Using game-based assessment to measure soft-skills

• In Event: Measuring the Difficult to Measure: School Culture and Social and Emotional Learning

Proposal

The acquisition and use of so-called “soft skills” have been shown to be important in predicting outcomes at school and in the workplace. While a substantial body of research has interrogated these relationships between certain skills, such as problem solving and resilience, and outcomes, the constructs of interest are often measured by traditional means of responses to self-report questions. This sort of reporting on skills and abilities, however, is prone to bias from cultural desirability (respondents score themselves higher on skills and abilities that are valued culturally). Stealth assessment, in which assessment participants are unknowingly scored on skills and abilities while undertaking intentionally structured tasks, may be a way to address this sort of bias. By this assertion, a more authentic inventory of desired soft skills may be obtained when participants are asked to exhibit them in a highly structured environment and when data collection is unobtrusive (i.e. it does not interrupt the structured task).
This paper will discuss the promises and pitfalls of using serious games to assess soft skills that are important for transitioning from school to the world of work. It will also present early findings from the design, development, and pilot testing of a game-based assessment module that attempts to measure problem-solving skills.

Author

• Lee Eric Nordstrum, RTI International