Non-Cognitive Assessment in Higher Education
Social Desirability and the Prediction of College Outcomes
A.J. Metz
Qin Hu
Alexandra R. Kelly
Andrew R. Fox
David Shirley
Laken Shirley
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24926/jcotr.v22i2.2888
Keywords:
Non-cognitive assessment, at-risk, students, persistence, performance, social desirability, response bias, Student Strengths Inventory.
Abstract
Non-cognitive assessment is used to identify at-risk college students and leverage limited resources to promote academic performance and persistence. Instruments that measure these psychosocial attitudes and skills require self-reported responses and, thus, may be subject to distortion. This study examined the social desirability response bias in a specific non-cognitive assessment tool, the Student Strengths Inventory (SSI), including gender and ethnic differences. Results show that college students did not respond to the SSI in a socially desirable way. Additionally, the SSI subscales contributed to significant variance in the prediction of academic performance and persistence. This study empirically supports the use of non-cognitive assessment in higher education and suggests interventions for using non-cognitive assessment data at the individual, group, and aggregate level.
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