Assessment of Social-Emotional, Soft, Character, Behavioral, and Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Skills

Abstract Strong interpersonal and intrapersonal, social-emotional, or noncognitive skills are highly sought after by educators and employers for good reason. Studies suggest that measures of noncognitive skills are as predictive of educational, workforce, and everyday life outcomes as measures of cognitive skills are. Analyses of technology changes suggest that the importance of such skills will increase. This chapter reviews the current state of knowledge about such skills and how best to measure them. It reviews a set of frameworks for key skills and discusses various uses of noncognitive skills measures, including for both low-stakes (monitoring student growth and development in K–12 and large-scale domestic and international assessments; college placement; early warning for at-risk students, program/impact evaluation) and high-stakes purposes (student growth in accountability; admissions). It also reviews the predominant measurement approaches and discusses some newly emerging measurement challenges. The chapter concludes with discussions of prospects for the future of interpersonal and intrapersonal assessment.