Non-cognitive skills-should we measure them?
And have education standards improved historically (not really)
Report from Edfest
The term ‘non-cognitive skills’ , according to the Education Endowment Foundation ,refers to ‘a set of attitudes, behaviours, and strategies that are thought to underpin success in school and at work, such as motivation, perseverance, and self-control. They are usually contrasted with the ‘hard skills’ of cognitive ability in areas such as literacy and numeracy, which are measured by academic tests.’ Under non-cognitive skills comes character education, now apparently supported by both the Coalition and Labour which is the idea that specific “good character” traits can be taught to children and students. Character education is hard to define but politicians think they see it in private education and want it transferred to the state sector.
The problem with non-cognitive skills is that they are often, difficult to measure, and some might say to teach. Government attempts to support non-cognitive skills ie through PHSE programmes have had decidedly mixed reviews. The EEF found that robust evidence of a causal relationship between non-cognitive skills and later success is in fact limited. Not much is known, the EEF claims, about how far it is possible to develop a young person’s non-cognitive skills through intervention, or whether such changes lead to improved outcomes, especially in the long-term, e.g., employment.
However, Professor James Heckman’s research emphasizes the overwhelming importance of non cognitive skills in predicting life outcomes. These noncognitive or “personality” skills (such as conscientiousness, honesty, and persistence), he claims, have consistently been shown to trump IQ in determining success later in life and found that programs that encourage non-cognitive skills effectively promote long-term success for participants.
Although current policies, particularly those related to school reform, put heavy emphasis on test scores, practical experience and academic research show that non-cognitive skills also lead to achievement according to Heckman. Because non-cognitive skills are more easily improved during adolescence than are cognitive skills and they often stabilize in the formative years, public policy, he argues , can help stimulate their development over longer periods. For instance, while IQ is well set by age 8, he claims (what about the Flynn effect?) non-cognitive skills such as dependability continue to develop. (Heckman is also a robust advocate of early interventions to ensure that disadvantaged children are given the opportunity to break out of the cycle of disadvantage. Evidence shows investment in early interventions pays dividends both for the economy and the individual’s concerned.)
Big and open questions though remain about whether non-cognitive skills, which are prized by both admissions tutors and employers, can be be well supported in schools, and whether they can , or indeed should, be accurately measured.
Some of these issues were discussed at last weekend’s Sunday Times/Wellington College Edfest. In a session asking whether standards had fallen in education, panellists seemed to agree that standards have either stagnated or fallen in our system (in a historical context). In any case we seem to have had a pretty poor return as taxpayers on increased investment in education. Jonathan Simons, Daisy Christodoulou, Geoff Mulgan ,Sam Freedman, Andrew Old, John Blake and Robert Peal commented on falling standards with some, led by Peal of course, suggesting that progressive ideology among teachers bore a heavy responsibility for our underperformance. While accepting the importance of non-cognitive skills they were very wary indeed about seeking to measure them in schools, or imposing external accountability measures to add to the ones that exist that focus on cognitive skills . Mulgan championed robust evidence and Studio schools and said that they supported the development of non-cognitive skills, with some internal measures to monitor them, but even he was not advocating externally imposed measures .Daisy Christodolou seemed to make a good point by reminding us of Goodharts Law, the modern formulation of which is “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” We were reminded of the C grade boundary at GCSE which it is widely accepted has skewed our education system, so that resources were targeted at those pupils on the grade boundary to the detriment of the most able and weakest pupils.
The consensus here was to avoid new accountability measures for non-cognitive skills (ie similar to the Duckworth index). But there were no pointers from panellists as to how you help support the development of non-cognitive skills in schools, without any incentives. If you don’t provide incentives in a system you are unlikely to get the outcomes you want. Our system is geared to valuing things that can be measured. John Blake by the way, a self-confessed Blairite teacher , seemed to think that the Financial Crisis and the shenanigans of our leaders in the City meant that trying to focus on developing leadership in schools was probably a waste of time, although ,to be fair, he had half his tongue in his cheek (I think) . Mind you, thinking of the City, shouldn’t our children have lessons in ethics? (another non-cognitive skill)
What was perhaps most depressing though, was the apparent acceptance that despite education being at the top of the political agenda for the last 17 years and with significant new investment, that the best that can be said is that standards in some areas of literacy and numeracy have either seen very modest improvement (by international standards), stagnated or in some cases gone down . According to a 2010 study (see below) the proportion, for example, of young adults with poor reading (below Level 1) seems to have remained stubbornly at about 17% since 1980. And ‘substantial proportions of young people (16–19 or 16–24/25) have poor numeracy (below Entry level 3), of the order of 22%’. And ‘On average, number skills in England are poorer than in many other countries, especially industrialised ones, though other aspects of numeracy are better.’
See Rashid Brooks study which gives mixed results
The levels of attainment in literacy and numeracy of 13- to 19-year-olds in England,
1948–2009 Research report Sammy Rashid and Greg Brooks, University of Sheffield-2010