Abstract:

Introduction:
Social and emotional skills play an important role in the transition process of students from secondary education to higher education. Literature has proposed that social-emotional learning (SEL) has five categories: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making, and that there are four transition phases: preparation, encounter, adjustment, and stabilization. The objective of this systematic review was to examine the influence of SEL on educational transition and connect the SEL categories to the different transitional phases.

Methods:
A search was conducted in the PsycINFO, SCOPUS and sEURch databases for relevant articles published from 2010 up to 2022. Using the PRISMA protocol, 306 studies were identified, 282 abstracts were screened, 42 full-text articles were read and 34 of them were included.

Results:
According to 10 studies, self-awareness refers to learning how to regulate emotions and develop healthy self-efficacy, which is important for the preparation phase of transition. Then students move to the encounter phase of transition. 10 studies have shown that self-management and social awareness provide students with skills to improve intrinsic motivation and learn to match their personal identity to their social identity in the new educational environment. The adjustment phase of transition requires both Relationship Skills and previous taught skills from self-awareness, self-management, and social awareness, to build and maintain new relationships as witnessed in 7 studies. Lastly, the stabilization phase is related to responsible decision-making. 4 studies have shown that students have a clear self-image and can make decisions considering their personal behavior and social surroundings. The empirical studies in this systematic review show various connections between the SEL categories and the transition phases, but they also show uncertainties about how to use SEL during the transition to higher education such as students’ inability to specifically describe their needs and teachers’ pedagogical competences to support students sufficiently. Therefore, future research is needed to explore this issue more in depth using qualitative and quantitative approaches.

Conclusion:
SEL can be connected to the different transitional phases and provides a structure to potentially teach students important skills during the transition which they need in higher education. Combining the SEL framework and the transition model is an innovative way to shed light on the role of SEL in the transition into higher education. However, further research is required to explore effective SEL based interventions.

Keywords:

Social-emotional learning, Educational transition, Secondary education, Higher Education, Adolescents.