Promoting Peer Connectedness Through Social-Emotional Learning: Evaluating the Intervention Effect Mechanisms and Implementation Factors of a Social-Emotional Learning Programme for 9 to 12-Year-Olds.

There is little evidence regarding the effect mechanisms of social-emotional learning programs on children's peer relationships. The current study evaluated a novel school-based social-emotional learning program for the first year of secondary school assessing effects on social-emotional skills, peer connectedness, happiness, student and teacher classroom climate. The sample included 19 intervention classrooms (n = 399) and 16 waitlist-control classrooms (n = 281), with a mean age of 10.34 (SD = 0.76) and 48.8% girls. The main intervention effect analysis followed a per-protocol approach and was thus conducted with eight classes that finished all sessions (n = 195) and the control group classes (n = 281). It was further hypothesized that increases in social-emotional skills would predict peer connectedness and class climate increases, which would predict happiness. Results indicated significant intervention effects for social skills, peer connectedness and happiness. Classroom climate declined for both groups, seemingly affected by the school transition. Hypothesized relationships between target variables were partly supported with significant effects of social-emotional skills on connectedness and significant effects of peer connectedness on happiness for children reporting connectedness decreases. Additional analyses were conducted including all classrooms to compare the intervention's effectiveness across different implementation progress groups. Significant group differences were found, indicating that implementation aspects impact intervention outcomes. The findings indicate that universal, school-based social-emotional leaning programs are effective approaches to support peer relationships in the context of the school transition. However, more implementation support seems to be needed to ensure best-practice delivery and achieve maximal intervention effectiveness.

Regulation of transcription termination in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans.

The current predicted mechanisms that describe RNA polymerase II (pol II) transcription termination downstream of protein expressing genes fail to adequately explain, how premature termination is prevented in eukaryotes that possess operon-like structures. Here we address this issue by analysing transcription termination at the end of single protein expressing genes and genes located within operons in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. By using a combination of RT-PCR and ChIP analysis we found that pol II generally transcribes up to 1 kb past the poly(A) sites into the 3' flanking regions of the nematode genes before it terminates. We also show that pol II does not terminate after transcription of internal poly(A) sites in operons. We provide experimental evidence that five randomly chosen C. elegans operons are transcribed as polycistronic pre-mRNAs. Furthermore, we show that cis-splicing of the first intron located in downstream positioned genes in these polycistronic pre-mRNAs is critical for their expression and may play a role in preventing premature pol II transcription termination.