Assessment of Collaboration Skill using Performance-Based Tasks and Items

• In Event: The factors and community inputs that influence policy, practice, and measurement of life skills in East Africa and India

Proposal

There is a growing interest in conceptualizing, defining, and assessing 21st century skills (Care, Kim, Vista, & Anderson, 2018; NRC, 2011; Soland, Hamilton, & Stecher, 2013). These skills are valued for many reasons, including links to both proximal outcomes, such as increased learners’ achievement and career readiness (Conley, 2007; Mehta & Fine, 2019). Collaboration skills that allow effective working in groups have been identified as increasingly important for success in school and work environments (Singh-Gupta & Troutt-Ervin, 1996).

Evidence on the developmental nature of collaboration skill is limited. However, collaboration has been shown to enhance learners’ cognitive development and has been demonstrated to have advantages in encouraging learners’ accountability, ability to ask questions and justify responses (Scoular et al., 2020). There is research to suggest that learners process information differently when they work in groups compared to working independently (King, 1997). Social interactions make explicit learners’ understanding and learners can improve their comprehension through discussion with others, elaborating and negotiating with others to reach shared understanding (Van Boxtel et al., 2000). Collaborative tasks such as asking questions and providing feedback can help learners to solve problems or finish tasks they may have otherwise not been able to complete and therefore allow them to move towards higher levels of proficiency (King, 1997). Social interactions while working through complex tasks can provide additional ideas and shared meaning that an individual would not achieve without communicating with others (OECD, 2013).
Over the years, it has been difficult to assess collaboration skill, especially if one must measure individual contribution to success of a group task. This paper presents a method used by ALiVE team to assess around 10,000 adolescents in 2,500 groups. First collaboration was divided into three subcomponents, communication, negotiation and working together. In the assessment of collaboration, the adolescents worked in groups of four. Each group was made up of 4 adolescents of single gender or of mixed gender. The skill entailed three activities: making a ball, coming up with a business idea, and making small books. The tasks designed required that the adolescents who participated in the exercise played different roles and took on different responsibilities. This implies that the exercise could not be completed without all members in a group contributing and so this would help measure their collaboration skills.
During the assessment, the assessors would observe if there was communication as the adolescents discussed the task; then negotiation was assessed as they took different perspectives, and lastly working together was assessed in the actual task engagement and as they contributed ideas. The assessors would read the scenario to the group members and wait for them to interpret and start working on it. Each assessor would observe two adolescents and give them a score guided by a scoring rubric. From the findings it is clear that most adolescents participated in the first part of the task at which communication (listening and speaking) were observed.

Author

• John Mugo, Zizi Afrique Foundation