What Technology Can and Cannot Do to Support Assessment of Non-cognitive Skills

Applying Evidence-Centered Design to Measure Psychological Resilience: The Development and Preliminary Validation of a Novel Simulation-Based Assessment Methodology

Modern technologies have enabled the development of dynamic game- and simulation-based assessments to measure psychological constructs. This has highlighted their potential for supplementing other assessment modalities, such as self-report. This study describes the development, design, and preliminary validation of a simulation-based assessment methodology to measure psychological resilience-an important construct for multiple life domains. The design was guided by theories of resilience, and principles of evidence-centered design and stealth assessment. The system analyzed log files from a simulated task to derive individual trajectories in response to stressors. Using slope analyses, these trajectories were indicative of four types of responses to stressors: thriving, recovery, surviving, and succumbing. Using Machine Learning, the trajectories were predictive of self-reported resilience (Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale) with high accuracy, supporting construct validity of the simulation-based assessment. These findings add to the growing evidence supporting the utility of gamified assessment of psychological constructs. Importantly, these findings address theoretical debates about the construct of resilience, adding to its theory, supporting the combination of the "trait" and "process" approaches to its operationalization.

Is There a Rise in the Importance of Socioemotional Skills in the Labor Market? Evidence From a Trend Study Among College Graduates

In this study, we examine whether socioemotional skills have become more important in the labor market within the past 14 years. To this end, we analyze data from a unique dataset on recent graduates from Dutch professional colleges (N = 67,000). Two different indicators of skill change are investigated, namely changes in the skill level required in the labor market and changes in the wage returns to these skills. The results indicate that socioemotional skills related to knowledge and innovation such as logical reasoning and information gathering, as well as skills related to working to plan and collaboration, have undergone a significant increase in terms of labor market requirements. We also observe an increase in the required level of the work-related skills digital literacy and occupation-specific knowledge. However, significant increases in wage returns are only observed for socioemotional skills related to knowledge and innovation. The labor market importance of socioemotional skills appears to be only modestly affected by business cycle effects.