Development of 21st Century Skill Scales as Perceived by Students

Abstract

Based on the policy of Thailand's Ministry of Education which emphasizes on the development of youth in the country for the 21st century world with focuses on enhancing the quality of Thai people in order to be immune for any changes and progresses of the country in the future, it is necessary that there must be an appropriate tool to measure the 21st century skills of the students. The objective of the study is to develop and assess of the qualities of 21st century skills scales as perceived by students. The 21st century skill scales comprise of 3 factors which are; 1) Learning and Innovation Skills, 2) Information, Media and Technology Skills, and 3) Life and Career Skills derived from Partnership for 21st Century Skills. The data was collected from Thai students aged 13 – 15 years old before being analyzed for the construct validity by the confirmatory factor analysis, which indicated a good fit of the model. The internal consistency test by Cronbach's alpha value has found the acceptable reliability which indicated that this tool is useful for students who are interested to conduct the assessment of 21st century skills of the students for planning and improving the teaching for the development of students to be capable of dealing with any changes of the world.