Insights from investigating early childhood ebooks on literacy, cognitive development, and social and emotional learning outcomes

Researchers were invited to investigate the effectiveness of bibliotherapeutic electronic books, or ebooks, social and emotional learning (SEL) digital platform in afterschool sites in a large school district situated in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States. This study was not particular to the platform’s efficacy; instead, we sought to explore how bibliotherapeutic ebooks can boost literacy, cognition, and SEL skills in young children. Researchers used a quasi-experimental design with nonequivalent treatment/control groups. Groups were assigned at the site level with individual students as the unit of analysis. Student data on literacy, cognitive ability, and SEL outcomes were collected pre-treatment and post-treatment. The researchers found no significant change in the studied groups. Upon digging deeper into SEL outcomes, researchers uncovered an invisible problem: the school district’s state-mandated measurement suite did not neatly map or align to the constructs within the afterschool curriculum for SEL. Interpretations and implications, including how districts define and assess SEL, are included in the discussion.