appropriate measure-
The past two decades have seen an explosion of interest in systematical- ment tools to assess and monitor children's social-emotional develop-
ly promoting and assessing children's social-emotional skills, development. What gets assessed gets addressed this widely known
ment, and well-being in schools and communities (Humphrey, 2013; axiom suggests that systematic assessment is key to create an account-
Osher et al., 2016). A multitude of school and community based inter- able system in which social-emotional skills are prioritized, evaluated,
vention and prevention programs that enhance social-emotional devel- and intervened upon to promote children's ability to care for them-
opment have been designed, implemented, and evaluated; and selves and others and prevent adjustment problems later in life.
numerous programs that are evidence-based, sustained, comprehen- The present paper has four main objectives. First, we introduce the
sive, and implemented with high delity have been supported through Middle Years Development Instrument (MDI) a population-level mea-
positive evaluation outcomes (e.g., Durlak, Weissberg, Dymnicki, Taylor, sure of children's social-emotional development and well-being in mid-
& Schellinger, 2011; Sklad, Diekstra, Ritter, Ben, & Gravesteijn, 2012). dle childhood that was developed to address key questions about
children's healthy development in schools and communities. Specically,
we illustrate the research-to-action project that led to the collaborative
Corresponding author. creation of the MDI in a partnership among researchers at the Human
E-mail addresses: kimberly.thomson@ubc.ca (K.C. Thomson), eva.oberle@ubc.ca
(E. Oberle), anne.gadermann@ubc.ca (A.M. Gadermann), martin.guhn@ubc.ca (M. Guhn),
Early Learning Partnership (HELP) at the University of British Columbia
pippa.rowcliffe@ubc.ca (P. Rowcliffe), kimberly.schonert-reichl@ubc.ca (UBC), community leaders, and educators. Second, we review the devel-
(K.A. Schonert-Reichl). opment and validation of the MDI survey instrument. Third, we illustrate
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2017.03.005
0193-3973/ 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Please cite this article as: Thomson, K.C., et al., Measuring social-emotional development in middle childhood: The Middle Years Development
Instrument, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2017.03.005
2 K.C. Thomson et al. / Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology xxx (2017) xxxxxx
the infrastructure of knowledge mobilization strategies that has been de- school, home, and life, and the presence of social and contextual assets
veloped to report research ndings from the MDI back to the schools and at home, in schools and communities (e.g., the supportiveness of adults
communities in which students completed the MDI. Examples are and peers, after-school program participation).
provided that illustrate the ways in which MDI data have been At its core, the MDI is characterized by three unique properties that
used to inform practice by inuencing decisions, policies, and actions have contributed to the survey's acceptance and usefulness within BC
in schools and communities including the development of jointly- schools and communities: First, the MDI gives children a voice in
operated after-school and school-based programs to promote reporting how they feel, how they spend their time, and what they
children's social-emotional development and well-being. Finally, would want to see changed within their school and community envi-
we close with a discussion of challenges encountered in the promo- ronments. Aligned with Article 12 of the United Nations Convention
tion and implementation of the MDI, and provide recommendations on the Rights of the Child (United Nations, 1989), the MDI enables chil-
for overcoming these barriers that may be informative for other re- dren to participate in shaping their environments and emphasizes the
searchers and stakeholders involved in similar social-emotional as- value of listening to children's perspectives by demonstrating valid
sessment systems. and reliable psychometric properties (Schonert-Reichl et al., 2013). Sec-
ond, the survey gathers data at a population-level; all children within
1.1. Addressing a community need: measuring social-emotional develop- participating school districts take part in the MDI unless they, or their
ment in BC at a population-level parent, opt-out. This method avoids common sampling pit-falls includ-
ing under-representation of children from ethnic minorities or families
In concert with the increasing awareness of the importance of social with lower educational attainment (Anderman et al., 1995; Ellwood et
and emotional learning (SEL) and its assessment in the United States al., 2010). It also promotes stakeholder interest in the results as the sur-
(e.g., Durlak et al., 2011; Mart et al., 2015), educators and community vey data represent actual children within a local context as opposed to
members within the province of British Columbia (BC), Canada, have statistics derived from a weighted sample (Guhn et al., 2012). Third, im-
developed a heightened interest in measuring children's social and plementation of the survey requires collaboration between schools,
emotional development. In 2005, the United Way of the Lower Main- school districts, and community partners, which facilitates the use of
land engaged researchers at UBC in a large-scale cross sectional study the data once results are reported. Systematic evaluation of MDI knowl-
to investigate children's social-emotional development, well-being, edge translation activities has identied that knowledge users including
and experiences inside and outside of school (Schonert-Reichl, 2011). policy-makers, community stakeholders, and school administrators
The study included over 1400 children ages 912 across eight school value the MDI as a common language that facilitates resource alloca-
districts, and was supported by stakeholders invested in identifying tion and goal-setting between otherwise isolated departments and or-
ecological factors in children's schools and communities that are associ- ganizations invested in children's healthy development. Between 2010
ated with children's social and emotional competence and healthy de- and 2016, the MDI has been implemented in 28 out of 60 BC school dis-
velopment. The study found that children's social-emotional well- tricts and has been completed by nearly 29,000 grade 4 children and
being, belonging at school, and connectedness to adults at home and over 15,000 grade 7 children.
in the community was signicantly lower among 6th and 7th grade stu-
dents than students in 4th and 5th grade. Furthermore, students in 6th
and 7th grade spent signicantly more time alone in their home after 1.3. Relevance of the MDI within the BC assessment landscape
school compared to students in younger grades (Schonert-Reichl,
2011). These results corroborated other research documenting the de- Including school and community partners in the development of the
cline of children's social-emotional well-being from early childhood to MDI was an important step that led to buy-in for MDI implementation
adolescence (Eccles, 2004) and raised the question of how schools and in schools and ensured the usability of data. Because stakeholders in
communities can support children's social-emotional competence and schools and communities had a voice regarding core questions and con-
well-being during this transition. This study also emphasized the need cepts to address within the MDI, many were eager to implement the
to investigate students' social-emotional development and well-being survey to learn how their children were doing in regard to their social
across time and regional boundaries, and called for a longitudinal and and emotional skills and their social contexts. Furthermore, stake-
a representative population-level approach to assessing and monitoring holders were keen to implement the MDI specically in grades 4 and
children's social-emotional development in communities. 7 because it measured dimensions of children's development not cur-
rently being measured elsewhere in the system, but that complemented
1.2. MDI core properties: children's voices, population data, and community existing student data (i.e., measures of academic ability, and school
collaboration readiness in kindergarten). In BC, academic skills are routinely assessed
in grades 4 and 7 using the standardized Foundation Skills Assessment
In 2007, UBC researchers engaged in a further partnership with the exam (FSA; BC Ministry of Education, 2016). Children's school readi-
United Way of the Lower Mainland and BC school districts to develop ness, including cognitive, motor, and social skills, is routinely assessed
the original middle childhood study into a population-wide, recurring in kindergarten using the Early Development Instrument (EDI; Janus &
monitoring platform on children's social-emotional development, Offord, 2007).1 In this context, many BC schools were experienced
well-being, and social contexts, thus leading to the development of with implementing large-scale assessment systems. Furthermore, sev-
the MDI. The goal was to design an instrument that would routinely eral school district and ministry administrators had personally partici-
and reliably assess children's development and well-being during the pated in past collaborations with the MDI research team on the EDI
transitional middle childhood years between early childhood and ado- survey which had already been administered province-wide for the
lescence. Grade 4 was selected as a relevant baseline measure before the past decade. Stakeholders therefore saw the MDI as a valuable expan-
documented decline of children's social-emotional well-being (Eccles, sion of the established assessment routine in BC: it was the rst time
2004) and at an age when children have the attention and capacity to children could routinely self-report on their own well-being, it provided
reliably self-report their feelings and experiences (Riley, 2004). Later, insight into development during middle childhood and early adoles-
a second version of the survey was developed for grade 7 to capture cence, it was strengths-based, and it was linkable to children's
children's adjustment and assets at a critical transitional point in devel-
opment from middle childhood to early adolescence. The resulting MDI 1
The EDI is a teacher-reported measure of children's school readiness that has been im-
surveys, administered to children in grades 4 and 7, ask children report plemented in BC province-wide since 1999. It is overseen by the same research team that
on their social-emotional development and well-being, feelings about administers the MDI.
K.C. Thomson et al. / Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology xxx (2017) xxxxxx 3
kindergarten school readiness and grades 4 and 7 academic achieve- surveys are further described within the section on item selection and
ment data. In these ways, the MDI was regarded as a tool that could pro- validation. Together, these indicators reect children's social and emo-
vide a more fulsome picture of children's development in BC for better tional development and well-being as a marker of positive mental
understanding associations between early childhood development, aca- health, resilience, and thriving in childhood (Pollard & Lee, 2003;
demic success, and social-emotional well-being (Guhn, Gadermann, Scales, Sesma, & Bolstrom, 2004; Masten & Coatsworth, 1998) and set
Almas, Schonert-Reichl, & Hertzman, 2016). the stage for positive developmental trajectories throughout adoles-
Since the MDI was rst launched, the BC Ministry of Education has cence and adulthood (Masten & Tellegen, 2012; Olsson, McGee,
redesigned the education curriculum to include personal and social Nada-Raja, & Williams, 2013). Furthermore, several of these measures
competency as one of three core competencies for all kindergarten to (i.e., empathy, prosocial behavior) are indicators of social-emotional
grade 12 students attending public and independent schools in BC competence, which in turn has been related to thriving and success in
(https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/competencies; BC Ministry of Education, both school and life (Caprara, Barbaranelli, Pastorelli, Bandura, &
2015). The new curriculum, effective as of 2015 with changes being im- Zimbardo, 2000; Oberle, Schonert-Reichl, Guhn, Zumbo & Hertzman,
plemented gradually over a three-year period, further enhances the po- 2014b; Jones, Greenberg, & Crowley, 2015; Oberle, Schonert-Reichl,
tential role of the MDI in school-based assessments, because the criteria Hertzman and Zumbo, 2014a).
for success in school now explicitly include positive personal and cul-
tural identity, personal awareness and responsibility, and social respon- 2.1.2. Connectedness
sibilitydimensions that are specically assessed on the MDI. The The connectedness domain assesses children's sense of support and
policy-change may thus present a unique opportunity to evaluate the belonging at home, at school, in the peer group, and in the neighbor-
impacts of the SEL-focused curriculum on children's MDI scores at a hood/community, as well as their experiences of friendship intimacy,
province-wide level. Overall, the curriculum change reects the increas- number of important adults at school, availability of safe places for chil-
ing weight BC policy-makers are placing on children's social-emotional dren in the community, and availability of programs for children in the
development. community. On the grade 7 MDI, children are also asked to indicate
what makes an adult important to them. Research has consistently
2. MDI theoretical framework, item selection, and psychometric shown that children's social connectedness in core developmental con-
properties texts (i.e., family, peer group, school, community) is an asset for their
well-being, health, and success in life (Benson, 2006; Gadermann et al.,
The MDI was derived from research and theory in the elds of social 2015; Hamre & Pianta, 2005; Leventhal & Brooks-Gunn, 2000; Oberle et
and emotional learning, resilience, and positive youth development (e.g., al., 2014b; Theokas et al., 2005). Taking into account supportive relation-
Luthar, 2006; Masten & Coatsworth, 1998; Masten & Motti-Stefanidi, ships and connectedness in multiple ecological contexts is particularly
2009; Scales, Benson, & Mannes, 2006; Weissberg, Payton, O'Brien, & important in middle childhood and early adolescence, a time during
Munro, 2007). An extensive literature review provided the basis of iden- which children shift their social focus away from the family and begin
tifying the constructs and developmental domains that were considered to immerse in ever-widening circles of interactions (Wigeld, Byrnes, &
essential in positive social-emotional development and well-being in Eccles, 2006). As children's independence is growing, the availability of
middle childhood and early adolescence (e.g., Eccles, 1999; Masten & places in which children can spend time safely unsupervised, and access
Coatsworth, 1998). Next, a collaborative team comprised of researchers, to child and youth programming in the community becomes increasingly
educators, and other relevant stakeholders worked together to select important for positive and healthy child development.
constructs and items that had relevance to understanding children's so-
cial and emotional development and the protective and promotive fac- 2.1.3. School experiences
tors that inuence healthy child development and resilience. Moreover, The school experiences domain assesses children's academic self-ef-
it was critical that the MDI include items that were seen as actionable cacy, perceived school climate, school belonging, victimization, moti-
and malleable to ensure that the data would be benecial for the de- vation, and future goals and ambitions. The school is arguably one of
sign and implementation of intervention and prevention efforts across the most important ecological contexts that shapes development,
multiple contexts. Educators and community program and service pro- health, and well-being in middle childhood and early adolescence
viders were consulted via focus groups, interviews, and surveys to nd (Eccles & Roeser, 2013). From age 7 to 14 young Canadians spend on av-
out what self-report information from children would be particularly rel- erage 6710 hours in classrooms, not counting recess, lunch, and time
evant for their work with children. At the end of this this process, ve spent in non-instructional projects (OECD, 2012). Whereas positive
broad domains were identied which dene the core assessment dimen- and supportive school environments promote thriving, stressful and
sions of the MDI. A detailed discussion of the MDI domains has been de- unsupportive environments can jeopardize positive growth and con-
scribed previously (Schonert-Reichl, Guhn, Gadermann, Hymel, Sweiss, tribute to mental health problems and school failure (Hamre & Pianta,
& Hertzman, 2013) and the 4th and 7th grade versions of the MDI can 2005; Roeser, Eccles, & Sameroff, 2000). Children's experiences in the
be downloaded from http://earlylearning.ubc.ca/mdi/. Below we briey school at large are inuenced both through interactions with peers,
summarize the rationale for the inclusion of each of the ve domains teachers, staff, and their perception of the norms and values that dene
as an indicator for social and emotional competence and healthy devel- the school climate (e.g., Blum et al., 2004; Hamre & Pianta, 2005; Masten
opment in middle childhood, as well as the relation of these domains & Motti-Stefanidi, 2009).
to other known assessment frameworks.
2.1.4. Physical health and well-being
2.1. Five domains of social-emotional development in middle childhood The physical health and well-being domain assesses children's over-
all health, physical health, body image, and health habits (i.e., nutrition,
2.1.1. Social-emotional development sleep). There is a substantial body of evidence that regular sleep, exer-
The social-emotional development domain assesses children's opti- cise, and nutrition are critical for children's healthy physical develop-
mism, satisfaction with life, self-regulation (short-term and long-term), ment as well as social and psychological adjustment (Allender,
general self-concept, empathy, prosocial behavior, depressive symp- Cowburn, & Foster, 2006; Janssen & Leblanc, 2010; Neumark-Sztainer,
toms, and anxiety symptoms. Additional social and emotional develop- Goeden, Story, & Wall, 2010). Evidence also suggests that connected-
ment constructs added to the grade 7 MDI include: responsible ness to adults at home may also be associated with physical health out-
decision-making, self-awareness, perseverance, assertiveness, citizen- comes through moderating health risk behaviors such as poor nutrition
ship and social responsibility. Differences between the grade 4 and 7 and sleep habits, and lack of physical activity (Carter, McGee, Taylor, &
Williams, 2007; Fulkerson et al., 2006; Simantov, Schoen, & Klein, 2000; opportunities for autonomy and democratic decision making in the
Smaldone, Honig, & Byrne, 2007). It is also during middle childhood that classroom because of concerns that the MDI results would specically
rapid physical changes take place due to puberty, which can signicant- target classroom teachers. They instead suggested that the MDI should
ly affect children's sense of identity, body image, and psychological gather information on students' perceptions of the overall school cli-
well-being (Ackard & Peterson, 2001). mate. Similarly, parent representatives asked to eliminate questions
concerning parenting styles, because such questions may be considered
2.1.5. Constructive use of after-school time as intrusive. The rationale for the MDI development team to acknowl-
The after-school time domain assesses what children do after school, edge these requests was based on the fact that some previous other
with whom, and where they go. Children report whether they partici- large-scale voluntary school surveys had to be terminated due to parent
pate in structured activities (e.g., education, art & music, sports) or and teacher complaints.
other activities (e.g., homework, sports, TV/videos, computer, reading), Out of an original item pool of more than 300 items, the initial ver-
what activities they wish to be doing after school, and perceived barriers sion of the MDI (created for grade 4) contained 96 items and 8 demo-
that prevent them from pursuing those activities. The ways in which graphic questions, which were tested in several pilot studies using
children spend their time after school was a particular interest raised qualitative and quantitative methods. Feedback was obtained via focus
by the community leaders involved in the MDI development who groups involving teachers and students from a diverse range of cultural
were interested in the critical hours during which children are out of and language backgrounds representative of BC classroom composi-
school but parents are still at work (Schonert-Reichl, 2011). A large tions. Comments were overall very positive. For example, students indi-
number of elementary school children spend the out-of-school hours cated that they enjoyed taking the survey and felt the information
unsupervised at home (Canadian Safety Council, 2009), whereas some obtained was important. Teachers commented that the MDI is an im-
children attend organized after-school programs or participate in portant tool to better understand students and to discuss students'
other structured extracurricular activities (e.g., sports, art classes, needs and possible ways to help students with communities.
music classes), or stay with friends or relatives (National Institute of After the completion of multiple pilot studies and revisions, a nal
Out of School Time, 2007). Scholars in the eld of after-school time version of the MDI containing 71 survey and 8 demographic items was
have argued consistently that the availability of high quality after- administered district wide in three school districts in BC. Using data
school programs is essential for supporting the development of social from that implementation, the factor structure of the three domains of
and emotional skills (Durlak, Weissberg, & Pachan, 2010) and the the MDI that contain scales (social and emotional development, connect-
needs of parents, children and communities (Decter, 2011). edness, and school experiences) was tested using exploratory and conr-
matory factor analyses (Schonert-Reichl et al., 2013) and the magnitude
2.2. Alignment with existing assessment frameworks of the correlations among scales were examined. This research docu-
mented strong psychometric properties of the subscales of the MDI, pro-
After identifying these ve broad MDI domains, connections were viding evidence for the factor structure, subscales' reliabilities, and
drawn with measurement frameworks developed by leading experts convergent and discriminant validity. A further example of the ongoing
in children's social and emotional skills, specically the Collaborative validation work with the MDI subscales was a validation study examin-
for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL; www.casel.org) ing cognitive processes of children in grades 47 when responding to
and the Developmental Assets framework by the Search Institute the Satisfaction with Life Scale adapted for Children one of the MDI sub-
(www.search-institute.org). Particularly within the grade 7 version of scales within the social-emotional development domain (Gadermann,
the MDI (which allowed for the inclusion of more items) all of the Guhn, & Zumbo, 2011). The study used so-called think-aloud protocols,
MDI subscales can be linked to abilities and skills outlined in CASEL's meaning that children explained their responses to a researcher while
core social-emotional competencies (i.e., self-awareness, social-aware- lling out the scale. It was found that the students' response strategies
ness, self-management, relationship skills, and responsible decision- were in line with theoretical frameworks of quality of life and matched
making; CASEL, 2013, Elias et al., 1997). A comparison of CASEL's core previous empirical ndings that were based on studies with adolescents
competencies and the constructs measured on the MDI is presented in and adults. This has been critical, because the study provided further ev-
Table 1. Similarly, the developmental assets identied by the Search idence for the validity of the student responses, and has proven invalu-
Institute informed the personal and ecological factors in the home, able in discussions with sceptics, who claim that children at age 9 are
school, and community included in the MDI, that have previously not able to provide meaningful answers regarding their own lives and
been connected to children's healthy development (Scales et al., 2006; social contexts.
Theokas & Lerner, 2006). A nal step in the development of the MDI was the later expansion of
the survey for children in grade 7. Three years after the grade 4 MDI was
2.3. Selection, adaptation, and validation of MDI scales and items initially implemented in schools, a grade 7 version was introduced. The
grade 7 MDI enables educators to monitor students' social-emotional
Final selection and validation of the items/scales to assess the con- well-being during a developmental period when children begin to face
structs on the MDI involved a multi-stage consultation and piloting greater pressures socially and academically (Eccles, 2004; Eccles &
phase with children, educators, parents/guardians, youth program pro- Roeser, 2013) and when many chronic mental health issues related to
viders, and an interdisciplinary research team (Schonert-Reichl et al., social-emotional health begin to be observed (Kessler, Berglund,
2013). Items/scales used in previous developmental research were con- Demler, Jin, & Walters, 2005). The grade 7 survey contains all of the
sidered. Inclusion criteria were strong psychometric properties as indi- items in the grade 4 version as well as an additional ve measures that
cated by previous research evidence for reliability, validity, and age were either more relevant to older children's experiences (i.e., citizen-
appropriateness (for ages 912) of the items/scales. School and com- ship and social responsibility including volunteering experiences and
munity partners and a group of parents provided information on graduation plans) or were only validated as a self-report scale for chil-
items that were of particular interest and relevance to them, and also dren in grades 6 or higher (i.e., self-awareness [Moilanen, 2007] and
agged items that could lead to potential conict with parents, educa- responsible decision-making [Fuligni & Eccles, 1993; Wentzel, 1993]).
tors, and/or policy makers. As a result, some questions/scales that Other constructs (perseverance [Kern, Benson, Steinberg, & Steinberg,
were originally identied as suitable for the purposes of the MDI were 2016] and assertiveness [Springer & Phillips, 1997]) were developmen-
eliminated, because they were considered too sensitive. For example, tally appropriate at both ages, but had been cut from the grade 4 version
teacher representatives requested elimination of a scale that assessed to keep the survey a manageable length for younger children as deter-
to what extent students felt that their teachers provide students with mined in the feasibility studies.
Table 1
Comparison of CASEL social-emotional learning skills and MDI measures.
Core SEL skills dened by CASEL MDI measures
Self-awareness Optimism
The ability to accurately recognize one's own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they inuence behavior. Self-awarenessa
The ability to accurately assess one's strengths and limitations, with a well-grounded sense of condence, Academic self-efcacy
optimism, and a growth mindset. Self-esteem (self-concept)
Body image
Social awareness Empathy
The ability to take the perspective of and empathize with others, including those from diverse backgrounds and Important adults (in the school, home, community)
cultures. The ability to understand social and ethical norms for behavior and to recognize family, school, and
community resources and supports.
Self-management Self-regulation (short and long-term)
The ability to successfully regulate one's emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in different situations effectively Perseverancea
managing stress, controlling impulses, and motivating oneself. The ability to set and work toward personal Health habits
and academic goals.
Relationship skills Assertivenessa
The ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with diverse individuals and groups. Prosocial behavior
The ability to communicate clearly, listen well, cooperate with others, resist inappropriate social pressure, Friendship intimacy
negotiate conict constructively, and seek and offer help when needed. Peer belonging
Responsible decision-making Responsible decision-makinga
The ability to make constructive choices about personal behavior and social interactions based on ethical Citizenship and social responsibilitya
standards, safety concerns, and social norms. The realistic evaluation of consequences of various actions, and a
consideration of the well-being of oneself and others.
CASEL denitions available from www.casel.org/social-and-emotional-learning/core-competencies.

a
Subscales included only on the grade 7 MDI.
Administering the MDI at two grade levels is particularly useful for 3.1. HELP's knowledge translation model
researchers and educators to be able to measure and accommodate
changes in students' social-emotional needs at a school level. Examined Building on previous success in the eld of early child development
longitudinally, the data are useful for observing population trends be- knowledge translation, a model of integrated knowledge translation
tween birth cohorts as well as observing developmental trajectories (iKT) was developed at HELP (Fig. 1). The foundation for this model
among the same students over time. To date, over 5000 MDI records was the scientic integrity of the data. The iKT process itself, as depicted
have been linked for the same children between grade 4 and grade 7. in the model, takes into account four key knowledge translation consid-
A further 15,000 grade 4 MDI records have been linked to kindergarten erations: 1) the need for careful planning that, in particular, focuses on
school readiness records from the EDI (many of these linked records understanding which audiences could use the data and for what reasons;
will be further linkable to the grade 7 MDI). Together, these datasets 2) ensuring that, while the data may be complex, the messages that they
are being utilized to answer questions about associations between convey are made simple and clear using a range of synthesis and visual-
early and later developmental outcomes (e.g., Guhn et al., 2016), as ization techniques; 3) recognizing that knowledge users access informa-
well as to identify mediating and modifying factors that can inuence tion using a wide range of tools thus requiring a multiplicity of
children's trajectories to promote healthy child development (in prog- dissemination techniques; 4) the importance of a deep engagement pro-
ress). Future plans include developing a grade 10 version of the MDI cess with data users, founded on strong relationships, with the overall
survey (Youth Development Instrument, age 15) that will build fur- focus being making meaning of the data.
ther capacity to investigate children's health and development across As a population-level measure, the MDI data are used in a wide
adolescence. range of ways to support the education system, schools, out-of-school
programs, and government in effective program and policy decision-
making. From this perspective, four key knowledge user audiences
3. From data to action: engaging schools and communities in knowl- were considered of particular importance for knowledge translation:
edge translation policy-makers, educators and education administrators, community
planners, and children. These are the audiences directly engaged in re-
The increasingly widespread recognition of children's social-emo- ceiving comprehensive reports, interpreting data, and using data to
tional competence as a foundational component of life-course success drive decisions. In consultation with members of each of these four
and well-being is a signicant accomplishment of collaborative efforts groups, a variety of knowledge visualizations and syntheses were devel-
between researchers, practitioners, and policymakers (Humphrey, oped, and knowledge products and tools that would best meet their
2013; Weissberg et al., 2015). That said, assessment systems that fail needs, including comprehensive reports, maps packages, webinars, net-
to involve key stakeholders or fail to present data in an accessible format working events, and development of an online knowledge user eld
are unlikely to have meaningful impacts (Baumbusch et al., 2008; guide, were designed. This process was highly interactive and iterative.
Green, Ottoson, Garca, & Hiatt, 2009). From its inception, the purpose Although researchers began to make meaning of the MDI data, the way
of the MDI was to yield ndings that can facilitate meaningful change in which data users were absorbing and interpreting the data informed
in children's environments and enhance their social and emotional improved approaches that had increased relevance and resonance. This
competence and well-being. Informed by what has been called the sci- process of adaptation and improvement has continued since 2010, and
ence and practice of knowledge translation (Straus et al., 2011), the is an essential aspect of our ongoing community engagement and
MDI was developed in accordance with recommended best practices knowledge translation strategy. One nal note, that although the MDI
for encouraging stakeholders' use of the data. This included engaging reporting structure was developed with these primary groups in
knowledge users throughout the entire research process, from deter- mind, parents have also been valuable knowledge users engaged in un-
mining what items should be measured on the MDI, to how data should derstanding more about the middle years and issues affecting their chil-
be reported, and how we could facilitate sustained use of the data over dren through public presentations and Parent Associate Committee
time (Baumbusch et al., 2008; Green et al., 2009; Straus et al., 2011). meetings. In addition to having access to free online MDI community re-
ports and maps, specically designed resources for parents and children
Fig. 1. HELP's knowledge translation model.
are currently being developed for the online MDI eld guide to continue adults at school that children feel are important to them, children's
exploration and discussion of MDI results at home. plans to graduate, and children's average self-reported social-emotional
development within a school compared with the school district average.
Based on consultation with educators and administrators, it was deter-
3.2. Data visualization and dissemination strategies mined that the school-level reports remain condential to each school
and school district in order to avoid public comparisons or rankings of
Relevance and usability are regarded as two of the most important schools. This decision also addressed a public reaction to previously per-
aspects of whether or not research results translate into practice ceived misuse of provincially collected academic achievement data (i.e.,
(Green et al., 2009). As such, knowledge translation products were de- the FSAs), which had been used for purposes other than intended, by
signed according to the criteria of being clear, yet complex enough to publicly ranking schools' according to students' scores on standardized
be useful for our diverse key audiences. Based on our previous research achievement tests, and without contextualizing the school achievement
collaborations with knowledge users, we had learned that (i) educators data (that is, without, for example, taking into account socioeconomic
were motivated to see the practical relevance of the data for their own status differences).
day-to-day activities, (ii) administrators wished to recognize or envi- A key strategy supporting the uptake of the information in these re-
sion the data's potential benet for their schools, and (iii) policy-makers ports, thus ensuring a higher degree of translation into action, has been
wished to obtain research evidence that enhances their political man- direct and concerted knowledge brokering strategy. This function has
dates (Guhn et al., 2012). Timeliness of data reporting (i.e., receiving been described in a range of public health settings (Ward, House, &
MDI results prior to budget decisions for the following scal year) was Hamer, 2009) and has been employed broadly by HELP across a number
also identied as an important factor for determining uptake within of years to facilitate uptake of research. In the case of the MDI, this has
schools and communities.2 Consequently, two levels of reporting were included a range of activities that include direct contact face-to-face
developed to meet these diverse needs. with school users (including workshops and presentations), training
At the rst reporting level, condential school reports created sepa- and discussion webinars, and smaller strategic discussions. This process
rately for grade 4 and grade 7 are provided to each participating school. has proven extremely valuable in developing on-going relationships
These reports feature a variety of visual representations of each school's with knowledge users and in understanding more fully how MDI data
data (i.e., children's average scores across SEL indicators) compared to can be used more effectively in a school context. This has fed directly
the school district average. The purpose of these reports is to help school into the process of on-going adaptation and improvement as reporting
staff identify areas of social-emotional development and assets in each approaches are increasingly focused on the needs of users.
grade level (i.e., adult relationships, peer relationships, nutrition and At the second reporting level, school district and community reports
health, constructive use of after school time, school experiences) in are provided that aggregate children's MDI scores by the total school
which their children fared well or excelled, and areas in which their so- district, and by neighborhood (accessible from http://earlylearning.
cial-emotional development and assets needed to be enhanced and sup- ubc.ca/maps/mdi/nh/). Similar to the condential school reports, scores
ported. Grade 4 and 7 surveys contain slightly different items and are for each neighborhood can be compared against the school district total
used by slightly different audiences. For example, high school principals to identify areas of relative strength and weakness. In addition, one of
will often request the grade 7 reports from the principals of elementary the most important features of the MDI reports is geo-spatial data map-
or middle school feeder schools in their area. We also developed a se- ping that reports MDI data using heat maps using existing recognized
ries of infographics to communicate summary statistics that would be neighborhood boundaries (Fig. 3). Data are mapped according to
easily interpretable and engaging enough for students to be able to par- children's block-level residential address rather than the school address,
ticipate in the unpacking of their MDI results with their teachers. Fig. 2 thereby maintaining the relevance of the data for neighborhood com-
provides examples of these infographics illustrating the number of munities while discouraging school comparisons, as many children at-
tend school outside their school catchment area. The maps in Fig. 3
2
Because MDI data are aggregated at the school rather than classroom level, timeliness illustrate two composite scores that were developed to quickly summa-
of reporting has been a consideration primarily for planning and programming decisions
at the school level. Data are collected in November and reported back to schools the fol-
rize child outcomes at the neighborhood level. The well-being index
lowing February. Community reports that provide additional analyses, including geo-spa- (green map, top) is an aggregate measure of children's optimism, self-
tial mapping, are released in April. esteem, happiness, sadness, and general health. Darker colors indicate
Fig. 2. Sample infographics from an MDI school report (from top left): Percentage of children reporting important adults at school; percentage of children planning to graduate; bar chart
comparing school average social-emotional development to the school district average (color bars represent the percentage of children at school with high, medium, and low scores; black
lines represent school district average).
a higher level of overall well-being (thriving). The Peer Relationships outcomes. Engaging stakeholders in these discussions has been helpful
asset (brown map, bottom) is one of four contextual assets (including in promoting collaboration toward the common purpose of improving
Adult Relationships, Nutrition and Sleep, and After-School Activities) children's well-being, rather than creating competition. A similar strat-
that indicates the strength of supports in that domain. Darker colors in- egy of knowledge brokering used with schools has also unfolded with
dicate that children report better relationships with peers. community organizations and collaborative structures. This has been
The maps have been powerful in their ability to effectively create essential in ensuring that MDI data are used to connect schools with
awareness around the large neighborhood-to-neighborhood variability the broader after-school sector so that more seamless and comprehen-
in foundational child well-being indicators and social context factors sive approaches to supporting children can be developed.
(inequities are easily visible). The maps also provide representative re-
search evidence about children and their environmental context for 3.3. MDI outcomes and impacts
local communities (as opposed to be aggregated at a provincial level)
that engage audiences differently and allows knowledge users to en- An increasingly important part of knowledge translation activities in
gage in meaning-making. That is, community members can relate the MDI project has been the collection of community stories about how
their own knowledge of their children and their community contexts MDI data has been used and how it has impacted children. These stories
to the research ndings presented to them. As a result, the MDI commu- are essential in connecting MDI users with each other so that learning
nity maps have been particularly useful to community planners and about how to move to action happens at a peer-to-peer level rather
policy-makers for quickly identifying geographic areas within their mu- than being mediated through HELP. Stories have been shared with
nicipalities where children are experiencing vulnerabilities and where other knowledge users through an online eld guide to inspire engage-
they are experiencing strengths. Furthermore, because the data can be ment in similar initiatives (see http://earlylearning.ubc.ca/mdi/tools/).
collected every year, these maps and reports can also be used to track Here we present three examples of how the MDI has initiated direct im-
children's well-being and social contexts over time to evaluate impacts pacts for children within schools and communities.
of interventions at local and municipal levels. Unlike the school reports
that are only available to schools, the community level reports are pub- 3.3.1. Engaging students to promote social-emotional well-being
licly available and make it possible to compare results across neighbor- Within a rural community in southeast BC, children typically experi-
hoods and across districts. These comparisons can be useful if the ence a positive childhood, but in recent years, school administrators
purpose is to nd similarities and differences within regions that can have observed a considerable increase in children's reported anxiety
help explain the data. For example, accompanying neighborhood-level and family stressors. Located over 2 hours from the nearest city, one of
data presented within the reports further enable knowledge users to the unique challenges this community faces is disconnection from the
unpack the data to identify which particular indicators (e.g., peer be- social planning networks and initiatives that tend to be focused in the
longing, friendship intimacy) are driving social-emotional development urban centres. In response, the Superintendent of Schools leveraged
Fig. 3. Sample MDI maps featuring the Well-Being Index (top) and Peer Relationships Asset (bottom). (For interpretation of the references to color in this gure, the reader is referred to the
web version of this article.)
the MDI results as a talking point to invite children's participation in that they were told would be shared with students and staff. After shar-
helping adults to understand why they were feeling increasingly anx- ing their experiences, students were surprised and relieved to learn that
ious. In three different projects, students engaged in discussions about many other students in their class were experiencing the same feelings.
the MDI results, and responded with personal interpretations and gen- Together, the students turned this into an opportunity to brainstorm
erated possible actions to address areas of concern. Students who were strategies for overcoming worries and managing negative feelings.
too shy to speak with an adult in person could record a video message Strategies included creating a mandatory break during the most difcult
class (math) for students to calm their nerves and collect their thoughts, It is important to recognize that on its own, the MDI is not designed
or expressing their feelings through song-writing and music. Further to assess causal associations between an intervention and an outcome,
developing their empathy and responsible citizenship, students also ini- nor does it detect changes in individual children. For example in the
tiated a project that involved lling origami boxes with good wishes above community stories, improvements in children's reported anxiety
that they took to local business owners so that customers could collect were not observed the following year in the rural community. It is pos-
a good wish when they entered the store. sible that anxiety improved for the children involved in the interven-
tion, but not for the whole population. In contrast, children's social-
3.3.2. Fostering collaboration between schools and communities emotional scores did improve following implementation of the Active
Consistent with other jurisdictions across BC, a suburban communi- Kids Hour, but again it cannot be determined without further research
ty observed from their MDI results that children were reporting low nu- whether these improvements were the result of this program. That
trition and sleep as well as isolation from adults at school which was said, the MDI data and reports contain a substantial level of detail par-
affecting their overall well-being. The Children's Community Coordina- ticularly regarding known mediators of children's health development
tor for the region recognized that this was a systemic problem that including supportive relationships and physical activity that are an es-
could not be addressed by schools or the community alone. The coordi- sential foundation for monitoring and explaining changes in child
nator organized a meeting between members from their community's wellbeing at the level of the population (whether school, neighborhood,
middle childhood round-table, school district administrators, and the or community-wide). In concert with leading education experts empha-
city's Parks and Recreation board to collaborate on what she called sizing the importance of universal interventions beneting entire popu-
their MDI action plan. The plan resulted in the creation of a play- lations of children (Greenberg & Abenavoli, 2017), building a more
based program called Active Kids Hour which was designed by all fulsome evaluation plan that connects intervention research with MDI
three stakeholder groups but was implemented within schools. The population trend data is an essential next step in this program of re-
lunch-hour program incorporates play and literacy to educate children search. The impacts of population-level interventions on children's de-
on healthy habits including sleep and nutrition promoting the SEL skills velopment (including the recent adoption of social-emotional skills as
of self-awareness, self-management and responsible decision-making a key learning outcome in BC) are of particular interest to researchers
(Elias et al., 1997). Teachers and school administrators lead the pro- at HELP.
gram, fostering relationships that children previously identied as miss-
ing. Even the grade 7 students are provided opportunities to mentor 4. Lessons learned: challenges and facilitators of social-emotional
younger students in the activities, promoting social awareness and rela- assessment
tionship skills. Active Kids Hour has had signicant buy-in from stu-
dents with many students reporting it to be the best part of their Initial buy-in to the MDI may have been inuenced by the novelty of
week. Schools might begin to evaluate the impact of this program by social-emotional assessment in BC, ability of data to be linked to other
comparing changes in MDI results over time, alongside complementary assessment tools, or familiarity with HELP's existing research including
research to examine any causal associations between the program and the EDI school readiness measure. Its staying power, however, is likely
children's social-emotional outcomes. creditable to the value schools and communities see in the results.
While evaluating the effectiveness of HELP's knowledge translation ac-
3.3.3. Addressing a service gap in the after-school hours tivities remains a priority, initial feedback indicates that the data are
The fastest growing city in BC welcomes over 800 new residents presented in a way that is accessible and interpretable to our four key
every month, and over 43% of its population speak a rst language audiences, including children themselves. That said, several set-backs
other than English (City of Surrey, 2016). The city's Middle Childhood have been encountered within the MDI project that we describe in
Manager was faced with a growing concern around the lack of space this section to assist others in developing and implementing similar as-
and programming available for children in their middle years (particu- sessment tools.
larly ages 812), who were too young to be left at home alone but too
old to want to participate in day care. Compared to children in other 4.1. Barriers and facilitators of implementation
age groups, she felt there was a noticeable lack of intentionality behind
middle years programming and the city had no plan on the horizon. The The current funding model for survey implementation has been a
city manager brought MDI data to the city's planning table to show what source of contention. Although a proportion of MDI implementation is
children in this age group wished to be doing with their time after supported by the BC government, school districts are still asked to
school, cross-validating this with research evidence demonstrating the cover the cost of generating the school and school district reports.
importance of physical activity for children's physical health, social Costs are calculated on a sliding scale contingent on the number of
skill development, and emotional well-being (Janssen & Leblanc, schools within the district (i.e., number of reports to be generated)
2010; Neumark-Sztainer et al., 2010). The MDI data became the catalyst and the relative size of the district within the province. The fees go di-
for developing MY Zone (Middle Years Zone), a safe, affordable, and rectly to support cost recovery; this is not a for-prot model. However,
high quality after-school drop-in program which children helped to de- the time commitment and nancial cost have been barriers to several
sign and name. Whereas previously the city had allocated no space and districts participating, and have limited implementation of the survey
no budget for middle years programming, MY Zone has now been im- to grades 4 and 7 although it could be modied for use in other grades
plemented across eight city sites and in the last year alone engaged as well. Often school districts will be interested in the survey but have
over 630 children (http://www.surrey.ca/culture-recreation/17668. to make sacrices based on budget. In other cases, school districts will
aspx). not be interested because they perceive the MDI (and SEL assessment
As the MDI expands within BC and becomes routinely used to collect in general) to have low value or no direct benet to them. In our expe-
data within the same school districts, MDI data are useful in broadly un- rience, several school administrators remain focused on academic as-
derstanding the possible impacts of such programs and interventions. sessment and perceive social-emotional skills as a distraction, rather
Several school districts in BC have used the MDI consistently for four than promoter, of academic success. Most commonly however, school
years. In these locations, clear, monotonic trends in children's well- districts are perturbed with covering the cost of the survey when both
being can be correlated with school level program and district-wide pol- schools and the larger community benet from the data and maps. In
icy changes that have been implemented with the express intention of truth, the system was designed this way because the initial MDI pilots
responding to needs as identied by MDI data. There is evidence from had been supported by school districts, and not every region has a con-
MDI trend data that these effects are actually being seen. sistent community organization that could be relied upon for support.
Since this query was raised, however, the MDI implementation model primary justication for this was that administering the MDI in the
has been adjusted to encourage partnerships between school districts same year provided a holistic picture of children's development that
and community organizations to bring the MDI to their area. A bene- would be missed by measuring children's academics alone. Before
cial side-effect of this model is that schools and communities become implementing the MDI in schools the implementation team also en-
equally invested in promoting the use of the results as well as sharing sured that we received endorsement from the BC Teachers' Union.
ongoing communication with school partners. Whereas teacher support for the FSA is low, by opening communication
Secondly, a major challenge that we have experienced has been the channels with educators we have been able to garner relatively high
struggle between keeping the MDI items and reporting consistent over support for the MDI survey.
time versus adapting items based on knowledge user feedback. From a Finally, the comparability between the EDI and MDI which was
research perspective, it is integral that measurement tools stay consis- also initially perceived as a stakeholder benet ended up causing con-
tent over time in order to make appropriate comparisons and monitor fusion when it came to the design of the maps. A heat map typically
annual changes in children's social-emotional outcomes. From knowl- shows a saturation of color where an indicator is most prevalent. How-
edge user and participant perspectives, however, some of the initial ever, based on key informant interviews with MDI knowledge users, it
MDI measures have proved cumbersome for teachers to administer was discovered that knowledge users who were already familiar with
(e.g., completing the after-school activities section takes students a the EDI maps (where darker colors represent higher vulnerability)
long time) or reporting methods have been difcult to understand found difcult to interpret the MDI maps (where darker colors repre-
(e.g., reporting the data in relative tertiles lost meaning once the survey sent higher assets). Although different colors were used for each survey,
was expanded to multiple school districts). Over the past six years, there the similarity of the maps (due to shared neighborhood boundaries to
have been cases where a problem was deemed signicant enough to facilitate comparison) continues to prove difcult for a number of
warrant changing either the survey measure itself or the reporting struc- knowledge users that are involved in cross-cutting action plans across
ture. However, in our experience, every improvement made has been early and middle childhood.
matched by signicant losses in comparability of data that has frustrated
researchers and knowledge users, alike. One solution to circumvent this
problem has been to provide school districts and communities with raw 4.3. Conclusions and future directions
data tables that lack attractive visualization but nonetheless remain com-
parable from year to year. From the outset, the goal of the MDI was to develop an assessment
tool that reliably and validly measured children's social-emotional skills
4.2. Unintended consequences that at the same time facilitated improvements to children's environ-
ments by identifying modiable, actionable factors such as adult and
Related to the threat of lack of data comparability across time, an un- peer connectedness, sleep and nutrition, and after-school opportunities.
anticipated consequence of the MDI has been the lack of comparable The MDI measure has been well-received by participants and stake-
relevance of some of the measured indicators across place. Within BC, holders and is garnering more national and international interest.
rural communities in particular felt unrepresented in the list of after- Knowledge users also report high satisfaction with the reports and
school activities that was provided in the original survey. For example, maps. Furthermore, from an academic standpoint, data collected from
youth organizations such as Girl Guides/Scouts or instructor-based ac- the MDI have signicantly contributed to an improved understanding
tivities such as tennis or gymnastics were perceived as activities that of the importance of social-emotional well-being in the middle years
would only be attended by children of a certain afuence or demo- and identication of factors that predict children's health and well-
graphic. Many children did not see themselves in a survey that was de- being throughout childhood and adolescence (Gadermann et al., 2015;
signed to represent all children. Experience tells us that the issue of Guhn, Schonert-Reichl, Gadermann, Hymel, & Hertzman, 2013; Guhn
cultural relevance will only become larger as we expand the MDI survey et al., 2016; Oberle et al., 2014b). The questions that remain are whether
nationally and internationally. At the time of writing, the MDI has been the data are consistently being used by all knowledge users, and what
piloted within Canada as far as the Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, real impacts these are having for children. Although we have seen ex-
and Ontario, and internationally within Australia, Croatia, the United amples of the MDI's usefulness to advocate for children's services,
Kingdom, and Peru. Again, attempts have been made to solve this prob- unite stakeholders around a common goal, or initiate a process of fur-
lem by providing abbreviated versions of the survey that only include ther inquiry we have also heard stories of administrators not sharing
the personal and interpersonal social-emotional indicators but do not school reports (for example, because of a lack of condence that
measure after-school time, or provide exibility to adapt the time use child self-report data have any value). Continued research that
section to reect local activities. However, the struggle to meet the cross-validates MDI results and EDI data (e.g., Guhn et al., 2016)
needs of diverse communities while retaining the uniformity of the will begin to address this issue, however it speaks again to the im-
measure is a continual conict that has not yet been fully resolved. portance of buy-in. Particularly as social-emotional development be-
Another unintended consequence of the MDI survey has been sur- comes integrated into education systems within BC and worldwide,
vey fatigue. Although being able to link MDI results to kindergarten it will be critical that assessment systems engage schools and com-
EDI data (teacher completed school readiness ratings) and grade 4 munities early and meaningfully in their evaluations in order to facil-
and grade 7 FSA (student-completed standardized academic achieve- itate the full utilization of the data and promote collaborative
ment tests) remains a desirable feature for many stakeholders, we dis- initiatives that optimize the chances of improving social-emotional
covered that many of the grade 4 and grade 7 teachers were weary of outcomes for children.
administering multiple school-based surveys in one year when it was
unclear how the MDI could benet their school or students. Although
we provided teacher letters, webinars, and had staff available by Funding
phone throughout the implementation window, the MDI's unique
funding model and inconsistent diffusion across the province made it This work was supported by the United Way of the Lower Main-
difcult to support teachers through traditional means, such as facilitat- land, BC school districts, and BC Ministries of Children and Family
ing professional development days or providing in-person assistance. Development, Education, and Health. The rst author was supported
Accordingly, there was push-back that the MDI survey was taking too by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (GSD-134926). The
much class time in a year when students also completed the FSA and a fourth author was supported by the Lawson Foundation, Canada
provincial student satisfaction survey. The implementation team's (GRT 2011-013).
Acknowledgements Fulkerson, J. A., Story, M., Mellin, A., Leffert, N., Neumark-Sztainer, D., & French, S. A.
(2006). Family dinner meal frequency and adolescent development: Relationships
with developmental assets and high-risk behaviors. Journal of Adolescent Health, 39,
We would like to acknowledge the students, educators, and commu- 337345.
nity leaders who have contributed to the development and implementa- Gadermann, A. M., Guhn, M., Schonert-Reichl, K. A., Hymel, S., Thomson, K., & Hertzman,
C. (2015). A population-based study of children's well-being and health: The relative
tion of the MDI, as well as the individuals who shared their testimonials importance of social relationships, health-related activities, and income. Journal of
of working with MDI data. We would also like to acknowledge our col- Happiness Studies, 126. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10902-015-9673-1.
leagues at HELP who support survey implementation, data management, Gadermann, A. M., Guhn, M., & Zumbo, B. D. (2011). Investigating the substantive aspect
of construct validity for the satisfaction with life scale adapted for children: A focus
and knowledge translation. The fourth author would like to acknowledge on cognitive processes. Social Indicators Research, 100, 3760.
research funding from the Lawson Foundation, Canada, for the research Green, L. W., Ottoson, J. M., Garca, C., & Hiatt, R. A. (2009). Diffusion theory and knowl-
and implementation work on a child development monitoring system. edge dissemination, utilization, and integration in public health. Annual Review of
Public Health, 30, 151174. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.031308.
Finally, all authors would like to thank the United Way of the Lower
100049.
Mainland, BC government, and BC school districts for their continued Greenberg, M. T., & Abenavoli, R. (2017). Universal interventions: Fully exploring their
support and collaboration. impacts and potential to produce population-level impacts. Journal of Research on
Educational Effectiveness, 10, 4067.
Greenberg, M. T., Weissberg, R. P., O'Brien, M. U., Zins, J. E., Fredericks, L., Resnik, H., &
Appendix A. Supplementary material Elias, M. J. (2003). Enhancing school-based prevention and youth development
through coordinated social, emotional, and academic learning. American
Supplementary material to this article (MDI grade 4 and 7 surveys) Psychologist, 58, 466474. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.58.6-7.466.
Guhn, M., Gadermann, A. M., Almas, A., Schonert-Reichl, K. A., & Hertzman, C. (2016). As-
can be found online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2017.03.005. sociations of teacher-rated social, emotional, and cognitive development in kinder-
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APPDEV-00888; No of Pages 12

Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology xxx (2017) xxxxxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology

Measuring social-emotional development in middle childhood: The

1. Introduction Further, educational policies that mandate teaching social-emotional

Core SEL skills dened by CASEL MDI measures

CASEL denitions available from www.casel.org/social-and-emotional-learning/core-competencies.

Fig. 1. HELP's knowledge translation model.

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