The Comprehensive Learning Diagnosis: Chile’s approach to assess socio-emotional learning in schools

The Comprehensive Learning Diagnosis (DIA) is a voluntary assessment tool made available to all Chilean schools. The DIA promotes the comprehensive development of students, providing timely information and guidance to internally monitor students’ learning in the academic and socio-emotional domains at several points during the school year. Specifically, with respect to socio-emotional learning, three areas were considered: personal, community, and citizenship. In each of these areas, a set of socioemotional skills were defined, operationalized, and became possible to monitor by school communities. The DIA also collects students’ opinions of school management practices regarding socio-emotional skills. In this case study, we will describe the DIA, starting with the context of the crisis in which it emerged, followed by its characteristics and preliminary results. We conclude with lessons learned to build a new formative assessment system and reshape - based on criterions of collaboration, trust and capacity building - the vertical relationship among the different levels of the educational system previously existing in Chile.