Life Skills and Citizenship Education Initiative • Self-reporting items are currently still the most useful in terms of cost-benefit in the field. Further Middle East and North Africa development and innovation towards better measures of capturing skills beyond self-reporting are still required to reduce the limitations of the current levels of subjectivity in their use. Overcoming the challenges MEASURING LIFE SKILLS A range of innovation in instrument design has been developed to overcome some of the challenges: In the context of Life Skills and Citizenship • Anchoring vignettes are used to reduce cultural differences in response styles. They ask participants to rate other people’s behaviour in a given scenario before rating their own. The Education in the Middle East and North Africa data on the ratings on other people is used to understand participants’ individual response style. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY • Situational judgement tests are used to reduce errors created through participants giving socially desirable or deliberately wrong answers. The tests develop a scenario and ask the participants what they would do in this given situation. They have been found to be predictive of future success in employment and are a better predictor than either cognitive scores or personality tests. • Computer-based assessment is the use of virtual reality/serious games testing of life skills. Nevertheless, most computer-based testing of skills does not fulfil the potential of the technology and ends up as an online version of a paper and pencil test. The greatest barriers to achieving the technological potential in skills testing are the huge costs involved in developing a believable virtual environment to perform and demonstrate skill proficiency and the difficulties in developing the necessary methodologies to make use of the mass of data collected within the virtual environment created. Future directions The ultimate objective of improving the measurement of life skills is to facilitate the integration of life skills The LSCE Measurement Instrument, Measuring into education systems through curricula and life skills in the context of Life Skills and Citizenship Education the Middle East and North assessment (what is not tested is not taught) and to Africa,2 is a combined effort of UNICEF and The develop a better understanding of the level of life World Bank to support the development of a skills that has been acquired in order to enhance the new instrument to measure life skills, as outlined learning and life outcomes for all children and in the LSCE Framework. The instrument aims at young people. measuring the current state of play and the distribution of life skills of students within national Despite the existing challenges regarding education systems. It should inform education measurement of life skills, recent innovation and decision makers and practitioners on the nature development in the field suggest that it is possible. and scope of potentially useful education interventions, and the design of effective policies Concerted effort from policy makers, practitioners and programmes to enhance life skills. When and researchers is required to integrate life skills into finalized, the measurement instrument will Teaching and learning life skills, when done effectively, are incredibly important for empowering education systems and non-formal learning settings provide a standardized approach for assessing children and young people to achieve success in education, employment and personal goals and to and to collaborate to generate the global life skills proficiency targeting the enable them to have a say in decisions that affect their lives. In today’s complex, fast changing, global, knowledge and evidence on how to effectively lower-secondary age group. digital and often challenging environment, life skills are widely considered a necessity so that children integrate and measure life skills. and young people, regardless of their background, can survive and thrive.¹ Nevertheless, to date, few education systems have integrated life skills into their education systems. Some of the reasons for this are challenges concerning the 1) lack of knowledge as to what life skills are, 2) how they can be taught and learnt, and 3) how they can be measured, assessed and evaluated. The 2019 UNICEF-World Bank publication, Measuring life skills in the context of Life Skills and Citizenship Education the Middle East and North Africa2, strives to answer these questions through a For more information, please contact menaedu@unicef.org review of available instruments for measuring life skills, and reflects on how life skills can effectively be October 2019 Cover photo: © UNICEF/UN0218767/Shennawi – taught. Zeina, 8 years, in a UNICEF-supported Makani centre in Irbid, Jordan. 1. World Bank (2019) The Changing Nature of Work: World Development Report 2019. Washington: World Bank. 2. Hoskins, Bryony, & Liu, Liyuan, Measuring life skills in the context of Life Skills and Citizenship Education the Middle East and North Africa: United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Bank, 2019. 1. What are life skills? • Targeted strategies to support children and young people (use of explicit instructions and targeted The Life Skills and Citizenship Education (LSCE) interventions). These methods are useful for all students but are a necessity for students that have • Life skills are transferable skills that enable Initiative represents a community of practice not had the chance to learn about these life skills in their home environment. individuals to deal with everyday life, and to that brings together a variety of international progress and succeed in school, work and and regional organizations, ministries of These principles need to be applied when integrating life skills into an education system and within societal life. education and other institutions responsible for specific interventions tailored towards teaching and learning of life skills. or concerned with the status of education • They are comprised of skills, attitudes, values, behaviours and domain-based knowledge across the countries in the Middle East and 3. How can life skills be assessed? North Africa (MENA). which need to be applied in harmony with each Quality measures for assessing life skills would enable education decision makers and practitioners to The current partners of the LSCE Initiative are other. the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), track current levels and distribution across target populations, identify progress of policies and • They can be learnt throughout life though there Arab League Educational, Cultural and programmes designed to enhance these skills, as well as to inform on the nature and scope of Scientific Organization (ALECSO), Aflatoun potentially useful interventions. In addition, these instruments would enable research to identify are optimal ages when interventions targeting International, the Arab Institute for Human sub-groups who need more support in the learning of life skills. Nevertheless, only limited quality specific skills are most likely to be effective. Rights (AIHR), Birzeit University (BZU), Deutsche Post DHL Group, the International Labour assessment instruments on life skills exist and significant research and development is required. • Life skills are frequently defined in terms of the Organization (ILO), the International Youth empowerment that they offer individuals in their Foundation (IYF), Mercy Corps, the Norwegian daily lives and are also understood in terms of State of the art on current instruments Refugee Council (NRC), Save the Children, the their social benefits and their contribution United Nations Educational, Scientific and • Most existing valid and reliable instruments are privately owned and not available for public towards societal change. Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United use. This is particularly the case for cognitive test items. Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United • The boundaries between the different life skills Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the United • Some skills have received more attention in instrument development than others – with skills are fluid, with each having a close relationship Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA), such as cooperation, negotiation and critical thinking having almost no existing measures that and sometimes overlapping with other life skills. The World Bank, and the World Food have found to be reliable and open for public use. Programme (WFP). • Each life skill has a number of sub-constructs and • There is limited use of innovation in the development of existing Instruments and they are performing a life skill requires several processes dominated by traditional self-report items. or steps to complete. • Most existing tools have not been tested in low-income countries or across different socio-cultural contexts. The LSCE Framework includes 12 core life skills across four dimensions of learning. These four dimensions of learning should LEARNING LEARNING TO LIVE TOGETHER PARTICIPATION CREATIVITY TO KNOW not be considered as distinct and mutually exclusive – they Challenges of measuring life skills overlap, inter-connect and reinforce one another to combine in EMPATHY CRITICAL THINKING the individual learner. These 12 Life Skills are not ‘set in stone’ • Multi-dimensional characteristics of each single life skill. Each individual life skill is described but are rather meant to guide discussions, debate and as encompassing multiple and distinct attributes. Multiple measures may be needed to capture adaptation at the country level, considering the different contexts RESPECT FOR PROBLEM- DIVERSITY ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP LEARNING SOLVING the different components of a single life skill. and challenges in education and learning in each country. • The distinction between cognitive and non-cognitive aspects of life skills. Life skills contain a PERSONAL The LSCE Initiative assumes a systems and life-cycle approach. EMPLOYABILITY EMPOWERMENT COMMUNICATION COOPERATION Its successful operation requires interventions that impact: combination of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values with cognitive and non-cognitive a. Teaching and learning content and process elements being used simultaneously. Understanding cognitive and non-cognitive test items as b. Systems alignment between curriculum, RESILIENCE NEGOTIATION pedagogy and assessment being distinct needs to be reconsidered. LEARNING SELF- MANAGEMENT DECISION- MAKING LEARNING c. Enabling (institutional) environment TO BE TO DO • Proficiency levels and benchmarking. There is little current evidence or guidance on expected d. Provision of multiple pathways of learning proficiency levels of the different life skills in general or by age. There is not enough research and development to classify the levels of the life skills and to indicate an absolute levels or 2. How can life skills be taught? benchmark on the levels of attainment. In addition, one could question whether it is possible or even desirable to determine absolute levels. There are a set of basic teaching principles that are said to be effective for the teaching and learning of life skills. These are: • Measuring change. Creating instruments with the purpose to measure skill development within • Learning through children and young people’s participation and cooperation; an individual has been identified as challenging. The literature suggests that current response scales for self-report items typically do not provide enough variation to measure change. • Learning through practicing life skills (simulation of real-world activities or through real-life experience); • Cultural differences in life skills. The cultural differences in life skills are under-researched as most measures have been developed within Organisation for Economic Co-operation and • Learning in a safe environment (open and accepting classroom and school environment, and Development (OECD) countries. There is little research to indicate if life skills are performed in coherence between the values being taught and the values embedded in teaching, learning and the same way in different countries and cultures. how they are practiced in the classroom and school life); and