An investigation of twenty-first century learners’ competencies in China

This paper reports a study on developing an assessment inventory of Chinese learners’ competencies as needed for the twenty-first century. In creating the instrument, three relevant twenty-first century competency frameworks were referenced: from the OECD, the European Council, and the USA. The preliminary version of this instrument, which consists of 55 items, was administered to 732 Shanghai students from three types of K-12 schools. To investigate the factors and the structure of the competencies that young Chinese learners’ in the twenty-first century should possess, exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were employed. This resulted in a selection of 42 items in seven categories. These were conceptions of learning, competencies in ICT, problem solving, communication, critical thinking, cross-cultural communication, and advanced-level literacy. Based on these findings, the status of students’ twenty-first century competencies in Shanghai, were investigated in relation to gender, region, and grade. The implications of the findings were discussed, such as balancing the learning resource and teacher deployment in differently developed regions, as well as guiding the implementation of a competency-based curriculum in China.