The Survey on Social and Emotional Skills (SSES) is an international survey designed by the OECD’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) to improve understanding of social and emotional learning in schools and beyond. SSES aims to provide evidence on the differences in students’ social and emotional skills between students aged 10 and 15 and if these skills are distributed equitably among students of different genders and backgrounds. Additionally, the SSES examines how each of these skills matters for important student outcomes, how they are promoted in school and at home, and how they are shaped by society.
Nurturing Social and Emotional Learning Across the Globe
Findings from the OECD Survey on Social and Emotional Skills 2023
The SSES 2023 measured 15 separate skills across 5 domains. Table 1 lists each skill and describes it, as well as an example of the behaviour (and its opposite) found among highly skilled students. These skills were selected to provide comprehensive coverage of those skills relevant to students’ current and future success and well-being (Kankaraš and Suarez-Alvarez, 2019[1]). A mapping showed that most education systems in participating countries and subnational entities (hereafter, “sites”; see below) address all of these skills, except optimism and trust (see Figure 1.1 in Chapter 1 of this report; see also OECD (2021[2]).
Some changes were made to skills measured in the SSES 2023 versus 2019. In 2019, achievement motivation and self-efficacy were measured as “additional skills” that were created from items used to evaluate other skills (OECD, 2021[3]). In 2023, achievement motivation is measured using a new set of dedicated items, while self-efficacy is not measured. Items to measure co-operation were included in 2023; however, this skill did not conform to the necessary technical standards and was therefore excluded from the analysis. Further information can be found in the SSES 2023 Technical Report (forthcoming).
All students completed a questionnaire indicating how much they agreed or disagreed with a series of statements. Examples of statements include: “I keep working on a task until it is finished”; “I stay calm even in tense situations”; and “I am able to defend my interests when they are challenged”. In 2019, these self-reports by students were compared to ratings of students’ social and emotional skills by teachers and parents, showing consistent patterns of results (OECD, 2021[3]). Therefore, only students’ self-reports were used in 2023.
Students aged 10 and 15, as well as their teachers and principals, participated in the SSES 2019 and 2023. Students’ parents or other primary caregivers (e.g. legal guardians) were also surveyed in some sites. Additionally, sites filled out a questionnaire on national and regional policies and practices to promote social and emotional education in their site (OECD, 2024[4]).
Sites
Students in 16 sites – that is, 6 countries and 10 subnational entities – participated in the SSES 2023. All sites of the SSES 2019 and 2023 surveyed 15-year-olds. While in 2019, all sites surveyed 10-year-olds, only six sites did so in 2023, as surveying this age group was optional. Figure 1 shows the participating sites, including whether they surveyed 10-year-olds.
Note: 1. Sites surveying 10-year-olds in addition to 15-year-olds.
All sites surveyed 10-year-olds in 2019 as it was mandatory. However, only Ukraine, Ji Nan (People’s Republic of China), Kudus (Indonesia), and Sobral (Brazil) did so in 2023, as sampling of 10-year-olds was optional in 2023.
Bogotá (Colombia) and Helsinki (Finland) participated in both SSES 2019 and 2023. Where possible, results in these sites are compared between 2019 and 2023.
Data from seven sites that participated in the first round of SSES in 2019 but not in 2023 are also included in analyses wherever possible to expand survey coverage (OECD, 2021[3]).
Table A3 in Annex A provides a short description of each site.
Students
A minimum of 3 000 students from each site and age group participated in the survey.
The report uses “15-year-olds” as shorthand for the SSES target population of older students, i.e. the group of older students the survey results represent. More specifically, the SSES covers students aged between 15 years and 3 months and 16 years and 2 months at the time of the assessment and those who were enrolled in school. Further, the report uses “10-year-olds” as shorthand for the SSES target population of younger students. This group includes students enrolled in school whose age varied between 10 years and 3 months to 11 years and 2 months at the time of the assessment.
The target population differed slightly in terms of key aspects. For example, Mexico, Delhi (India), Helsinki (Finland), and Sobral (Brazil) only surveyed students in public schools, while the sample in Dubai (United Arab Emirates) only included students from private schools.
Table A3 in Annex A provides a description of the target population(s) in each site participating in the SSES 2023.
Teachers
The report uses “teachers of 15-year-olds” or “teachers of 10-year-olds” and equivalents as shorthand for the target population of teachers teaching the modal grade or grades in which 15-year-old students (optionally 10-year-old students) were enrolled. The national modal grade for 15-year-old (or 10-year-old) students is the grade most 15-year-old (or 10-year-old) students in the site attended. Where responses from teachers are presented in this report, they are weighted so that they are proportionate to the number of teachers teaching most 15-year-olds and 10-year-olds in participating sites.
Principals and schools
The principals of the schools in which students were assessed provided information on their schools’ characteristics by completing a school questionnaire. The report uses “principals” and “school leaders” to mean the same thing. Where responses from school principals are presented in this report, they are weighted so that they are proportionate to the number of 15-year-olds and 10-year-olds, respectively, enrolled in the school.
The report uses “lower secondary education” and “primary education” to refer to the school environments of 15-year-old and 10-year-old students, respectively. However, the SSES did not include teachers or students in other age groups enrolled in International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) Levels 1 and 2 at these schools. In a few cases, both programmes are provided at the same school.
Cautionary notes
Caution is required when interpreting estimates for certain samples in some sites as one or more SSES sampling standards were not met. These include:
Mexico: The data for students, teachers and principals do not fully represent the target population and present major deviations from several technical standards. For this reason, data for Mexico for all samples are excluded from the international average and reported separately.
Ukraine: The Russian Federation’s war of aggression against Ukraine meant that a minority of Ukrainian regions where it was not safe to conduct the survey were not covered. Data are representative of 19 of 27 Ukrainian regions. For this reason, data for Ukraine is labelled “Ukraine (19 of 27 regions)”. In addition, the consequences of the war also had an impact on students’ participation rates. Data for 10-year-old students should be interpreted with some caution as student response rates were below the standard (72%). Data for 15-year-old students should be interpreted with caution as student response rates were much lower than the standard (57%).
Delhi (India): Student data should be interpreted with some caution, as student response rates were lower than expected (72%).
Helsinki (Finland): Data for 15-year-old students should be interpreted with some caution as student response rates were lower than the standard (70%). The response rate for teachers of 10-year-old students was similarly lower than the standard (74%), and the sample size was lower than stipulated in the technical standards.
Kudus (Indonesia): Data for both 10-year-old and 15-year-old students and their teachers should be interpreted with some caution. There were signs of moderate deviations in the technical standards for the sampling of students and teachers. Additionally, the sample drawn for students may not fully represent the target population. The data are estimated to represent 9 199 10-year-old students and 4 697 15-year-old students in Kudus.
Table A3 in Annex A lists cautionary notes for each site.
Averages across sites
Where averages across sites are provided, these correspond to the arithmetic mean of all participating sites except for Sintra (Portugal) and Mexico. Data for Sintra (Portugal) did not meet the technical standards. Annex A presents cautionary notes for Mexico.
In the case of some sites, data may not be available for specific indicators or specific categories. When data are missing or inapplicable for some sub-categories of a population or indicator, the average may not be calculated consistently across sites across tables or all table columns.
Two types of averages were calculated for 15-year-old students and their teachers:
an average of all sites participating in 2023 (and in some cases, 2019) – referred to as “Average”
an average that includes only sites with available data for both 10-year-olds and 15-year-olds, allowing for comparison between these age groups – referred to as “Average [15-10-year-olds common sites]”.
As mentioned above, while all sites included 10-year-olds and their teachers in the 2019 SSES, only six chose this option in 2023.
Standardised differences
Standardised differences quantify the size of the difference between two groups – such as differences in levels of stress resistance between boys and girls – using a common scale. The difference can be interpreted as the number of standard deviations, on average, by which the groups differ. Typically, a standardised difference (also referred to as effect size, Cohen’s d) of around 0.2 is considered small, 0.5 is moderate, and 0.8 or more is large. The larger the difference, the less overlap between the two groups and the more noticeable the difference is likely to be (Sullivan and Feinn, 2012[5]).
Standard errors
The statistical estimates presented in this report are based on samples of students or teachers rather than values that could be calculated if every person in the target population in every country had answered every question. Therefore, each estimate has a degree of uncertainty associated with a sampling error, which can be expressed as a standard error.
Statistically significant findings
Differences considered statistically significant from either zero or between estimates are based on the 5% level of significance unless otherwise stated. In the figures, statistically significant estimates are denoted in a darker tone.
Rounding
Due to rounding, some figures in the tables may not total correctly. Totals, differences, and averages are always calculated using exact numbers and are rounded only after calculation. All standard errors in this report have been rounded to one or two decimal places. If the value 0.0 or 0.00 is shown, it does not imply that the standard error is zero but that it is smaller than 0.05 or 0.005, respectively.
Abbreviations
Coef Coefficient
Dif. Difference
ESCS Index of economic, social and cultural status
N Number of observations
S.D. Standard deviation
S.E. Standard error
SSES Survey on Social and Emotional Skills
% S. D. Percentage of standard deviation
% dif. Percentage-point difference
Additional technical information
Readers interested in additional technical details are invited to consult the short technical note at the end of this volume (Annex A), the SSES 2019 Technical Report (OECD, 2021[6]) and the SSES 2023 Technical Report (forthcoming).
This report contains StatLinks for tables and figures at the end of the chapters, which means that all tables and figures are assigned a URL leading to an Excel® spreadsheet containing the underlying data. To download the matching Excel® spreadsheet, type the link into your Internet browser, starting with the https://doi.org prefix, or click on the link from the e-book version.
The SSES database houses the raw data and scales presented in this report. Access to the database can be requested via the project’s website at https://www.oecd.org/en/data/datasets/SSES-Round-2-Database.html.
References
[1] Kankaraš, M. and J. Suarez-Alvarez (2019), “Assessment framework of the OECD Study on Social and Emotional Skills”, OECD Education Working Papers, No. 207, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/5007adef-en.
[4] OECD (2024), Background questionnaire - Survey on Social and Emotional Skills (SSES) 2023.
[3] OECD (2021), Beyond Academic Learning: First Results from the Survey of Social and Emotional Skills, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/92a11084-en.
[2] OECD (2021), Embedding Values and Attitudes in Curriculum: Shaping a Better Future, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/aee2adcd-en.
[6] OECD (2021), OECD Survey on Social and Emotional Skills, Technical Report, https://www.oecd.org/education/ceri/social-emotional-skills-study/sses-technical-report.pdf (accessed on 8 April 2024).
[5] Sullivan, G. and R. Feinn (2012), “Using Effect Size-or Why the P Value Is Not Enough”, Journal of Graduate Medical Education, Vol. 4/3, pp. 279-282, https://doi.org/10.4300/jgme-d-12-00156.1.