The Conference on Measuring and Assessing Skills will be a follow up to the conference of the same name hosted by the R24 Network in 2015 at the University of Chicago. The conference will focus on the growing recognition that multiple skills, beyond IQ and cognition, are important predictors and likely determinants of success in many aspects of life.
Although a variety of methods are used to measure these skills, there is no consensus on which approaches are most suitable for which purposes. This conference will assemble leading economists, psychologists, neuroscientists, and measurement specialists to examine and evaluate alternative approaches to the measurement of skills, including modifications to self-reports, behavioral measures, games, and methods based on neuroscience
The conference will address five guiding questions:
- How predictive are elicited measurements of skill of both short-run and long-run outcomes?
- How important are incentives and contexts in the measurement of skills?
- Do differences in environments change the predictive accuracy of elicited measures of skill?
- How can separate components of skill be identified?
- Are measurements of skills comparable across elicitation strategies?
This conference is co-organized with the Center for the Economics of Human Development at the University of Chicago, and the Research Network on the Determinants of Life Course Capabilities and Outcomes, a CEHD initiative funded by the National Institute on Aging.
For more information, including a schedule, please visit the conference website at the Center for the Economics of Human Development.