Abstract:

In response to the Japanese Ministry of Education’s initiative to produce future “global human resources,” coupled with the similar demand from business sectors, Japanese universities have been creating new programs with a strong focus on English and critical thinking/problem-solving skills. However, the aimed skills are varied, and more importantly, they represent only a part of what makes a person a global citizen who can function in the globalizing society by solving problems in various intercultural situations. In the preceding study, 40 descriptors for global citizenship were ascertained based on the extensive online survey with more than 400 internationally successful workers in various sectors. The 40 descriptors are divided into 4 sections: knowledge of language and culture, intercultural competence, critical thinking skills, and generic competencies. First, an assessment rubric for these 40 items were developed, which serves as a metric for assessing young people’s readiness for global citizenship. Next, depending on the different nature of skills and competencies, a portfolio-type assessment tool consisting of essay-type test items and a Can-do type checklist was constructed. After a series of validation experiments of this tool with university students and modifications based on them, now it exhibits quite good validity and reliability. So, a new attempt of creating the simplified versions of assessment tool for high school and elementary school students was launched since global citizenship education should start early and the objectives and assessments at different educational stages should be consistent and accumulatively connected. When creating the simplified versions, the number of descriptors was reduced to a half (20 items) and the essay-test questions were changed so that they will be easily understood and responded to by high school and elementary school students respectively. Also, the selection of the 20 items were carefully done for the major skills and competencies from 4 areas are evenly covered, in order for the future trajectory analysis of each student from elementary to tertiary education to be feasible. In this presentation, the validation results of simplified assessment tool for younger students will be explained as compared to those of the original version. The simplified versions showed sufficient measurement power except for about one-fourth of skills and competencies. Also, considerably high inter-rater reliability as well as correlations between objective rater evaluation and self-assessment were obtained. However, we faced some problems with data collection, especially getting clear, measurable responses from elementary school students because lower-graders had difficulty verbalizing their thoughts and ideas. Therefore, conducting the essay-test by scaffolded interview is considered as a future alternative.

Keywords:

Global Citizenship, Assessment Tool, Japanese students, simplified versions.