Supporting Students' College Success The Role of Assessment of Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Competencies (2017) / Chapter Skim
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. As part of a broader national college completion agenda aimed at increasing college graduation rates, higher education researchers and policy makers are exploring the role of intrapersonal and interpersonal competencies in supporting student success.
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and to examine the extent to which these competencies can be enhanced through intervention. Task 2: Examine available assessments of the interpersonal and intraersonal competencies or competency clusters that are most p strongly related to undergraduate persistence.
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, along with first-generation college students, students from lowincome families, and, in certain STEM disciplines, women. In this report, the committee refers to these diverse student groups as "underrepresented groups" and to black, Hispanic, and American Indian student groups as "underrepresented minorities." When considering the meaning of Task 2, the committee defined "examine available assessments" primarily as a charge to examine available assessment methods that are currently being used or could potentially be used to assess the competencies identified in this report.
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To address gaps in the research base, these investments should include support for research examining • how interpersonal competencies may be related to student success in 4-year colleges; • how intra- and interpersonal competencies may be related to student success in community colleges; and • how intra- and interpersonal competencies may be related to student success in 2- and 4-year science, technology, engineering, and math ematics programs and majors. Promising Competencies Based on its review of the limited available research, the committee identified promising competencies that appear to be related to college
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Conclusion: The limited intervention studies conducted to date have generated promising evidence that the competencies of sense of be longing, growth mindset, and utility goals and values are related to college success and are malleable in response to interventions. Avail able intervention studies provide more modest evidence that five other competencies are similarly related to college success and malleable, yielding a total of eight identified competencies: 1.
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RECOMMENDATION 2: Federal agencies and foundations should invest in intervention research using random assignment and research employing a range of other methods to understand better the competen cies identified in this report, their relationship to college success, and the mechanisms through which they operate to improve college success. Research focused on supporting the college success of underrepresented student groups should be a priority.
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ASSESSMENT METHODS FOR THE IDENTIFIED COMPETENCIES The committee reviewed the nature and quality of existing competency assessments, focusing particularly on the eight identified competencies, together with research and professional standards related to the overall process of developing, validating, and implementing assessments, and inter preting, evaluating, and using the assessment results. The test development practices used to create assessments of cognitive knowledge and skills that meet these professional standards are equally applicable to intra- and inter personal competency assessments.
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Assessments developed by professional testing companies provide even more evidence of quality, including fairness data; however, these assessments target a wider range of competencies, only partially addressing some of the eight competencies. Conclusion: Most current assessments of the eight identified competen cies are uneven in quality, providing only limited evidence to date that they meet professional standards of reliability, validity, and fairness.
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Conclusion: Even low-stakes uses of intra- and interpersonal compe tency assessments require attention to validity, reliability, and fair ness, although they need not meet the high evidentiary requirements of high-stakes assessments. RECOMMENDATION 7: Those who develop, select, or use intra- and interpersonal competency assessments should pay heed to, and collect evidence of, validity, reliability, and fairness as appropriate for the in tended high-stakes or low-stakes uses.
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Because self-report measures are widely used, these limitations affect a broad swath of current intra- and interpersonal competency assessments. Recent research has identified various methods that can mitigate these limitations.
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Whenever differences in subgroup scores are observed, follow-up research may be needed to examine the reasons, the potential sources of bias, and the comparability of score interpretations across individuals and subgroups in light of the intended uses of the assessment results. The committee applied these fairness principles in its review of current assessments of the eight identified competencies: Conclusion: Despite the ever-increasing diversity of undergraduate student populations, attention to fairness for diverse populations is often inadequate in the development, validation, and use of current assessments of the eight identified competencies.
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into their analyses and interpretations of the results of intra and interpersonal competency assessments. Implementing this recommendation will require that higher education researchers use appropriate statistical analyses that incorporate data on context when examining assessment results.
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However, assessment processes that emphasize improvement tend to garner more institutional support, including faculty buy-in, relative to those emphasizing accountability. Indeed, some administrators are concerned that external accountability mandates may focus institutional conversations about assessment on bottom-line compliance rather than institutional improvement, especially given limited assessment resources.
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In another example, university advisers and student affairs staff used assessment data individually with students to tailor support services, while central administrators found the data useful to support strategic initiatives aimed at retaining diverse and underprepared students through graduation. Overall, research has highlighted the need for multiple stakeholders at various levels (students, staff, faculty members, administrators)
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Research has yielded preliminary evidence of the importance of the eight identified competencies to success in college, and case studies of the use of cognitive assessment data by institutions of higher education for purposes of institutional and instructional improvement also are widely available. By contrast, evidence on how data from assessments of the eight identified competencies, or other intra- or interpersonal competencies, can be used for these purposes is relatively sparse.
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This issue echoes the committee's conclusion that most current assessments of the eight competencies showing some evidence of a relationship with students' college success are uneven in quality and reinforces the need for further assessment research and development, as called for in Recommendation 8. Second, much theoretical and conceptual work remains to be done before statistical analysis is undertaken to explore potential areas of overlap between competencies identified as college outcomes and predictors of college persistence.
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