Assessing 21st Century Skills Summary of a Workshop (2011) / Chapter Skim
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6 Synthesis and Policy Implications
6 Synthesis and Policy Implications
Pages 107-118
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From page 107... ...
In response to the first question, she said her answer was a whole hearted "yes." In her view, all of the workshop presentations demonstrated the importance of these skills. Beginning with Richard Murnane's presentation that highlighted the critical relationships between these skills and labor market outcomes to presentations by Nathan Kuncel, Stephen Fiore, and Rick Hoyle, speakers emphasized the need for these skills to function well in today's society.
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From page 108... ...
She noted these days the word "assessment" has come to mean only large-scale, summative, accountability assessment, and, in her judgment, many of the measures of interpersonal and intrapersonal skills are clearly not ready to be used for this purpose. As she put it, "The long research histories in each area give rise to any number of measures for assessing individual constructs, but measures that are suitable for summative accountability purposes are few and far between." Assessments can serve many purposes, however.
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From page 109... ...
Stephen Fiore addressed this in his remarks in relation to interpersonal skills, noting "there is a proliferation of concepts associated with interpersonal skills, and it is problematic because we have different labels that may be describing the same construct, and we have the same label that may be describing a different construct." For example, with regard to interpersonal skills, terms like social competence, soft skills, social self-efficacy, and social intelligence may all be used to refer to the same skills, or they may each refer to a different set of capabilities. Likewise, in discussing intrapersonal skills, Rick Hoyle pointed out the lack of consensus in the field with regard to defining skills like self-regulation.
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From page 110... ...
According to Kuncel, the problems arise with domain-general conceptions of these skills. In his view, focusing on broad critical thinking skills, such as understanding the law of large numbers, and training students to apply these skills, is not a useful endeavor.
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From page 111... ...
For instance, assessment centers obtain simulated examples of behavior; the observers see how job candidates perform in the situation simulated at the assessment center but not how the candidate performs when he or she actually encounters that situation in real life. Fiore thinks situational judgment tests are even more removed from real-world situations in that the test taker simply chooses what he or she judges to be the best response.
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From page 112... ...
Intrapersonal Skills Assessment of intrapersonal skills is also challenging because of the complexity of the processes involved. Hoyle reminded audience members that intrapersonal skills involve planfulness, self-discipline, delay of gratification, dealing with distractions, and adjusting the course when things do not go as planned -- all characteristics of self-regulation or, put another way, the management of goal pursuit.
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From page 113... ...
With regard to the assessments of emotional intelligence, Hoyle tended to agree with Matthews that the construct is not yet well defined, and questions remain about its distinction from personality. As Hoyle put it, the measures Matthews discussed tend to be highly correlated with personality to the extent that "one wonders if one really needs separate measures of emotional intelligence or if, in fact, one is able to capture that variability in standard personality measurement." Fairness and Accessibility A third issue discussed throughout the workshop was fairness.
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From page 114... ...
There were also considerable concerns about the issue of construct irrelevant variance, particularly as it relates to English language learn ers. Patrick Kyllonen, director of the Center for Academic and Workplace Readiness and Success at the Educational Testing Service, cited statistics that in the state of California, 25 percent of all public school students are English language learners, with the numbers increasing rapidly in other states as well (e.g., see National Research Council, 2011)
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From page 115... ...
In this case, the notion is that including an assessment of writing, and attaching stakes to it, should bring about an increased focus on developing writing skills, both by teachers in their instruction and by potential test takers as they prepare for the assessment. Currently, in K-12 education, Kyllonen continued, accountability systems revolve almost entirely 2 See http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop-assessment/index.html [May 2011]
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From page 116... ...
The view of the assessments endorsed by Herman and other workshop participants was that the various constructs would be incorporated into the academic curriculum so that their teaching would be an integral part of the instruc tional program. For instance, it is not difficult to imagine incorporating a team project into the regular science, social studies, language arts, or mathematics program.
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From page 117... ...
Kyllonen also spoke of the exams used to assess critical-thinking skills at the college level, such as the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) , the ACT CAP Test, and the ETS Proficiency Profile Test.
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From page 118... ...
Finally, Juan Sanchez, professor of management and international business at Florida International University, called for increased levels of cross-disciplinary efforts, stressing that successfully tackling these issues will require the collaboration of expertise from many disciplines including measurement, cognitive psychology, and information technology.
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