Assessments that monitor for student wellbeing serve as a valuable opportunity for educators to assess the internal and external factors that affect student achievement. Addressing such critical needs can be overwhelming. Where do we start as educators and school leaders? The first step to a successful intervention process is a screening tool. You first have to know what your students need before providing support. In addition to collecting actionable student data using relevant and accessible formats, PASS provides baseline data so that students and cohorts in need are identified and provided support.
9 Factors Essential to Successful Student Intervention
Student interventions are most effective when acted upon proactively. Research shows that this can enrich the education environment, but only when implemented with care. The 9 factors of PASS are the fundamental building blocks for enhancing student overall success and achievement. Each of these factors represent possible hindrances to student wellbeing, and are central to PASS’ proactive intervention.
Factors related to Connectedness
Feelings about School
Do your students have positive relationships with peers? As intangible as it appears on the surface, student feelings of school connectedness can be measured. PASS measures a student’s feelings of inclusion in, or alienation from, the school community. Do they feel safe at school? Do they feel that the school is welcoming to all? When a student does not feel as if they are part of the learning community, opportunities abound for distraction and motivation wanes. It’s natural for students to begin the academic year hesitant and uneasy, however PASS creates the opportunity to identify students who are not likely to verbalize their feelings and concerns.
Attitudes to Teachers
Student attitudes towards teachers is an often overlooked metric of the quality of a learning environment. Every student should have positive encounters with school staff. Do they feel comfortable enough to share with a teacher or adult if they are struggling? Unfortunately, we know that is not always reality. PASS makes it possible to gauge student attitudes towards teachers so that areas for improvement can be addressed proactively. Actionable data and intervention guides equip teachers, counselors and administrators to address challenges at both the individual and cohort scales.
Attitudes to Attendance
If they’re not in your classroom, they’re not learning. Any teacher could tell you this, but researchers find significant connections between attendance and academic success. Students who are at-risk for this factor have a greater likelihood of becoming habitually truant if no supports are put into place. Whether in a physical or digital learning environment, attendance is highly correlated with academic success. Attendance issues can tumble out of control without intervention. Is motivation lacking, or are other factors at play? School staff are on the frontlines of monitoring how students value attendance as a central ingredient of their academic success.
Factors related to Self-Efficacy
Perceived Learning Capability
Confidence empowers learning, yet not every student perceives their ability to learn and grow. Lack of confidence is a blocker to academic progress. Unfortunately, most educators never have a way to gather actionable data regarding perceived learning capability. Decades of academic research shows that when students feel confident in their abilities, they perceive tests and other assessments as challenges to be overcome, as opposed to crises to be confronted. Relevance of instructional content also plays a role in whether or not students find learning enjoyable. The PASS assessment opens up new opportunities to foster a sincere learning mindset in students of all grade levels.
Self-Regard
Students thrive when they believe in their ability to succeed. Furthermore, academic success is more attainable when feelings of self-regard are positive, rather than negative for any number of possible reasons. Science shows that perceptions of self-regard are not universal in nature; ideas and attitudes about self-regard vary across cultures. In other words, students enter our classrooms with diverse notions of how to view their own ability to succeed. Is it all about how hard you work? Or is success affected by circumstances? These nuances highlight the need for monitoring, and PASS is the key to assessing student self-regard as it relates to academic success.
Preparedness for Learning
Clearly, a large portion of what determines student outcomes lies on the backs of educators. If a teacher does not empower students with the knowledge and skills to master a subject, students are at a persistent disadvantage. Do students feel that they have the study skills, tools and lifestyle habits to be successful in school? PASS measures how effective a learner feels with regard to their self-regulation and learning skills. Effective teaching should show increasing sentiments of preparedness for learning as the school year progresses. Teachers are able to prepare better-informed learning materials when they better understand students’ perceptions of preparedness.
Confidence in Learning
It’s fascinating how much we learn about our individual students by observing how they react to challenges. PASS measures a student’s ability to persevere when faced with an academic challenge. Do they have a growth mindset? Confidence in learning empowers students to take their skills to the next level, even if no one had ever pushed them beyond their academic comfort zone. Student wellbeing monitoring provides a unique perspective of how students view their learning ability over time. Ideally, students should gain confidence in learning over time, but assessing this factor is the only way to identify trends.
Factors related to Motivation
General Work Ethic
Motivation is everything, but it’s not innate. Student motivation is driven by factors from all aspects of life, at home, at school and everywhere in between. Despite the school environment being only one piece of the puzzle, teachers have the ability to encourage a positive work ethic among students of all grade levels. Students often spend more time with their teachers than they do with friends and family. Do our students see the purpose of going to school, and how it will advance their long-term goals for themselves? Educators have the critical ability to monitor and inspire students’ motivation to succeed in school and life, and provide guidelines for intervention where appropriate.
Response to Curriculum Demands
What happens when teachers up the rigor in the classroom? How do individuals and cohorts of students respond to the challenge? Do they step up, or does motivation wane? As educators, we prepare students for the changing demands of the fast-paced world we live in. Monitoring student responses to curriculum demands provides valuable insights into how the school experience can work to challenge all students without shutting them down.
Learn More About PASS and the Power of Actionable Data
PASS assessments of student wellbeing are more than a survey. With availability in 26 different languages and implementation around the world, PASS has been proven effective in gauging how social and emotional learning affects the overall academic success of the student.
The student assessments that PASS offers are supplemented by an intervention guide that has been designed to support schools in the intervention process. As schools identify trends in student wellbeing data, the PASS intervention guide facilitates taking action to address areas of concern. Each section of the intervention guide provides example interventions relevant to that specific factor. Most interventions can be applied to whole schools, specific groups, or individuals, depending on the area of need.
Learn more about how PASS has helped teachers and support staff in schools provide the social and emotional resources their students need with these real-world case studies.
Our sample reports and additional resources provide tangible insights of what to expect from PASS implementation, including key features and how to interpret the results. PASS Intervention Guides provide a research-backed foundation for implementing the best path forward for your students and teachers.
Our team of support staff is ready to help you bring academic-focused student wellbeing monitoring to your classroom. Get in touch with the PASS team today. We look forward to supporting your students and staff.