22
The right approach to assessment?
I’ve been doing more reading today on approaches to assessing soft skills. Among this was a paper arguing the need for a common framework for assessing soft skills - agreeing on a defined list and agreeing on a common approach to assessing peoples skills based on this list. I’m not sure about the avenue it took though, which was to get to a point of being able to ‘accredit’ people in soft skills - that seems to me almost like trying to turn soft skills into hard skills - becoming something you would evidence on paper almost like you would your academic qualifications (although its interesting that arguably some of the current ‘accreditations’ in youth work almost attempt this already?
The two approaches to assessment I’ve been reading about most are:
- Having a set standard to achieve (based on various indicators)
- Measuring distance traveled
I don’t think we’re interested in number 1, and I think attempts to do this are very questionable. Number 2 is much more relevant to us but I have a concern over this. My concern is that in both cases the ‘measurable element’ does result in a ‘final score’.
For example, we’re not trying to help people assess how skilled somebody actually is in communication, what we do want to achieve is that people recognise when they have an opportunity to develop or work on their soft skills, and to recognise the progress they make as the result of them participating in a project/activity/goal.
The problem with having a ‘final score’ is that inevitably people will compare their results and this will lessen the effectiveness of the system. An example being that if you take part in a personality test purely for your own benefit and with no intention to share the results its much more likely that you’ll give honest answers than if you feel you have something to gain by ‘answering correctly’.
So the challenge for us is that we somehow want to help people measure their ‘distance traveled’ and we also want to provide them with a ‘report’ to help them recognise the progress they’ve made, but we need to provide these reports in a manner that doesn’t allow them to be compared or used as some kind of leaderboard.
Kate made a suggestion related to making the experience feel more ‘game like’ and although we don’t yet know what this means or have any practical ideas to achieve this I think its a good way of thinking out of the box about how we can help people recognise their gains but in a purely personal way……more thinking required!
Hi Mike
I’ve just been reflecting on this. Do you need a score? Are you measuring numerically? The area I’d be interested in is around the distance travelled. If this is based on individuals perceptions then there surely is no right or wrong and at any given moment someone could be either in a neutral place feeling they haven’t moved, feel that they’re less competent or more competent in their learning of a specific soft skill.
Are you using a sort of linear approach? This sometimes gives the impression that to improve or be better you have to reach the end of the line. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the APIR used by Personal Advisors with Connexions (can’t remember at this moment in time what the initials stand for). This is a wheel and young people move about on the wheel. It doesn’t entirely get away from reaching an ‘end point’ but may be a different way of looking at things.
It is difficult to eliminate the need to compare as I think that comes automatically. As with many things it is often the way in which they are implemented or supported to be used that becomes the key and prevents the competitive element. Or if there are a number of variations all positive (i’m thinking in particular of the Myers Briggs Personality testing which endeavours to highlght all +s and -s in all areas.)
ENough musings for now - enjoying the conversation though!
Hi Hilary - you’re definitely correct about the feeling of having to reach the end of the line or get to the top - we see this in some of the exercises we do on our training.
I had thought about the circular type assessment but yes really its just the same except theres more than one line to get to the endpoint. I think we need perhaps need to move away from scoring & assessment somehow and regard progress as new things learned/discovered/considered and perhaps rather than providing feedback by measure of scales we look instead to compare what peoples anticipated benefits were for activities against what they feel they actually gained.
Ana & Kate have provoked some good discussions at the moment about creative ways of approaching this and I’m going to give it lot of thought over the next few days.
Unfortunately my internet connection is being temperamental at the mo but when it behaves itself I’ll also change this really pale grey font that I can hardly read for the comments!
Add A Comment