Emotional difficulties among young people have increased, particularly since the Covid-19 pandemic. In this context, developing social and emotional skills can help strengthen their ability to cope with challenges. A team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), in collaboration with UniDistance Suisse, the University of Fribourg and Geneva University Hospitals (HUG), examined the effects of regular classroom practice of improvisational theatre, mindfulness meditation and board games designed to explore emotions. Their findings show that these activities have a protective effect on the mental health and self-efficacy of adolescents with the highest levels of anxiety. Improvisational theatre, in particular, fosters the development of empathy and collaboration, regardless of students' anxiety levels. The findings have been published in Social and Emotional Learning: Research, Practice, and Policy.

Adolescence is a key stage of development, characterised by heightened emotional vulnerability. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), one in seven young people aged 10 to 19 lives with a mental health condition. In this context, developing social and emotional skills offers a promising way to support both academic success and young people's ability to cope with the challenges of adolescence, particularly for those who are most vulnerable. Identifying approaches that are both effective and well suited to this age group is therefore an important priority.

A team from UNIGE, in collaboration with researchers from UniDistance Suisse, the University of Fribourg and Geneva University Hospitals (HUG), compared the effects of three classroom-based activities: improvisational theatre, mindfulness meditation and board games designed to explore emotions. The study involved 300 students aged 15 and over enrolled in three Geneva schools providing pre-vocational and upper secondary education.

Over a nine-week period, the classes took part in a weekly 90-minute session dedicated to one of the three activities. A fourth group attended a 90-minute weekly office skills course focused on job seeking, with no social or emotional content, over the same period. Before and after the programme, the researchers assessed a range of outcomes, including emotional and behavioural difficulties, self-efficacy, emotion regulation, empathy, emotion recognition and willingness to collaborate. The adolescents who took part in the programme often faced multiple vulnerabilities, including emotional and school-related challenges, and some were at high risk of dropping out of school.

A Protective Effect Among the Most Anxious Participants

The findings did not show an overall improvement in students’ social and emotional skills. However, they did reveal different effects depending on students’ anxiety levels at the start of the study. At that point, almost one in three participants had moderate to high levels of anxiety.

In the control group, young people’s emotional and behavioural difficulties increased over the nine-week period, while their self-efficacy declined. Self-efficacy refers to a person’s confidence in their ability to cope with challenges and act effectively. By contrast, among adolescents who took part in improvisational theatre, mindfulness meditation or board games, these two measures remained broadly stable. The researchers even observed a slight reduction in emotional and interpersonal difficulties among the most anxious students who practised mindfulness meditation.

“The most important finding is not a dramatic improvement among all students, but rather that these activities appear to have prevented a decline in those who were already the most vulnerable,” explains Nathalie Mella, senior lecturer at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences (FPSE) and associate researcher at UNIGE’s Interfaculty Centre for Affective Sciences (CISA), who co-led the study with Gwladys Rey, scientific associate at the FPSE. “This highlights the importance of asking not only whether an intervention works on average, but also who is most likely to benefit from it.”

Improvisational theatre fosters empathy and collaboration

Improvisational theatre also stood out from the other two activities. After nine sessions, the students who took part showed an increase in cognitive empathy — that is, their ability to adopt another person’s perspective and understand their intentions — as well as a greater willingness to collaborate. These changes were observed regardless of their initial anxiety levels.

“Improvisational theatre creates a kind of social laboratory: students must express their emotions, recognise those of others, and adapt to one another in real time, while working in a playful setting where mistakes can become a resource,” say Nathalie Mella and David Sander, professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences (FPSE) and at UNIGE’s Interfaculty Centre for Affective Sciences (CISA), who also led the study. This was the activity students enjoyed the most. Such engagement is particularly important during adolescence, when interventions that feel too prescriptive or too similar to traditional classroom teaching can lead to disengagement.

This study suggests that schools can provide, in regular classroom settings, experiential, playful and socially connected spaces that support the most vulnerable adolescents. The findings therefore highlight the value of approaches that place active participation, peer interaction and a sense of safety within the group at the heart of educational practice. Supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the research team is now building on this work through a new study focusing on improvisational theatre and its effects on students from migrant backgrounds.