Mission Skills Assessment
Assessing Character Traits in Middle School Students
INDEX Mission Skills
Assessment
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Independent Schools Data Exchange
www.indexgroups.org
617-413-8382
Mission Skills Assessment
• A Tool To Alter The Way Schools Think
About Education
• MSA measures character strengths that have proven essential for
success in school and in life. The assessment gives each school a
more scientific way to measure its curriculum’s success at meeting
the goals outlined in its mission.
INDEX Mission Skills Assessment
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Who We Are
• INDEX Schools: Three national benchmarking and best
practices groups of independent day schools:
• Elementary (400+) – 30 PK/8-9 schools – Initial Research Group
• Mid-Sized (500-1100) – 32 PK/K-12 schools
• Large (750+) – 50 PK/K-12 schools
• Center for Academic and Workforce Readiness and Success,
Educational Testing Services (ETS).
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What is the Mission Skills Assessment?
•A longitudinal assessment measuring and benchmarking student
achievement and improvement in core mission skills.
• Teamwork
• Creativity
• Ethics
• Resilience
• Curiosity
• Time Management
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The Assessment
• Web-based - approximately 60 minutes total.
• Assess 6th, 7th, and 8th graders once per year.
• Three components: student self-assessment, situational
judgment/performance-based questions, teacher-rater
assessment
• Correlate with outcome data (test scores, grades,
absences, etc.)
• Institutional focus. No tracking of individual
performance.
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Noncognitive Skills Research
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Assessment
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What are Noncognitive skills?
• Not traditionally “tested” by standardized assessments
• Not new but newly important; “21st century skills”
• Essential capacities necessary for success in school and in
life
• Often taught implicitly, but can be taught explicitly
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Academic Success
• Noncognitive skills correlate positively with
achievement on NAEP and PISA.
• Noncognitive factors predict college grades
as strongly as cognitive variables do.
•
ETS, (2008); Poropat, (2009)
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Life Trajectory
• Early childhood interventions do not raise
IQ, but improve noncognitive skills which
affect education, employment, earnings,
and crime.
• Heckman et al. (2010)
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Life Satisfaction
•Noncognitive variables…have been
demonstrated to predict happiness, health
marital satisfaction and peer relationships.
•
Diener & Lucas (1999); Bogg & Roberts (2004); Watson, Hubbard, & Wiese, (2000); Jensen-Campbell et al.
(2002)
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Demographics
• The benefits of higher noncognitive skills are
demonstrable across IQ, socio-economic class,
gender, and race.
• Tough, Paul. How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power
of Character. (2012)
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Analysis of mission
statements of 30
independent
schools
Ethics
100%
Love of
Learning
73%
Resilience
67%
Creativity
67%
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Assessment
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Teamwork
40%
Analysis of University Mission Statements
(Oswald et. al., 2004)
Intellectual
Interpersonal
Intrapersonal
Knowledge and mastery
of general principles
Appreciation for
diversity
Social responsibility and
citizenship
Continuous learning,
intellectual interest and
curiosity
Leadership
Physical and psychological
health
Artistic and cultural
appreciation
Interpersonal skills
Career orientation
Adaptability and life skills
Perseverance
Ethics and integrity
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Assessment
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The Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, Partnership for 21st Century Working
Skills, and the Society for Human Resource Management.
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Assessment
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The Character Imperative
• 1) Research shows that these skills lead to
positive educational and life outcomes;
• 2) Colleges, universities, and employers are
seeking these skills in students and workers;
and
• 3) We must demonstrate the value we add.
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Constructs in MSA
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Assessment
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Teamwork
• Models of teamwork include
• Cooperation
• Influence
• Conflict resolution
• Guiding others
In high school students, teacher reports of teamwork were correlated with grades across
several subjects (Wang, MacCann, Zhuang, Liu, & Roberts, 2009)
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Creativity
• Originality, progressiveness, or
imagination
• Tasks measuring creativity,
“require examinees quickly to
think of…a series of responses
fitting the requirements of the
task….”
• Creativity predicts graduate school outcomes beyond GRE verbal and
mathematics scores (Frederickson & Ward, 1975; Bennett & Rock, 1995;
Bennett & Rock, 1998)
INDEX Mission Skills
Assessment
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Ethics
• Defined in our study
as cheating and
concern for others
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Resilience
• A level of adaptability that allows individuals to survive and
thrive in adverse conditions
• Dent and Cameron (2003)
• One way we measure resilience in the MSA is to measure
core self-evaluation – or how capable, worthy, and effective a
person feels.
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Item Types
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Self-Report
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Assessment
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Situational Judgment Test
INDEX Mission Skills
Assessment
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Biographical Data
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Assessment
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Creativity Performance Test
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Assessment
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Teacher Ratings
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Assessment
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Next Steps
• Continual refinement of MSA assessment
• Assessing underserved populations with MSA – Horizons Student
Enrichment Programs (NCCS, Rumson CDS)
• Expanding to all INDEX schools – 69 schools, 17,000 students fall
2013
• Gathering interest from additional schools, districts, organizations
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Instruction
• How can we teach these skills better and how will we know we
are succeeding?
• Deliberate, explicit and implicit instruction and
interventions
• Grade-level goals
• Articulated, spiraled, integrated noncognitive curriculum
• Updated and analyzed curriculum maps
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Opportunities
• Shared vision, vocabulary, and resources
• Participation in regional and national teacher
networks, character summits
• Shape report cards and parent conferences
• Ongoing education–school leaders, faculty,
students, parents
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http://bit.ly/16xde9m
Teacher Research and
Development Team
18 Months
http://bit.ly/12nNuHW
http://bit.ly/10S1mAq
http://bit.ly/1481pX5
http://bit.ly/1abJqUm
Design Thinking
Sibley Rubric Development on Creativity and
Innovation: Road Testing with Teachers
•Free Building/Tinkering
•Collaboration
•Empathy
•Storytelling
•Feedback/Iteration
•Problem Finding
http://bit.ly/wFIem5
http://bit.ly/11FIza0
http://bit.ly/1abNmo4
Outside the Classroom: The Bridge to Parent
Engagement
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H.264 decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
MCDS Explores
http://bit.ly/16xKU6N
Parent Engagement
http://bit.ly/10lwrdj
“Left Brain Schools in a Right Brain World.”
Goals
• Inventory - what’s working?
• Research - what are the best
practices?
• Input from Experts in the
Field - what do you do?
• Blueprint - where do we go?
• Isidor Rabi: Did you ask a
good question today?
http://bit.ly/137eL9h
http://bit.ly/12i87K8
What motivates you to
try to make the world a
better place? What
would be your
Who is someone in your profession
mobilizing issue?
that you hold up as a role model?
Why? Specifically, what
characteristics do you feel define
that person’s
expertise/proficiency/mastery/etc. in
the field?
http://bit.ly/16xSBtI
Name one obstacle you have encountered on your career path. How did it impact you?
“The smartest person in the room is the room.”
-David Weinberger
Wonder Lab: MCDS and Laurel Dell
Partnerships
http://indexgroups.org/msa/
Skills and Habits of Mind
http://f-l-o-a-t.com/
Capstone
http://bit.ly/18erKHf
Science Curriculum Review Process
Teacher Training and Curriculum Development
Coaching