Elizabeth Szymanski is a doctoral candidate in education researching pre-service teachers' familiarity with social-emotional learning (PROVIDED BY E. SZYMANSKI/University of Windsor)
By Kate Hargreaves
Being a teacher is about more than getting kids up to speed on their reading, writing and math.
Teachers also support students as they solve problems, build relationships, set goals and manage emotions.
These skills are part of social-emotional learning (SEL), which takes place every day in elementary and secondary schools. But PhD researcher Elizabeth Szymanski (BA, ECE, BEd, MEd) says that teacher candidates don’t necessarily feel prepared to take it on.
Szymanski, a doctoral candidate in the Joint PhD in Educational Studies, has spent the past several months interviewing 15 pre-service teachers across Ontario about their experiences with SEL as part of her dissertation research.
It’s a topic that has long interested Szymanski, who completed her BA, ECE and BEd through UWindsor’s concurrent education program, studying child psychology and early childhood education, before earning a Master of Education and beginning her PhD.
“When people role-play teacher as kids, I used to do that all the time,” she says, noting that the combined education and psychology program allowed her to balance her interest in teaching with a fascination with how people think.
While completing the concurrent program, Szymanski worked at a daycare and, upon graduation, as an elementary school teacher. Now a sessional instructor at St. Clair College, Szymanski says her experiences across different levels of education have reinforced the importance of SEL.
“Growing up, at least for me, there was no real mention of SEL,” she explains.
“Obviously, the term wasn’t around back when I was in school, but even in a general sense teaching relationship-building, confidence and self-esteem in children or how to regulate your emotions was not common. It was much more academically driven.”
For her doctoral dissertation, she set out to learn how familiar and comfortable today’s pre-service teachers are with SEL and whether it was part of their teacher education experience.
“When you’re a teacher, you’re teaching curriculum content but also teaching human beings, and so I always felt something was missing,” she says.
During her own placements as a teacher candidate, she found some associate teachers highlighted SEL while others were more hesitant to do so. This difference helped drive her current research.
While she is still wrapping up her dissertation, with hopes to defend in Winter 2027, preliminary findings suggest that teacher candidates do not necessarily feel comfortable or confident teaching SEL.
“I think that’s a real concern,” she says. “We have to have teachers who are prepared to deal with this because it is the reality of the classroom.”
Some participants had never heard the term SEL. Others were familiar with it but did not feel confident teaching it. Like Szymanski, many had gone through school without an explicit emphasis on SEL.
“We know that SEL has been statistically proven in the literature to help students build success in the classroom, and not just academically,” she explains.
“Students can’t be successful without also being taught how to be a person as well first. Research shows they learn best when they’re able to develop skills like social awareness, communication, problem-solving, decision-making, relationship-building and emotional regulation.”
These skills can support students not only in school but also in postsecondary education, the workplace and other areas of their lives.
Beyond unfamiliarity with SEL, pre-service teachers also expressed concern that parents might see them as overstepping, Szymanski says. That concern can make them hesitant to incorporate SEL into their classrooms.
It’s a complicated issue that Szymanski knows cannot be fully explored through one project.
“There’s a lot more that needs to be done. There’s a lot more voices that need to be heard,” she says, noting that she’d love to continue the research by engaging students themselves as well as associate teachers, teacher educators, administrators and policymakers.
“In the end, the idea is to best support pre-service teachers so that they come out feeling confident and comfortable teaching SEL,” she says.
For the time being, however, she is focused on completing her dissertation, with the goal of walking the convocation stage as Dr. Szymanski this June.
With the October application deadline for the Joint PhD in Educational Studies approaching, her advice to prospective students is to enjoy the process.
“It can be very overwhelming,” she says of completing a PhD. “Be prepared to work. It’s definitely not going to be easy, but in the end, if you love what you do and you’re passionate about it, it is extremely rewarding.”
For those interested in applying to the Joint PhD in Educational Studies, more information is available on the program website.