Development of the student emotion regulation assessment (SERA) for children and adolescents in grades 1–12

Although an increasing number of schools are prioritizing Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) across grade levels, interest in SEL programming is outpacing the development of valid SEL assessments. Through a series of studies, the voices of 8083 students and 114 educators were engaged in the development of the Student Emotion Regulation Assessment (SERA). We report the results of four studies that examine the internal consistency and factor structure of the SERA, which seeks to measure students’ use of eight emotion regulation strategies (avoidance/escape, acceptance, distraction, emotional support-seeking, problem-solving, reappraisal, rumination/repetitive thinking, and somatic relaxation) to manage anger, anxiety, boredom, and sadness across commonly occurring and school-related academic and social situations. Results also begin to establish the ecological validity and perceived utility of the tool by students and educators, including the reports which provide students’ patterns of emotion regulation strategy use. Implications for the development of SEL assessments and their application are discussed. Bridging the gap between assessment development and use, this paper describes the iterative development of the Student Emotion Regulation Assessment to create a tool that is scientifically rigorous, relevant, and practical for schools. It is a digital vignette-based assessment that measures students’ use of eight different strategies (acceptance, avoidance/escape, distraction, emotional support-seeking, problem solving, reappraisal/reframing, rumination/repetitive thinking, somatic relaxation) to manage anger, anxiety, boredom, and sadness across commonly occurring academic and social situations in or related to school. It provides individual data reports for students in grades 6–12 and aggregated data reports for schools working with grades 1–12.