How Animals Help Students Learn

Research and Practice for Educators and Mental-Health Professionals

Nancy R. Gee, Aubrey H. Fine, Peggy McCardle, Nancy R. Gee, Aubrey H. Fine, Peggy McCardle

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317217473
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy
• Index: Psychology

How Animals Help Students Learn summarizes what we know about the impact of animals in education and synthesizes the thinking of prominent leaders in research and practice. It's a much-needed resource for mental-health and education professionals interested in incorporating animals in school-based environments, one that evaluates the efficacy of existing programs and helps move the field toward evidence-based practice. Experts from around the world provide concrete examples of how animals have been successfully incorporated into classroom settings to achieve the highest level of benefit while also ensuring the health and welfare of the students and animals involved.

SECTION II
The Evidence

CHAPTER 4
Does Animal Presence or Interaction Impact Social and Classroom Behaviors Conducive to Student Educational Success?

Patricia Pendry, Alexa M. Carr, and Jaymie L. Vandagriff

Introduction

This chapter presents research on the effects of incorporating live animals into education settings, with a focus on activities, interventions, and prevention programs designed to enhance students’ social competence – the social, emotional, and behavioral skills associated with educational success, especially in the face of adversity. Our review of empirical evidence is grounded in a discussion of the key elements of social competence, its implications for educational success, and the theoretical framework guiding the design, implementation, and evaluation of school-based prevention programs promoting it. We also describe animal characteristics that may inform the mechanisms underlying program effects of equine-and canine-assisted interventions, and conclude with directions for future research.

What is Social Competence and How Does it Inform Educational Success?

Although the literature examining its predictors is expansive, the multifaceted construct of social competence may best encompass the essential skills and behaviors needed to attain educational success. Although the construct of social competence is intuitively understood by researchers, clinicians, and the public, there is no comprehensive, agreed-upon way to define it, nor is there one standardized way to assess it. We therefore examine the constructs that inform its conceptualization and development, which are described as a three-tiered, hierarchical model (Cavell, Meehan, & Fiala, 2003).

Cavell et al. (2003) refer to the most advanced level of social competence as social adjustment, where the child is developmentally on target for achieving appropriate social goals. This level reflects how well the child meets the expectations of parents, teachers, and society. The next tier is social performance, which incorporates the child’s interactive style, the efficiency of the style, and what situations may be problematic for the child. The most basic level is social skills, the specific abilities the child uses within a social situation, including both how the child responds to a given situation as well as how the situation is encoded.

The multifaceted construct of social competence is considered a central domain of human development and is thought to play a critical role not only in educational success, but also in predicting future mental health outcomes and overall well-being (Luecken, Roubinov, & Tanaka, 2013). For example, lower social competence is associated with lower academic competence and performance (Sørlie & Nordhal, 1998; Wentzel, 1991), anti-social behavior (Rabiner, Coie, Miller-Johnson, Boykin, & Lochman, 2005; Rubin, Root, & Bowker, 2010; Sørlie, Hagen, & Ogden, 2008), conduct problems, depression (Rockhill, Vander Stoep, McCauley, & Katon, 2009), and substance use (Griffin, Epstein, Botvin, & Spoth, 2001). Children with lower social competence tend to have poorer social skills, and higher rates of cognitive distortions (e.g., hostile attribution bias), which may contribute to problem behavior in social situations, such as expression of anger and anxiety. They tend to have difficulty regulating negative emotions and physiological arousal (Alink, Cicchetti, Kim, & Rogosch, 2012), which can interfere with initiating and maintaining positive peer interactions (Crawford & Manassis, 2011; Crick & Dodge, 1994; Dodge & Somberg, 1987), and difficulty in other social relationships (Luecken et al., 2013). Relationship problems with peers and adults, difficulty with emotion regulation, attention, behavior, and challenges with learning and achievement contribute to the development of mental health issues and poor child well-being. Promoting behavioral, social, and emotional competence in youth is thus an effective strategy to enhance educational success and to prevent mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders in adulthood.

Theoretical Framework for Promoting Social Competence through HAI

There are several strength-based and preventive perspectives to guide the design, implementation, and evaluation of AAIs in promoting social competence. The Positive Youth Development (PYD) perspective uses both prevention and intervention strategies in an integrated way to provide opportunities for youth to develop skills and reinforce pro-social behavior (National Clearinghouse on Families and Youth, 2007). According to the Social Development Model (Catalano & Hawkins, 1996), which has guided PYD, preventive interventions need to provide opportunity for involvement in pro-social activities, demonstration of skills, and reinforcement of desired behavior. The idea underlying this model is that youth bond to the source of the reinforcement, after which they internalize the value of the person and the institution to which they are bonded. Preventive interventions guided by these perspectives have been shown to increase social competencies, prevent maladaptive behavior, violence, and delinquency, as well as improve mental health outcomes and educational success (Catalano, Hawkins, & Toumborou, 2008).

When PYD is put into place within a school setting, it is often referred to as School-Wide Positive Behavior Support (Sawka-Miller & Miller 2007), which targets social competence through the implementation of proactive behavior management strategies, pro-social skill instruction, and behavior modification techniques. The components of direct skill instruction to promote pro-social skills and competencies are also referred to as Social Emotional Learning (SEL), which emphasizes the development of self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making (Devaney, O’Brien, Tavegia, & Resnick, 2005). Durlak, Weissberg, Dymnicki, Taylor, and Schellinger (2011) reported that SEL programs improve feelings of self-confidence and self-esteem, promote school bonding, improve school grades, reduce aggression, noncompliance, and conduct problems, and lead students to experience meaningful increases in standardized high-stakes achievement tests.

Given that AAIs provide ample rewarding and reinforcing opportunities for involvement in pro-social activities, demonstration of skills, and desired behavior, researchers and practitioners should explicitly examine the effects of incorporating HAI-focused interventions with evidence-based PYD and SEL approaches to strengthen HAI-focused program and study designs, enhance implementation, and increase the quantity and quality of evaluation efforts.

Which Elements of Social Competence are Suitable to HAI Intervention?

Whereas facility with language and the ability to interact with others within accepted cultural and social norms are important, the individual also needs to read and accurately interpret non-verbal communication cues such as facial expressions and body language. Self and social awareness are also important, informing individuals’ understanding of the dynamic interplay between their own emotions, intents, and behaviors, and those with whom they are interacting. Fostering willingness and ability to evaluate someone’s own behavior, assess its impact and appropriateness, and make changes if needed is a key element of enhancing elements of social competence, including goal-directed behavior, personal responsibility, optimistic thinking, and self-management. Finally, children and adolescents need experiences that require them to consider the context in which social interactions take place, including the quality of relationships, timing of communication, motivation, attitude, knowledge, perception (encoding) of all parties involved, and the behaviors involved in establishing and maintaining positive, productive social relationships.

How Does Participation in Equine Programming Foster Social Competence?

Participation in equine activities may enhance social competence through the following mechanisms. First, equines possess several key characteristics that influence the behavior, emotion, and cognition of humans interacting with them: e.g., horses and mules are prey animals, and have a strong fight-or-flight response and a highly-attuned awareness of their physical surroundings, characteristics which necessitate participants’ self-awareness of their own behavior, cognitions, emotional intent, and verbal and non-verbal communication. By interacting with equines, participants are encouraged to reflect on the consequences of their behavior and intent, and the information non-verbal communication provides to equines (e.g., posture, emotion, physiological arousal). Since equines provide immediate, consistent, predictable, and meaningful feedback – pinning ears, swishing tail, licking lips, and blinking, human participants simultaneously gain experience in interpreting non-verbal cues. Participants also learn to manage and direct their own behavior to evoke desirable responses from the horse (e.g., licking lips, blinking, resting foot) rather than less desirable responses (e.g., swishing tail, pinning ears, tuning out). These experiences are relevant for children’s social competence in the context of non-equine partners, as program facilitators can encourage children to evaluate the nature of their behavior, thoughts, and intent and their effects on a human partner, which improves self and social awareness, goal-directed behavior, and communication skills.

A second characteristic of the horse that may mediate the development of social competence is its expectation about leadership and the natural hierarchy of herd dynamics. Horses are inclined to oscillate between seeking and accepting leadership, which encourages participants to engage in behavior that elicits respect from the horse. Participants learn to assert leadership through clear non-verbal cues and redirecting their behavior when needed. Participants are reminded that self-management, fostering a give-and-take relationship, quick decision-making, and optimistic thinking are important skills that facilitate successful human-equine interaction. In sum, equine characteristics significantly influence the nature of interactions between participants and horses in ways that promote children’s social and behavioral competencies through the practice of pro-social behavior and reflection on participants’ cognition, behaviors, emotion, and intent.

Empirical Evidence of Equine Intervention Affecting Social Competence

Equine-assisted interventions are generally thought of as falling into four categories. According to PATH International (2011), therapeutic riding programs offer equine activities and are therapeutic in nature, as they are expected to indirectly promote physical, cognitive, emotional, and social well-being. Consultation with medical or educational professionals working with the client in other realms (e.g., school, physical therapy) may be conducted, but is not essential as the primary purpose of sessions is to teach riding skills. Hippotherapy refers to equine activities that utilize equine movement as a component of physical, occupational, or language therapy treatment strategies under the direction and collaboration of a riding instructor and respective medical professional to achieve functional outcomes (PATHintl.org). Equine-facilitated psychotherapy (EFP) is an experiential psychotherapy in a collaborative effort between a licensed mental-health professional and an appropriately credentialed horse professional to incorporate horses in working with clients to address mutually established treatment goals and objectives (Fine & Beck, 2010). Finally, equine assisted learning (EAL, also known as equine facilitated learning, EFL) represents a unique set of practices that combine experiential learning and equine activities to enhance life skills (e.g., mindfulness, emotion regulation, problem solving) relevant to educational, professional, and personal goals of participants. Integral to both EFP and EAL is the understanding and application of equine behavior to elicit and identify horse-human interactions that promote well-being and development in a manner that is safe for both horses and humans.

Although research exists on the effects of these programs across types (for reviews see Frewin & Gardiner, 2005; Nimer & Lundahl, 2007; Selby & Smith-Osborne, 2013), none has been conducted in education settings. While school-based, equine-assisted interventions may be less common due to the logistics of dealing with large animals, remarkably few studies have chosen to collaborate with education entities. Exceptions include correlational work by Trotter, Chandler, Goodwin-Bond, and Casey (2008), who compared traditional classroom-based counseling activities with equine-assisted intervention and found that participation in equine intervention was associated with lower levels of internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems. Recently, Fredrick, Ivey Hatz, a...