NWEA researchers won first place in the first annual Social-Emotional Assessment Design Challenge, a competition for assessments that measure social-emotional learning, or SEL. The winning study, led by NWEA research scientists Jim Soland and Nate Jensen, focused on how students’ “rapid guessing” behavior on an academic assessment can be used as a proxy for measuring SEL competencies, specifically self-management. CASEL (the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning) sponsored the challenge.