Ground-up approach: The power of contextualization in enhancing appropriateness and relevance of 21st-century measurement tools

• In Event: Moving the Needle: Addressing challenges in SEL/SS measurement with an emphasis on local contexts

Proposal

The recent shift in the East African educational systems characterized by the integration of 21st-century skills into the curricula is an act of protest against an education system that focused majorly on grades. Through the Regional Education Learning Initiative (RELI), a group of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) advocates came together to explore ways in which these reforms can be enriched leading to the birth of the Assessment of Life Skills and Values in East Africa (ALiVE) initiative. Driven by a desire for a context-relevant measure of life skills and values, the ALiVE team composed of 47 local experts (curriculum developers, assessment experts, education ministries, researchers, and academic institutions) led by a global facilitator, took a ground-up approach to develop measurements appropriate for assessing life skills (problem-solving, self-awareness, and collaboration) and a core value (respect) for 13 to 17-year-old adolescents in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The process considered several aspects of ensuring the creation of a contextually valid and reliable tool. These processes included: (a) considering the findings of the ethnographic studies to inform the development of the skill structures and the draft task scenarios and items; (b) conducting face validity – in which the local experts reviewed task scenarios and items, in an iterative process, while checking whether they captured the targeted constructs and competencies, appropriate to the age of the adolescents, relevant and appropriate to the context, etc.; (c) conducting think-aloud sessions with adolescents – in order to check whether the task scenarios and items captured the intended competencies, by analysing the behaviours and metacognitive reflection of adolescents as they responses to the items; and (d) conducting pilot tests – to explore how the items functioned, provide suggestions for improvement of the task scenarios and items, and to test the methodological aspects related to the assessment.
Once all these were completed, the ALiVE tool was used to assess 45,442 in and out-of-school adolescents aged 13 to 17 years from 35,720 households, across Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, in order to generate information on what adolescents are able to do in terms of collaboration and problem solving, and how they perceive themselves and others around them in terms of respect and self-awareness.
This paper brings out contextualization as a tool for empowerment and enhancing appropriateness and relevance to the SEL measurement tools. The process, challenges, and lessons generated from this initiative are anticipated to spur discussions on the potential of this methodology to add to the existing global knowledge while ensuring that competencies are understood in context to improve the validity and accuracy of measurement. The lessons are also anticipated to influence stakeholders, both locally and globally, to nurture and assess life skills and values at all levels of the education system.

Authors

• Mauro Giacomazzi, Luigi Giussani Institute of Higher Education

• John Mugo, Zizi Afrique Foundation

• Purity Ngina, Zizi Afrique Foundation