Needs Assessment Study for Social-Emotional Learning in Higher Education

It is recognized that negative emotions such as anxiety, stress, and pressure have a negative impact on cognitive performance, the working memory capacity of the brain, and consequently on the academic attainment. Thus incorporating social-emotional learning (SEL) programs in the higher education is essential. The first step to implement these programs is to understand students’ social-emotional skills and evaluate the strengths to be endorsed and directed positively and the weaknesses and limitations to be improved and enhanced. To obtain this type of knowledge, Panorama’s SEL surveys are used to measure students’ social-emotional competencies for higher education students in UAE from both genders. The measured skills are social awareness, self-efficacy skills, growth mindset, grit, and self-management. The students’ self-assessments indicated that implementing SEL competencies within the higher education programs is a necessity in order to lead higher academic performance, long-life learning, and fruitful work accomplishments.