In partnership with Abt Associates, AARP Foundation Experience Corps released the results of an independent evaluation investigating the Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) outcomes of students participating in the Experience Corps tutoring model within four Generations Incorporated school sites in Greater Boston and five schools in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Evaluators used the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA) to measure specific social emotional competencies including Self-Awareness, Social-Awareness, Self-Management, Goal-Directed Behavior, Relationship Skills, Personal Responsibility, Decision Making, and Optimistic Thinking.

Findings from the evaluation are compelling, with students seeing statistically significant improvements in overall social-emotional learning and displaying particularly strong growth in personal responsibility, relationship-building, and decision making skills. Moreover, students showed statistically significant improvements on the SSIS-SEL items assessing reading performance and motivation to succeed.