What is the Social and Emotional Competency Survey in Classworks?

Today, schools are increasingly focused on helping students build the skills they need to thrive academically, socially, and personally. What has often been referred to as Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) is now more commonly described as student wellness, life skills development, or whole-child support.

The SE Skills Survey in Classworks is:

available in English and Spanish
a student-facing survey for students in 4th grade and above
a teacher-submitted survey for students in grades Pre-kindergarten - 3rd grade

It was developed by the Washoe County School District in Nevada in partnership with The Collaborative for Social-Emotional and Academic Learning (CASEL) and the University of Illinois-Chicago. (more information can be found here)

CASEL defines this work as:

“The process through which young people and adults build and apply the knowledge, skills, and mindsets needed to develop a strong sense of self, manage emotions effectively, set and work toward meaningful goals, understand and relate to others, build positive relationships, and make thoughtful, responsible decisions.”

This definition reflects the growing emphasis on practical, research-informed skills that support student well-being, resilience, collaboration, and long-term success inside and outside the classroom.

What the Survey Measures

The Social-Emotional Skills Survey measures and supports students' development of discrete life skills in 8 categories or competencies, including:

Relationship Skills (RS)	Responsible Decision-Making (RDM)
Self-Awareness: Emotional Knowledge (SA:EK)	Self-Awareness: Self-Concept (SA:SC)
Self-Management: Emotional Regulation (SM:ER)	Self-Management: Goal Management (SM:GM)
Self-Management: School Work (SM:SW)	Social Awareness (SA)

How the Survey is Structured

The student-submitted survey contains 40 questions
- Set aside approximately 20-30 minutes for students to complete
- Students can complete the survey 5 times within each assessment window
The teacher-submitted survey contains 17 questions
- Set aside approximately 10 minutes per student
- Teachers can submit more than one survey per student within each testing window

All questions are multiple choice and present a real-life scenario. Students choose among four answers to describe how easy or difficult they feel about the scenario.

A sample question is shown below

How the Survey is Scored

The survey generates a quantitative score that allows educators to compare results across individual students or groups. These results can then be used to help students set SMART goals that support their personal growth and academic progress.

Each survey question is worth up to 40 points. Students earn points based on the answer choice they select. Each response option is assigned a specific value:

Very Difficult – 10 points
Difficult – 20 points
Easy – 30 points
Very Easy – 40 points

Global and Competency Scores

The Global Score is the average of the individual questions
Each Competency Score is the average of points earned on questions within that category

The Classworks SE Skills Survey are items from or adapted from the WCSD Social and Emotional Competency Assessment (Davidson et al., 2017).