Enhancing Emotional Competencies among Adolescent Students in Tanzanian Secondary Schools: A Focus on Social-Emotional Learning Strategies

Abstract

The objective of this mixed-methods study was to improve the emotional competences of Tanzanian secondary school adolescents by examining and identifying successful social-emotional learning practices. Questionnaires and focus group talks were completed by 244 teenagers, ages 13 to 17. Students and teachers reported through surveys and interviews, respectively, the benefits of social emotional skills and social emotion regulation techniques. Perception of emotions was found to have a positive effect on students' interest in learning (β=.144, t(4, 239)= 2.141, p=.033). A student's participation, communication, cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy, and self-control were statistically shown to enhance social and emotional competences (the model summary's impact size was 54%). This research investigates how students manage their learning and develops their emotional competences by looking at their social-emotional skills. This study offers methods for fostering emotional competences as well as the impact of social emotional abilities on students' ability to cope with learning. The Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology should therefore provide curricula and a framework for the efficient control of teenage students' social and emotional behaviour.