Sentido y Alcance de las Pruebas Estandarizadas de Habilidades Socioemocionales en Contextos de Bajo Desempeño Educativo en la Educación Básica en Colombia

Abstract

This research analyzes the meaning of the standardized assessment of social-emotional learning in basic education. From a socio-material realism approach and following the hermeneutic circle method, it applies qualitative documentary analysis to educational policy communications, reference frameworks, questionnaires, and guidebooks for the interpretation of the outcomes of social-emotional learning in basic education. Standardized socio-emotional tests measure emotional self-awareness, self-regulation of negative emotions, and self-efficacy. These measurements leave aside the metacommunicative dimension, that is, the communication about communication that offers emotional support for the teaching-learning relationship in school. Due to this void, teachers lack inputs to make the metacommunicative dimension of the teaching-learning process a matter of consideration and reflection in her educational decision-making at classroom level. Especially in the context of double educational disadvantage, where most students do not achieve satisfactory academic results throughout their basic education trajectory, unintentionally, standardized tests can adversely influence many schoolchildren who exhibit disruptive and internalizing behaviors in contexts of low educational performance. Thus, they can contribute to reproduce the conditions that are typically related to poor educational performance and are pointed out as their main defects. Alternatively, examples of formative social-emotional diagnoses are proposed. The evidence provided by these diagnoses seeks to complement standardized tests, remedying the gap found offering evidence about the metacommunicative dimension that supports the teaching-learning relationship in school. The study concludes by introducing an exploratory reflection on alternatives for the governance of learning evidence used in educational decision-making in the socio-emotional domain at basic levels of education in Colombia.