This paper reports an approach to addressing library anxiety by evaluating user confidence in information literacy using a red/amber/green 'traffic light' tool. It discusses the development of the tool, which takes elements of a more complex toolkit, adapting those elements for library use. It then outlines the learning from use of the tool,…

Computational thinking (CT) is seen as a key competence of the 21st century and different countries have started to integrate it into their compulsory school curricula. However, few indications exist on how to assess CT in compulsory school. This review analyses what tools are used to assess CT in European schools and which dimensions are…

Social-emotional competencies (SEC) represent an increasingly investigated topic in the educational context, and multiple tools have been developed to measure them. Consequently, an inventory of these tools becomes necessary for research in different educational contexts. This paper aimed to identify and analyse the existing self-reported…

The purpose of this systematic review is to evaluate the state-of-the-art of competency measurement methods with an aim to inform the creation of reliable and valid measures of student mastery of competencies in communication, lifelong learning, innovation/creativity and teamwork in engineering education. We identified 99 studies published in…

Social and emotional learning (SEL) has become popular among many education scholars, policymakers, and practitioners. State and federal education agencies have signaled to educators that they value SEL-related practices and outcomes, and professional organizations' journals are increasingly filled with SEL content. SEL is typically defined as the…

Basic Course Directors (BCDs) are typically expected to assess course learning outcomes, but few formal guidelines and resources exist for new BCDs. As one part of a larger, multi-methodological assessment tool development project, this manuscript maps existing quantitative measures onto the six essential competencies and associated learning…

What will it take to improve the quality of instruction in higher education? An important first step is the ability to measure quality. A variety of measurement systems exist, but how informative are they, and how can we bring greater coherence to instructional measurement in higher education? Recently, the William T. Grant Foundation, along with…

The OECD's Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) project is an important contribution to discussions of how to define and measure the quality of global higher education. There is a genuine need for quality measures that can help to ensure students have equitable access to high-quality higher education wherever they study but do…

The modern wave of globalization has created a demand for increased intercultural competence (ICC) in college graduates who will soon enter the 21st-century workforce. Despite the wide attention to the concepts and assessment of ICC, few assessments meet the standards for a next-generation assessment in areas of construct clarity, innovative item…

There can be no denying the influence of competencies on the development of the school and its curricula. It is increasingly the case that, to enrol in a socio-economic fabric, whether locally or globally, learners--male or female--must learn to place their knowledge and know-how at the service of action: they must be able to deal with complex…

Internationally, the political appetite for educational measurement capable of capturing a metric of value for money and effectiveness has momentum. While most would agree with the need to assess costs relevant to quality to help support better governmental policy decisions about public spending, poorly understood measurement comes with unintended…

Efforts to prepare students for college, careers, and civic engagement have traditionally emphasized academic skills, but a growing body of research suggests that interpersonal and intrapersonal competencies, such as communication and resilience, are important predictors of postsecondary success and citizenship. One of the major challenges in…

When competence tests are administered, subjects frequently omit items. These missing responses pose a threat to correctly estimating the proficiency level. Newer model-based approaches aim to take nonignorable missing data processes into account by incorporating a latent missing propensity into the measurement model. Two assumptions are typically…

Civic learning is increasingly recognized as important by the higher education and workforce communities. The development of high-quality assessments that can be used to evaluate students' civic learning during the college years has become a priority. This paper presents a comprehensive review of existing frameworks, definitions, and assessments…

Understanding how best to assess expertise, the situational variations of expertise, and distinctive qualities of expertise that arises from particular workplace experiences, presents an important challenge. Certainly, at this time, there is much interest in identifying standard occupational measures and competences, which are not well aligned…