A commitment to developing character, social and emotional skills, and 21st century competencies can be found in the mission statements of many schools across the globe (Stemler & Bebell, 2012), and in national policy statements worldwide (Torrente, Alimchandani, & Aber, 2015). In addition to delivering academic learning, schools proclaim their commitment to developing students to become life-long learners, skillful collaborators, moral individuals, confident and persistent problem-solvers, organized and conscientious leaders, innovative thinkers, and much more. These types of outcomes, however, are rarely intentionally inculcated through primary and secondary education teaching and learning. As a result, such skills are often fostered through informal means—as a byproduct of good teaching or good parenting—or through non-formal programs, including extracurricular activities and programs organized by community-based organizations. This means that some students benefit from the opportunity to develop these skills, while others do not. In fact, they are as important predictors of success in school and careers as academic abilities, and thus essential for all students. At the same time, policymakers and employers around the world are realizing the mismatch between the outcomes promoted by their education systems and the skills required for work and life in the 21st century. Recognizing that more careful attention needs to be given to their place in primary and secondary educational practice, various organizations have identified as essential many of these types of skills in recent years. Work ethic, teamwork, oral communication, leadership, creativity, and life-long learning topped the list of items most sought after by employers in the US in a report commissioned by a consortium that included the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, Conference Board, Society for Human Resources, and Corporate Voices for Working Families (Casner-Lotto & Barrington, 2006). While also valued, cognitive skills ran a distant second. More alarmingly perhaps, the report also noted that noncognitive skills were precisely the skills most often found lacking in new employees joining the workforce (i.e., former students of the primary and secondary education system). What is needed is an evidence-based framework to help primary and secondary education policymakers and educators make sense of the myriad skills beyond academics that are critical for 21st century success, along with strategies and approaches to effectively teach and reliably assess these skills. This paper puts forward one such framework, the Big Five personality factors, which can act as a Rosetta Stone to “translate” the various concepts and terms used among and between researchers and practitioners, economists and businesspeople, and policymakers in education systems in different countries.
