EDUCATION FOR LIFE AND WORK - Hewlett Foundation

Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century
24 EDUCATION FOR LIFE AND WORK
This growing body of evidence showing that dimensions of intelligence
are malleable has important implications for teaching and learning. Recent
research on interventions designed to increase motivation has found that a
learner who views intelligence as changeable through effort is more likely
to exert effort in studying (Yaeger and Walton, 2011; see further discussion
in Chapter 4).
In the intrapersonal and interpersonal domains, Roberts, Walton, and
Viechtbauer (2006) found that both the intrapersonal competency of conscientiousness
(sometimes called self-direction or self-management in lists of
21st century skills) and the interpersonal competency of social assertiveness
increase with age. Srivastava et al. (2003) analyzed data from the “big five”
personality inventories completed by a large sample of over 130,000 adults,
finding that both conscientiousness and the interpersonal skill of agreeableness
increased throughout early and middle adulthood. The authors also
found that neuroticism declined with age among women, but not among
men. Reflecting on these various patterns of change, Srivastava et al. (2003)
concluded that personality traits are complex and subject to a variety of
developmental influences.
In contrast to the prevailing view of personality traits as fixed, some
researchers have argued that individual human behavior demonstrates no
consistent patterns and instead changes continually in response to various
situations (e.g., Mischel, 1968). Based on a review of the research related
to both points of view, Almlund and colleagues concluded that “although
personality traits are not merely situation-driven ephemera, they are also
not set in stone,” and suggested that these traits can be altered by experience,
education, parental investments, and targeted interventions (Almlund
et al., 2011, p. 9). They proposed that interventions to change personality
are promising avenues for reducing poverty and educational disadvantage.
With this view of malleability in mind, the committee reviewed lists of
21st century skills included in eight recent reports and papers (see Appendix
B). We selected reports and papers for review if they built on, synthesized,
or analyzed previous work on 21st century skills. For example, we included
a report that reviewed 59 international papers on 21st century skills and
found that the skills most frequently referred to were collaboration, communication,
information and communications technology (ICT) literacy,
and social or cultural competencies (Voogt and Pareja Roblin, 2010). We
selected a white paper commissioned by the Assessment and Teaching of
21st Century Skills project that synthesized many previous lists of 21st
century skills and organized them into a taxonomy of skills (Binkley et al.,
2010). We also included a document from the Hewlett Foundation that
lists 15 skills based on previous research by the OECD (Ananiadou and
Claro, 2009). In addition, we included papers commissioned by the NRC
to more clearly define 21st century skills (e.g., Finegold and Notabartolo,
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