Supporting the Work Keys System

For-profit business people love the system, and the college needs to deliver what its customers want. But faculty members argue that they must maintain the purity of the profession and deliver training and education that meets the rigors of pedagogy (or, in the case of adult learners, andragogy). Yet Work Keys is a system based on recognized educational philosophies and andragogical principles.

Background

Work Keys is a system designed and marketed by ACT (formerly American College Testing), which should immediately give the system a degree of legitimacy since ACT is one of the most recognized authorities in scholastic aptitude assessment. The Work Keys system was designed to provide a skill assessment system as universally useful to businesses as the college entrance exams are to colleges and universities.

 productive on the job.

The company does not have to try to guess what training is needed and can thus maximize the benefits of every training dollar. In fact, the company may be able to understand why previous training efforts have not resulted in improved productivity or effectiveness.

A ninth skill area, Work Habits, is anticipated but is still in the process of being evaluated for validity before being published.

Many educators regard Work Keys with disdain. After all, academic faculty have been teaching for years and have professional degrees in determining the learning needs of students. Most educators tend to dismiss Work Keys as a profit-focused product, not on the same level of "real" education. Educators, like everyone else, see the world and evaluate what they see through their own "rose-colored glasses" and paradigms.

A comparison of the Work Keys system to the major educational philosophies discussed in Elias and Messian’s Philosophical Foundations of Adult Educators may provide a rationale for skeptical educators to support Work Keys. It is a system with aspects of each of the major educational philosophies: progressive, behaviorism, humanism, analytical, radical, and classical/liberal arts.

The progressive philosophy of education has been dominant in the field of adult education, led by such educators as Darwin, Knowles, Dewey, and Lindeman. The basic tenets of progressive education include the use of inductive methods of science for arriving at knowledge; an emphasis on science for the betterment of society; education that will support democracy; an emphasis on pragmatism, utilitarianism, social reform; and experimentalism. In practical terms, progressivism is the philosophy of education closely identified with liberal political, social, and economic thought. In adult education, progressives see education as the same as new and exciting life experiences (Lindeman, 1956).

The task of educators under behaviorism is to define the kinds of behavior wanted and then produce people who will behave in those ways. According to B. F. Skinner, the best-known behaviorist, whatever will support survival is what is most important to society. Whatever helps the individual resolve problems will also help resolve societal problems (Skinner, 1974). Behaviorist education places priority on obtaining job skills so that a person can perform successfully in society. One of the key skills required is the skill of learning so that individuals can accommodate the changes that the environment will force upon them. Behaviorists believe that worthwhile education can be measured because it will result in an objective, measurable behavior change, and they support criteria or competency-based accountability in education.

Work Keys contains elements common to a behaviorist educational system. The profile for a given job or occupation is conducted from the perspective of defining what skills are necessary for an employee to be effective. In other words, the business is defining the type of person they want as "effective." The assessment determines what kind of person the employee is (what levels of skill the employee possesses) as compared to the desired, and the training curriculum is designed to close the gap between what is desired and what the current state is. The employer can expect to see behavioral changes. The employee will begin to perform assigned duties in a more effective/productive manner. In fact, if the education is effective, the first behavioral change should come in the form of better performance on the standardized assessment test.

Work Keys supports one of the key elements of behaviorism¯ accountability. If the contract between the business and the education institution is to move the worker(s) from one level to another, the post-training assessment will reveal in objective terms the success or lack thereof. Competency-based accountability relies heavily on an accurate identification of the tasks to be performed by the workers who actually do the jobs. The profiling process starts with, and continuously reviews, the job or occupational task lists as the primary tool for determining skills required.

The goal of humanistic education is the development of self-actualizing persons with the emphasis upon the affective dimension. Learning that is to be effective must be learning that is driven by the learner, as opposed to learning mandated from some outside authority, since human adults are self-directed. Each adult has accumulated an entirely unique history of experiences, and through these experiences, adults define themselves as unique. Therefore, if education is to be pertinent, it must address the unique abilities and needs of the individual adult. Since adult learners are motivated by self-concept, adults will learn only that which they decide is useful at this point in their lives; in other words, there is a learning moment that only the individual can determine.

The humanistic philosophy believes in the innate potential of the individual and sees education as a vehicle by which that potential can be realized. Virtually every management, leadership, and psychology course taught for the past forty years has included a thorough discussion of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1954). Although his humanistic philosophy is most evident in the higher level needs of self-esteem and self-actualization, Maslow’s basic tenet is that an individual must satisfy the lower-level needs before becoming motivated to pursue the higher level needs. This is a critical point that is often ignored within education and society.

Work Keys has elements of humanism. Self-directed learners will direct their efforts toward any education that will allow them to do what they must and do it well. If there is one overriding obstacle that educators must overcome, it is that students too often do not see the relevancy of the education to their lives or the "real" world. The Work Keys system starts the process by having workers decide what levels of the various skills are relevant to the job. The training therefore is by definition "self-directed."

The Work Keys system recognizes the uniqueness of the individual worker- student. Employees will not be herded into a class because management feels there is a general lack of some skill. Such a class would contain both students who are overly skilled and those who are so deficient that they will be at a distinct disadvantage. In contrast, with the Work Keys system, employees will start training at the point that is appropriate for their individual skills and needs.

Finally, the Work Keys system provides one of the best tools available for self-actualization. Employees can set goals to get promoted to a position of increased responsibility, prestige, and pay, knowing many of the particular steps they must take to be successful. Work Keys tells the employees the skill levels required to be effective in a position. Employees will know their own skill levels and can construct plans to close any gaps between present skill levels and those needed to qualify for the promotion. As it is today, people at a company not progressing often surmise that others get promoted and progress because the boss liked them better or it was politics. Work Keys gives the individual and the company a tool to use that is objective in making the best and fairest personnel decisions.

The most precise guidelines of the analytical philosophy of adult education are provided by the foremost British philosopher R.S. Peters, who believes that true education is a transmission of information that is valuable and worthwhile; individuals voluntarily care about what they will learn; there is a cognitive understanding of the principles involved, and the new knowledge will be usable (Peters, 1967). Proponents of the analytic philosophy oppose the service-centered orientation that is becoming ever more popular in this country and have a bias against education that is training for skills, unless those skills are intrinsically worth learning for their own sake and have independent cognitive value. Academic subject matter is central to the philosophy. One of the key concerns of analytic philosophers of adult education is that to be true education, as opposed to indoctrination, education must be achieved through the voluntary participation of the adult student. Additionally, since true education is conducted for pure knowledge, understanding, truth, and insight, it must be provided in a value-free, unbiased, and neutral manner without social, political or religious agenda. To achieve voluntary participation, the needs and curriculum should be jointly determined by the students and teachers working together. The philosophy espouses the belief that adults have both a right and a duty in pursuing continuous education and that some considerations should be made for those adults who were deprived of their early educational opportunities.

Work Keys is a system that supports much, though not all, of the analytic philosophy of adult education. While the entire system is built around "skill" development, the skills presented within the system are generic in nature and can easily be categorized into purely academic subject matter with intrinsic value independent of the work place. The new knowledge obtained from participation in Work Keys curriculum will be usable and valuable to the adult learner in many aspects of life, ranging from better ability to balance the family checkbook to building better communications effectiveness with children and spouse.

Work Keys does not take a "service" philosophy in allowing the worker to self-determine what is or is not valuable education. However, through the job profile and assessment processes, the trainer and the student agree as to what skills are needed and what skills are available, hopefully producing a mutual decision on what education needs to take place and its value. Certainly the education will have intrinsic value if one assumes that better knowledge and understanding of the principles of the subject areas are of value in and of themselves, independent of profession and employment situations.

The radical philosophy of adult education aims at bringing about social, political, and economic changes in society through the use of education. While the progressive and humanist philosophies do support the use of education to bring about social reform, the radical philosophy aims at radical change. There are three distinct social movements that owe their practices to radical philosophies: anarchism, Marxism, and the Freudian left.

The anarchist movement is best represented in the work of Leo Tolstoy who thought education should be noncompulsory and should follow the dictates of the students rather than the teacher. The Marxist movement as it relates to education is best exemplified by Paulo Freire and his work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. In his earliest works, Freire built his philosophy based on Christian ideals of the importance of the individual as opposed to the state, industry, or organization. He saw the lack of education of the "lower" classes of society as the establishment’s attempt to keep people "usable" instruments of the workforce. As he matured, his philosophy encompassed many of the philosophies of Marxism.

The Freudian left basically retaliated against the conservative Freudian social philosophy and promoted sexual freedom, non-authoritarian family structure, and very liberal child rearing. These changes were designed to raise children who were not encumbered with the psychological conditioning that made them subordinate their natural free spirits.

The oldest philosophy of education, and the most prevalent at the college and university level, is the classical or liberal arts approach. Our universities and colleges were created to provide a classical/liberal arts education for those citizens who would lead our communities, professions, and businesses. A liberal arts education should lead an individual from basic independent pieces of information to knowledge through synthesis and, finally, to true wisdom. The aim of education under this classical philosophy is confined to intellectual development through academic disciplines.

Work Keys is a system that advocates a classical/liberal arts education. The key difference between pure classical/liberal arts and this system is that Work Keys attempts to provide the most foundational skills that are prerequisite to the higher levels of a good liberal education: skills in reading, mathematics, listening, and any other skill areas that will translate to an ability to continue learning. The individual workers are also reintroduced to the educational process so that they have the opportunity to realize that they are capable of life-long learning. The skills learned through the Work Keys system empower individuals to become leaders at their jobs, better citizens of their company or organization, and self-confident, positive forces within the community.

Therefore, Work Keys is an innovative educational instrument with great potential no matter what educational philosophy individual educators endorse. In addition to its relation to each of the major educational philosophies, Work Keys adheres to the major principles of adult education, as advocated by acclaimed Malcolm Knowles, in The Modern Practices of Adult Education: From Pedagogy to Andragogy.

Work Keys and Andragogical Practices

In evaluating any training or education program for adults, educators look for comparison to Knowles’ following seven phases of adult learning phases, all of which are fulfilled by Work Keys:

1. Setting a climate for learning

In providing for the climate for learning, Knowles addresses the physical and psychological environments that will be conducive to the learning effort. Likewise, the Work Keys system attributes the concerns for supportive physical conditions to the individual company and instructor. The psychological environment must achieve certain affective criteria to support learning: an atmosphere of mutual respect, support, collaboration, mutual trust, mutual responsibility, and an emphasis on learning rather than on teaching. The key word is "mutual." Work Keys supports mutual respect, trust, and responsibility.

2. Establishing a structure for mutual planning

In Work Keys, a process of mutual planning begins when a company asks employees to sit on a panel charged with the responsibility of detailing the tasks of the job and defining the skills needed to effectively accomplish those tasks. Management is conveying to the workers (and potential students) that management does not hold all responsibility for determination of the job execution, the employees’ opinions and knowledge of the job are appreciated and respected, and management trusts the employees to accomplish this task without supervision of any managers. Through the job profile, this training program becomes one driven by the employees, determined and then supported by management with the required training time and instruction- a collaborative effort.

3. Diagnosing needs for learning

Following Knowles’ principles, the Work Keys system focuses on learning rather than instruction. In fact, ACT does not support any teaching system or mechanism at all. The curricula and training delivery systems available have all been created to connect with Work Keys. A company can employ a number of teaching tools ranging from computer-based training, independent study, traditionally-delivered instruction, or any combination of these. The emphasis of Work Keys is the skill level, not the manner in which those skills are obtained.

4. Formulating learning objectives

6. Managing the execution of the learning experiences

In Work Keys, the patterns of learning experiences are predetermined by the prerequisite nature of one level of skill being dependent upon the learner mastering the skills of the lower level skills. The curricula supporting Work Keys have validated the step-by-step sequencing of instruction. The mastery testing ensures that students do not attempt course work until they are ready. The execution of these learning experiences can be customized by the organization through the use of the various curricula training systems already discussed.

7. Evaluating results and diagnosing learning needs

Finally, the evaluation of the results is straightforward. Upon completion of the course work, a student should test out at skill levels required for the effective accomplishment of the job. The real criteria for evaluation of the Work Keys system are pending. Data will have to be collected that will demonstrate that the workforce, with the new levels of skill as determined by the profile and delivered by the curricula, is more effective, productive, and profitable than the workforce was prior to the Work Keys initiative. That data is not yet available because of the relative newness of the system, but with the system being used in forty states and several other countries, that data should be just around the corner. Hopefully, it will come from the initiatives of the Virginia Community College System.

The Work Keys system employs recognized effective practices of adult education that should give confidence to educators. It is hoped that academic faculty will be able to support the Work Keys after reflecting on the relation of the Work Keys system to recognized educational philosophies and to the andragogical principles of adult learning. Academic faculty’s understanding of and advocacy for the Work Keys system are crucial to its success.

References

Elias, J. L. & Merriam, S. B. Philosophical Foundations of Adult Education. Malabar: Krieger, 1980.

Freire, Paulo. Education of the Oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder, 1970.

Knowles, M.S. The Modern Practice of Adult Education: From Pedagogy to Andragogy. Chicago: Association Press, 1980.

Lindeman, Eduard C. The Democratic Man: Selected Writings of Eduard Lindeman. Edited by Robert Glessner. Boston: Beacon, 1956.

Maslow, Abraham. Motivation and Personality. New York: Harper and Row, 1954.

Peters, R. S. "What is an Educational Process." In R. S. Peters (ed.). The Concept of Education. Boston: Routeledge and Kegan Paul, 1967.

Skinner, Burrhus F. About Behaviorism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974.