A Short Instrument for Measuring Students' Confidence with Key Skills (SICKS): Development, Validation and Initial Results

Abstract

Despite a shift in educational landscape towards more competence-based pedagogies that focus on developing students' higher order thinking skills, there remains a dearth of pragmatic measures to evaluate the skills deemed desirable in emerging curricula. The “Student Instrument for measuring Confidence in ‘Key Skills'” (SICKS) is based on a pre-existing, teacher-focused instrument. SICKS can be used to assess post-primary students' (ages 12 - 19) confidence levels across six variables corresponding to what are commonly designated ‘key skills': communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity and innovation, self-direction, and technology for learning. This paper presents the rationale for the development of the instrument, and a psychometric analysis of its validity.

It also reports on preliminary analysis of responses of 507 students from 20 schools, demonstrating the power of the instrument to provide insightful information for practitioners and policymakers. Gender differences and disparities between socio-economic groups in their confidence levels were revealed, as were the positive implications that increased confidence in key skills may have on students' wellbeing, aspirations, and other experiences in school.