Principal Investigator
Lydia Liu and Lei Liu – ETS
Project Description
This study develops and validates measures of collaboration for middle school students as part of ETS’s broader Skills for the Future initiative. The research focuses on creating developmentally appropriate learning progressions, authentic performance-based assessment tasks, and scalable scoring approaches to capture collaboration as a future-ready skill. Using an iterative design, the study includes task development, pilot testing in diverse middle school settings, and psychometric validation using student performance data, rubric-based scoring, and AI-assisted scoring methods. The study also examines how collaboration develops across grades and aligns with existing high school measures to create a coherent developmental progression. Findings will inform the creation of practical, classroom-embedded tools that enable educators and systems to assess and support collaboration skills at scale.
Research Questions
- How can collaboration be defined and measured in developmentally appropriate ways for middle school students?
- What types of assessment tasks and scoring approaches produce reliable and valid measures of collaboration that capture growth over time?
- How do middle school measures of collaboration align with high school measures to support a coherent developmental progression?
