Are Students Ready To Tackle 21st Century Issues ?

Students around the world have low proficiency in collaborative problem-solving, a set of skills required to tackle 21st century issues, a recent article reports.

According to the authors of a recent article on the subject, collaborative problem-solving (CPS) is an important 21st century skill because “many of the problems faced in the modern world require teams to integrate group achievements with team members’ idiosyncratic knowledge”. Yet, “systematic education and training on CPS is lacking for those entering and participating in the workforce” (all quotes are from the original article referenced below.)
Compared to other forms of problem-solving or collaboration, CPS is characterized by four interrelated dimensions:

• Novel group goals: CPS is required when issues are such that “it is impossible or unlikely that an individual will be able to solve the problem alone,” especially because “no routine plan or script is available”.
• Objective accountability: CPS progress as well as individual contributions “can be evaluated during problem-solving and [are] visible to team members”.
• Differentiation: CPS team members “take on different tasks to solve different aspects of the problem”.
• Interdependence: CPS tackles issues “the complexity of which requires multiple domains of expertise and diverse perspectives that a single individual cannot provide.”

An international assessment of CPS was conducted for the first time ever in 2015 when the OECD selected CPS as a new element for the Program of International Student Assessment (PISA), a survey of student skills and knowledge taken by over 500,000 15-year-old students from 52 countries.
To assess CPS skills, the PISA incorporated competencies previously associated with 2 distinct dimensions: cognitive and collaborative. The first included:

• Understanding the problem
• Formulating solutions
• Planning actions
• Monitoring and reflecting on the process

As for collaborative skills, thew were:

• Establishing a shared understanding
• Assigning roles
• Establishing and maintaining efficient co-operation

Crossing the four problem-solving competencies with the three collaborative ones results in 12 skills, which delineate efficient CPS. Based on the latest PISA, under 10% of students throughout the globe perfomed at high levels of CPS proficiency, i.e., successfully completed tasks requiring them to overcome social obstacles in team behavior and took initiative to lead the team to handle difficult challenges. To the contrary, almost 30% scored at a very low level.
Interestingly, however, some factors were found to promote CPS skills--notably being immersed in a culturally and ethnically diverse environment, and participating in group activities such as bands, plays, sports, newspapers, and community service.

Reference: Graesser, Fiore, Greiff, Andrews-Todd, Foltz, Hesse, “Advancing the science of collaborative problem solving”, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 19:2, pp. 59-92.