Abstract
Recent studies emphasize the importance of socio-emotional skills, but little is known about how everyday classroom practices impact development of these skills. Using data from the Czech Republic, we show that modern practices such as working in small groups improve these skills.
Intrinsic motivation and self-confidence are particularly positively affected. Moreover, modern practices have no adverse effects on test scores.
On the other hand, standard practices such as lecturing and memorizing have no impact on socio-emotional skills or test scores. Our results highlight that changing the composition of teaching practices slightly can have a substantial positive impact on socio-emotional skills.