A Social and Emotional Learning Survey for Students With Learning Disabilities: Reliability and Validity Analyses

Although many social–emotional learning (SEL) surveys exist for the general student population, students with learning disabilities (SwLD) are often excluded during the survey development process, and the current SEL surveys often overlook critical SEL competencies for SwLD (e.g., self-advocacy), necessitating an SEL survey for SwLD. To address this oversight, the Winston Essential Skills Survey (WESS) was designed to measure SEL in an SwLD population. Annually, over a 4-year period prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, two teachers evaluated each student with the WESS 2.0 ( N students = 809; N teachers = 236). A confirmatory factor analysis suggested that this 41-item version of the WESS could be improved. A follow-up exploratory factor analysis indicated that 15 items could be dropped and that two items fit better under two other subscales, which improved the model fit of the eight-factor model substantially. This 26-item version of the WESS (WESS 3.0) also had evidence for internal consistency, test–retest reliability, and consensus (i.e., between the two evaluating teachers). Study 2 found that the WESS 3.0 has evidence for convergent, divergent, and discriminant validity. These findings suggest that the WESS 3.0 may be the first reliable and valid SEL survey specifically designed for SwLD.