Open AccessNon-Cognitive Assessment in Higher Education
Author(s) -
Andreas Metz,
Qin Hu,
Alexandra R. Kelly,
Andrew R. Fox,
David Shirley,
Laken Shirley
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
the journal of college orientation and transition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2690-4535
pISSN - 1534-2263
DOI - 10.24926/jcotr.v22i2.2888
Subject(s) - psychosocial , psychology , cognition , psychological intervention , academic achievement , leverage (statistics) , clinical psychology , higher education , cognitive assessment system , persistence (discontinuity) , ethnic group , applied psychology , developmental psychology , computer science , geotechnical engineering , sociology , anthropology , engineering , machine learning , psychiatry , neuroscience , cognitive impairment , political science , law
Non-cognitive assessment is used to identify at-risk college students and leverage limited resources to promote academic performance and persistence. Instruments that measure these psychosocial attitudes and skills require self-reported responses and, thus, may be subject to distortion. This study examined the social desirability response bias in a specific non-cognitive assessment tool, the Student Strengths Inventory (SSI), including gender and ethnic differences. Results show that college students did not respond to the SSI in a socially desirable way. Additionally, the SSI subscales contributed to significant variance in the prediction of academic performance and persistence. This study empirically supports the use of non-cognitive assessment in higher education and suggests interventions for using non-cognitive assessment data at the individual, group, and aggregate level.