University students' socio-emotional skills: the role of the teaching and learning environment

Socio-emotional skills are vital for individuals to thrive academically, personally, and socially in the twenty-first century. However, limited attention has been devoted to the factors that might facilitate or hinder the development of socio-emotional skills among university students. To address this gap, we explored the association between the teaching and learning environment and socio-emotional skills using both variable-centered (Study 1) and person-centered (Study 2) approaches. A survey was conducted among 1,136 students in 21 universities. In Study 1, the variable-centered approach showed that active learning, good teaching, and clear goals and standards were positively associated with socio-emotional skills, while feedback and appropriate assessment had no significant or negative influence on socio-emotional skills. In Study 2, the person-centered approach identified three groups of students characterized by low, medium, and high socio-emotional skills. Students who experienced higher levels of active learning and clear goals and standards were more likely to belong to the high socio-emotional skills group. Surprisingly, students who received more frequent feedback from their teachers were more likely to belong to the low socio-emotional skills group, which we speculated might be due to low levels of feedback literacy. These findings underscore the importance of the teaching and learning environment in developing students' socio-emotional skills in the higher education context.