Proceed With Caution: Measuring That “Something Other” in Students

Over the last several years, there has been a growing sense that we are not measuring what matters for children and their development. That is, by focusing assessment narrowly on academic growth, we may be missing the “something other” that seemingly lies below the surface of overt knowledge yet influences student results (Redding, 2014).

“Noncognitive variables” is the catch-all term often used to describe this “something other,” capturing an array of constructs including “grit” (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, 2007), “mindset” (Dweck, Chiu, & Hong, 1995), “aspirations” (Quaglia, 1989), and now-classic terms such as “attitude” (Allport, 1935), “locus of control” (Rotter, 1954), “learned helplessness” (Seligman, 1972), and “self-efficacy” (Bandura, 1977). An unfortunate misnomer, the associated “noncognitive” constructs indeed represent cognitive (Borghans, Duckworth, Heckman, & ter Weel, 2008) and even metacognitive processes (Conley, 2013; Messick, 1979). The term is as inaccurate as it is vague.