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Study: Boosting Soft Skills Is Better Than Raising Test Scores

March 9, 2020 By National Soft Skills Association 14 Comments

A recent study was just released by Northwestern University’s Kirabo Jackson on the effect of soft skills vs test scores. This study demonstrates that schools that build social-emotional qualities are getting better short-term and long-term results for students than schools that only focus on improving test scores.

https://hechingerreport.org/early-research-focuses-on-schools-that-develop-students-social-emotional-qualities/

This study included 150,000 high school students in all 133 Chicago Public Schools from 2008 onward, and reported that schools putting soft skills ahead of test scores produced students with higher grades, fewer absences and fewer disciplinary problems and arrests in high school. The students who attended these high schools also graduated and went to college at higher rates .

Another focus of the study was on two problematic behaviors—attendance and disciplinary incidents with ninth graders from 2011-2017. The results showed that schools emphasizing soft skills over test scores had fewer absences as well as disciplinary incidents. For students who entered ninth grade between 2011-2014, researchers found that students who attended schools focusing on soft skills had fewer arrests during their high school years and graduated in higher numbers.

Jackson says, “You could actually do a lot more good by focusing on schools that promote social-emotional development as opposed to focusing on schools that focus on test scores.”

In February of 2020, Jackson presented the findings at a conference for the National Center for the Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Educational Research (CALDER). There are four co-authors from The University of Chicago Consortium on School Research, Northwestern University and Mindset Scholars Network.

Filed Under: Research & Publications

About the Author

National Soft Skills Association™ (NSSA) is a national clearing house on past and present research and to identify the best practices within the soft skills field.

Comments

  1. nassim says

    April 12, 2020 at 2:14 pm

    I really like your blog. Very useful information. Thx

    Reply
  2. hadjmer says

    April 16, 2020 at 5:34 am

    good work,thanks for every things

    Reply
  3. nassim says

    May 15, 2020 at 5:49 am

    Merci pour ce très bon billet introductif

    Reply
  4. nassim says

    May 16, 2020 at 9:46 am

    All the information which have you shared with us is very useful

    Reply
  5. fateh says

    May 18, 2020 at 12:19 pm

    All the information which have you shared with us is very useful

    Reply
  6. nassim says

    May 18, 2020 at 1:21 pm

    merci pour cet article
    All the information which have you shared with us is very useful

    Reply
  7. simon says

    May 26, 2020 at 5:22 am

    thanks for sharing such a nice post

    Reply
  8. simon says

    May 31, 2020 at 8:45 am

    très bon article Merci pour le partage.

    Reply
  9. brahim d staps says

    July 30, 2020 at 12:17 pm

    I totaly agree with this study.more success in future

    Reply
  10. kamal_hadjafsi says

    August 27, 2020 at 4:26 am

    keep up the good work

    Reply
  11. ferahtia_FS says

    January 14, 2021 at 2:28 am

    Thanks so much for the post

    Reply
  12. ferahtia.FS says

    January 21, 2021 at 2:11 am

    thanks a lot

    Reply
  13. Zianez says

    February 17, 2021 at 9:11 am

    Nice topic, Thank

    Reply
  14. زوليخة says

    February 17, 2021 at 1:45 pm

    Thank you

    Reply

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