EDUCATION FOR LIFE AND WORK - Hewlett Foundation

Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century
22 EDUCATION FOR LIFE AND WORK
goals (Hoyle and Davisson, 2011). The interpersonal domain we propose
is not included in Bloom’s taxonomy but rather is based partly on a recent
National Research Council (NRC) workshop that clustered various 21st
century skills into the cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal domains
(National Research Council, 2011a). In that workshop, Bedwell, Fiore, and
Salas (2011) proposed that interpersonal competencies are those used both
to express information to others and to interpret others’ messages (both
verbal and nonverbal) and respond appropriately.
Distinctions among the three domains are reflected in how they are
delineated, studied, and measured. In the cognitive domain, knowledge and
skills are typically measured with tests of general cognitive ability (also referred
to as g or IQ) or with more specific tests focusing on school subjects
or work-related content. Research on intrapersonal and interpersonal competencies
often uses measures of broad personality traits (discussed further
below) or of child temperament (general behavioral tendencies, such as attention
or shyness). Psychiatrists and clinical psychologists studying mental
disorders use various measures to understand the negative dimensions of
the intrapersonal and interpersonal domains (Almlund et al., 2011).
Although we differentiate the three domains for the purpose of understanding
and organizing 21st century skills, we recognize that they are
intertwined in human development and learning. Research on teaching and
learning has begun to illuminate how intrapersonal and intrapersonal skills
support learning of academic content (e.g., National Research Council,
1999) and how to develop these valuable supporting skills (e.g., Yeager and
Walton, 2011). For example, we now know that learning is enhanced by
the intrapersonal skills used to reflect on one’s learning and adjust learning
strategies accordingly—a process called “metacognition” (National
Research Council, 2001; Hoyle and Davisson, 2011). At the same time
research has shown that the development of cognitive skills, such as the
ability to stop and think objectively about a disagreement with another person,
can increase positive interpersonal skills and reduce antisocial behavior
(Durlak et al., 2011). And the interpersonal skill of effective communication
is supported by the cognitive skills used to process and interpret complex
verbal and nonverbal messages and formulate and express appropriate
responses (Bedwell, Fiore, and Salas, 2011).
A DIFFERENTIAL PERSPECTIVE ON 21st CENTURY SKILLS
To address our charge to define 21st century skills and describe how
they relate to each other, we turn to the research in differential psychology.
This research has focused on understanding human behavior by examining
systematic ways in which individuals vary and by using relatively stable
patterns of individual differences as the basis for structural theories of
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