International Longitudinal Study of
Skills Development in Cities
Koji Miyamoto and Maria Huerta, OECD
Report Launching Seminar
Paris, 10 March 2015
• Why do we need an international longitudinal study on skills development?
• How will the study be conducted?
• What are the policy and research questions the study will address?
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Outline
Why we need this study?
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Rationale and Background
• Social and emotional skills
• Longitudinal
• International
• Cities
ESP Phase 1
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Rationale and Background
Key messages:
• Social and emotional skills are powerful drivers of well-being and social progress.
• Children can learn some of these skills which would help them achieve long-term goals, work better with others and manage their emotions.
• While international research has come up with some measures that can help to improve teaching and parenting practices, they can be better conceptualised and validated.
We need better micro-data and evidence to inform policy-makers, teachers and parents which skills to invest in, when and how.
This requires a collection of
– Better and diverse measures of ‘social and emotional skills’ known to shape individual’s success in education, labour market and social outcomes.
– Diverse measures of learning contexts (family, school and community) that drives skill formation.
– Diverse measures of socioeconomic outcomes that matter.
– Repeated measures of cognitive, social and emotional skills & learning contexts across individual’s childhood-adolescence to understand how skills develop over time.
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Why launch a new data collection?
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Childhood
Early- Adolescence
Mid-Adolescence
Skill
Contexts
Late-Adolescence
Early- Adulthood
Age 10 15 20 23
Skill Skill Skill Skill
Contexts Contexts Contexts
Study characteristics
Outcomes Outcomes Outcomes Outcomes Outcomes
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Study characteristics
What is the structure?
Target cohorts Children in Grades 1 and 7
Cycle Annual data collection from 2019 -
Respondents School (students & teachers) and home (parents)
Coverage Major cities
Sampling Random selection of schools
Duration Minimum 3 years and ideally until early adulthood
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Study characteristics
What will be measured?
• Skills:
Extraversion (NOR) Sociability (NZL)
Self-esteem (US, UK, CAN, SWI) Self-confidence (NOR)
Persistence (UK) Perseverance (NZL) Responsibility (KOR, NZL) Locus of control (US, UK, KOR)
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Study characteristics
What will be measured?
• Skills Focus on social and emotional skills
• Learning contexts School, family and community learning contexts
Home
School Community
Classroom
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Study characteristics
What will be measured? • Skills Focus on social and emotional skills
• Learning contexts School, family and community learning contexts
• Learning outcomes Education, labour market and social outcomes
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2015-17
Feasibility study:
Socio-emotional skills instrument
2017-19
Pilot study and Field trials
2019-
Main data collection
Developmental work
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Feasibility study
Why do we need a feasibility study?
Need to ensure the chosen social and emotional skills instruments:
• cover key social and emotional constructs,
• are reliable and valid measures of such skills, and
• ensure robustness across ages, cultures and linguistic boundaries.
Content:
• Test instruments for Grades 1-12
• Use multiple assessment methods: self-reports; teacher and parents reports; objective assessments, behavioural tasks; and administrative data.
Canada (Ottawa)
Korea (Seoul)
Japan (Tokyo-Suginami)
Cities under discussion
Russia (Moscow)
Brazil (tbd)
Mexico (tbd)
Norway (Oslo)
Argentina (Buenos Aires)
UK** (tbd)
Colombia (Bogota)
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Research questions
Distribution of skills
• How prepared children are in terms of socio-emotional skills?
• How unequal are skills across groups?
• Do initial skill gaps grow over time?
• Are skill differences between socio-economic groups similar across cities?
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Research questions
Learning environments that shape skills
•Do learning contexts influence skill development?
•Which learning contexts play a particularly important role for children's skill development?
•How malleable are social and emotional skills during the school years?
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Research questions
Skills that drive life outcomes
•Do socio-emotional skills influence subsequent outcomes ….
education, health and other social outcomes?
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Anticipated outputs
•Feasibility Study:
– Better conceptualise social and emotional skills
– Improve the validity of measurement instruments
– Set international standards for social and emotional skills measurement of school-aged children
•Main Study:
–Annual policy reports that describe: (a) distribution of skills, (b) learning environments that shape skills, (c) skills that drive children’s outcomes
–International reports with comparative analysis of skill formation
–Longitudinal datasets regularly updated
• We need better micro-data and evidence to inform policy-makers, teachers and parents which skills to invest in, when and how.
• The OECD can have a leadership role in strengthening the evidence base on social and emotional skills.
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Summing up …