Pathways to prosperity: the role of cognitive and non-cognitive skills in employer quality and early career earnings

In recent years, scholars have increasingly advocated the importance of cultivating non-cognitive skills (social and emotional skills) in early childhood, and play is useful in acquiring the skills. Simultaneously, young children also need to acquire mathematical cognitive skills as a learning foundation. However, many researchers have indicated that simple direct instruction in mathematics is not useful during early education. Therefore, in early childhood, children need forms of play for mathematics at home because play effectively develops non-cognitive skills; moreover, cognitive skills and non-cognitive skills cross-fertilize each other. Moreover, in kindergartens and nursery schools, it is difficult to deal with many “maths” (both temporally and content-wise). Also, parental engagement and attachment have considerable impact on non-cognitive skills. In this research, we created a form of simple mathematics quiz game (simple mathematics play) that young children can play at home. The main aspect of this play’s content is the application of systematic and extensive mathematics in early childhood, without promoting only cognitive skills as a primary objective. And we tried the play for one child as a case study. This case study suggests that certain improvements in cognitive skills regarding mathematics were recognized because of play, while also enabling acquisition of non-cognitive skills.

This study looks at the association of adolescent’s time use on the acquisition of cognitive and non-cognitive (psychological and social) skills, thus contributing to the literature on parental investment and skills development. Specifically, using data relating to adolescent’s time spent on school, study, sleep, and play, we investigate how these relate to cognitive and non-cognitive skills of older Indian children. For cognitive skills we use Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT), which is a well-accepted measure of verbal intelligence. For non-cognitive skills, we construct a self-esteem variable using pride and shame questions; and a resilience variable using questions pertaining to whether an adolescent can get external help for coping with problems. Our results suggest that time use in all four types of activity has a positive association in the development of cognitive skills but competing associations when it comes to non-cognitive skills. We conclude that parental inputs into skills development, such as guidance about adolescent’s time-use, are likely to have a differential association depending on the kind of skills being developed.

In this paper, we estimate the returns to higher education in Brazil, controlling for the effects of latent abilities. We leverage a unique data that measures cognitive and noncognitive abilities to estimate a structural factor model that accounts for the effects of latent cognitive and non cognitive skills. We find that college returns are on average 43% and they are positive even for the lowest levels of cognitive and non-cognitive skills. Additionally, both cognitive and non-cognitive skills influence the probability of having college education, but cognitive abilities have a larger effect. Among the college educated workers, cognitive skills are more important for earnings, but among the unskilled workers, non-cognitive skills are more rewarded.

The evolving labor environment underscores the critical role of cognitive and non-cognitive (soft) skills in fostering workforce adaptability and enhancing labor market outcomes. This study investigates the combined influence of these skills on the probability of employment, focusing on the Kenyan labor market, where high youth unemployment and job market mismatches persist despite government interventions and education sector reforms. Traditionally, emphasis has been placed on cognitive skills, with limited integration of non-cognitive skills into educational curricula, exacerbating the disconnect between youth competencies and market demands. Using binary logistic regression, this study evaluates factors influencing youth employment, highlighting the complementarity of cognitive and non-cognitive skills. Findings reveal that individuals possessing a blend of these skills have higher employment prospects, with notable improvements for young women possessing agreeableness and digital literacy. Additionally, factors such as marital status and higher education levels positively influence employability. These results underscore the equal importance of personality traits and cognitive abilities in labor market success. Policymakers are urged to prioritize curriculum reforms that integrate non-cognitive skill development and encourage employers to include assessments of these skills in hiring practices to address persistent labor market mismatches.

The analysis of what human capital (HC) is has a long history and culminates in the acknowledgment that HC and its growth are very important for both cognitive education (cognitive skills (CSs)) and personal life (noncognitive skills (NCSs)) and that CSs and NCSs have a strong reciprocal relationship, as studies by Heckman demonstrated. The present contribution (following Heckman’s approach) analyzed the relationship between CSs and NCSs in a sample of middle school students in the Autonomous Province of Trento. The second goal of the research was to verify whether educational teaching behaviors improved students’ personalities. Aside from the use of administrative data (INVALSI data, 2015 and 2018), one survey was administered in the 2018–2019 schooling year to verify the relationship between NCSs and CSs. Moreover, we sought to determine whether education teaching behavior improved the students’ personalities (1522 students in 25 schools) and whether programs could enhance NCSs. Methodological tools for the analysis involved the generalized least squares approach to answer the first question and a difference-in-differences model for the second. The main results showed that the levels of NCSs affected the ability to learn and improve CSs; a challenging teaching approach, especially if accompanied by programs improving its quality, had positive results. Finally, the research suggested that a wider, national-based survey following students from primary to secondary school would allow for a greater understanding of the dynamics of CSs and NCSs.

Developing countries have witnessed great progress in early childhood education (ECE) enrollment rate over the past three decades. Preschool and kindergarten are the two most common types of ECE in developing countries. Questions remain as to which of the two types of ECE is more effective in promoting child development in developing countries, including both cognitive and non-cognitive skills. The objective of this paper is to examine the long-term benefits of attending preschool or/and kindergarten on pupils' cognitive and non-cognitive skills in rural China. We pooled data from two large-scale surveys conducted by the authors themselves at 136 rural primary schools in 20 counties from three provinces in northwestern China in 2009. The final study sample consisted of 9,839 pupils who both reported their ECE experience and completed cognitive and non-cognitive tests. We measured pupils' cognitive skills by standardized math test scores and grade retention, and their non-cognitive skills by both self-reported self-efficacy, mental health, and teacher-reported behaviors. Inverse Probability Weighting (IPW) was used to balance the pre-treatment variables between the treatment (Any ECE, Preschool Only, Kindergarten Only, or Preschool+Kindergarten) and comparison (No ECE) groups. Results from IPW show that compared with their peers without any ECE experience, pupils with any ECE experience perform better in cognitive skills (0.118 standard deviations (s.d.) increase in the TIMSS, 7.1 percentage point (pp) decrease in the probability of grade retention) but not in non-cognitive skills. By ECE types, attending kindergarten only is associated with a 0.150 s.d. increase in the TIMSS, a 7.0 pp decrease in the probability of grade retention, and a 0.059 s.d. decrease in the index of behavioral problems of pupils. Moreover, attending both preschool and kindergarten predicts a lower probability of grade retention, but attending preschool only has few benefits. Heterogenous analyses suggest that the long-term benefits of ECE are more prominent among the Han pupils from households with higher socio-economic status. Our findings imply that increasing access to ECE can be an effective instrument to improve pupils' skills in less-developed rural areas of China, especially their cognitive skills. Among different types of ECE, attending kindergarten contributes more to pupils' skill development in rural China than other types. We call for strengthened efforts to ensure equal access to quality ECE for preschool-aged children in rural China.

Bridging the Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Gap in Gastroenterology

Examining the relation of open thinking, critical thinking, metacognitive skills and usage frequency of open educational resources among high school students

The Intergenerational Transmission of Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Skills during Adolescence and Young Adulthood

Cognitive Skills, Non-Cognitive Skills, and Family Background: Evidence from Sibling Correlations

The effects of cognitive and non-cognitive skills on early school-leaving** In this paper we investigate how non-cognitive skills can explain individual differences in early school-leaving controlling for cognitive skills. We use a large Dutch representative longitudinal cohort study “Secondary Education Pupil Cohort 1999.” In the first year of this study, personality was assessed with the FFPI as part of a comprehensive student questionnaire. Our results show that while cognitive skills play an important role in explaining early school-leaving, non-cognitive skills such as achievement motivation, conscientiousness, agreeableness and openness to experience play an important role as well. In addition, we find that differences in non-cognitive skills affect the impact of cognitive skills performance on early school-leaving. JEL classification: I20, I21, I24

The Intergenerational Transmission of Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Skills During Adolescence and Young Adulthood

This paper estimates sibling correlations in cognitive and non-cognitive skills to evaluate the importance of family background for skill formation. Based on a large representative German dataset including IQ test scores and measures of non-cognitive skills, a restricted maximum likelihood model indicates a strong relationship between family background and skill formation. Sibling correlations in non-cognitive skills range from 0.22 to 0.46; therefore, at least one-fifth of the variance in these skills results from shared sibling-related factors. Sibling correlations in cognitive skills are higher than 0.50; therefore, more than half of the inequality in cognition can be explained by shared family background. Comparing these findings with those in the intergenerational skill transmission literature suggests that intergenerational correlations capture only part of the influence of family on children’s cognitive and non-cognitive skills, as confirmed by decomposition analyses and in line with previous findings on educational and income mobility.

PurposeThe main purpose of this paper is to assess the degree of complementarity between cognitive skills and non-cognitive skills, and to evaluate their joint impact on individual wages.Design/methodology/approachThe author uses a survey representative of the Polish working-age population with well-established measures of cognitive and non-cognitive skills.FindingsNon-cognitive skills are important in the labour market, not only as separate factors that influence wages, but as complements to cognitive skills. Specifically, the analysis showed that the more neurotic an individual is, the lower his or her returns to cognitive skills are. Social skills were not shown to be complementary to cognitive skills in Poland unlike the recent results in the United States.Originality/valueTo the best of author's knowledge, this is the first study to provide evidence that neurotic individuals have lower returns to cognitive skills. It also tests the existence of the complementarity between social and cognitive skills.

This study aimed to find out the impact of physical activity in development of cognitive and non-cognitive skills of the physical education students. All male and female physical education students at northern Panjab were the population of current study. Thus, there is dire need to carry-out pragmatic research on theme of sports education and its relationship with cognitive and non-cognitive skills. The Likert scale was used for data collection which cover all aspect of sports and validity and reliability was done accordingly. The collected data was then put into SPSS to tabulate and arrange the data to attain the desired results. Findings of this study revealed that the score of participants and non-participants at both ends between male and female was different. Findings further revealed that the physical activity played a partial role between sports, cognitive and non-cognitive skills among youth of physical education. The physical activity was tested positive and significant in relationship with sports and cognitive skills. This study thus confirmed the significant connection between physical activity and sports in-between cognitive and non-cognitive skills.