Situational judgment test of basic employability competences development: Validation of a psychoeducative instrument for socioeducative intervention

Abstract

Basic employability competences, also known as key competences, are essential in accessing, retaining and advancing in employment, and are especially relevant in promoting the employment of disadvantaged young people. This study describes the development of a copyleft psychoeducational instrument based on the model posited by Arnau et al. (2014) that Social Pedagogy professionals can use to evaluate the basic employability competences in adolescents and young people aged 12 to 18: The Situational Test of Basic Employability Competences Development (DCBE). A total of 29 problem situations were designed and included within five stories related to the daily life of any adolescent. A total of 102 adolescents and young people were interviewed and asked how they would react to these problem situations. The responses were subjected to a content analysis in order to select the most frequent responses indicative of different levels of competence development. Ten experts then assigned the problem situations to one of the eight competences proposed by Arnau et al. (2014), before assigning scores of 0 to 5 to the different responses based on the level of development indicated by the responses, with high levels of agreement. Following a pilot study on a group of 47 young people to verify the variability of the responses, the test was administered to 1,011 young people at six training centres. A factor analysis of the responses yielded a unifactorial structure of 23 items, with high values for model fit and reliability. The results obtained support the content, ecological and construct validity of the DCBE test, which was well accepted by both students and teachers for its attractiveness and usefulness. The test makes it possible to begin preparing students for employment in the early stages prior to post-compulsory training. Its copyleft nature means it can be widely used by Social Pedagogy professionals.