Socioemotional skills and their relationship with stress levels during the COVID-19 contingency in Mexican junior and high school students

ABSTRACT

Introduction. Due to the worldwide COVID-19 health contingency, school activities in Mexico were suspended, as a result of which students of all educational levels began to carry out their learning activities at home. Objective. Adapt a Socioemotional Skills (SES) Survey to the context of COVID-19 and undertake a diagnosis of the emotional state, stress, and learning experiences of Mexican junior and senior high school students. Method. A test battery was administered to 205 students from nine states in the country from schools where Ensena por Mexico collaborates, and an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted for the SES survey. In addition, a Pearson's correlation was calculated between SES and stress levels. Results. The EFA yielded four components that explain 51.71% of the sample variance. In addition, statistically significant negative correlations were found between SES and stress in the health field (r = -.316, p < .01) and SES and school stress (r = -.606, p < .01). Discussion and conclusion. The results showed that a high level of socio-emotional skills is related to a lower level of stress in students