This study demonstrates the attempt to create an assessment tool for global citizenship with its pilot results. The finalized rubric reflects the voices of over 300 workers who are considered internationally successful in various sectors, while the assessment tool was piloted with both university students and workers.
As the Japanese Ministry of Education has announced a new initiative to produce future “global human resources,” universities have begun creating new programs with a strong focus on English to accomplish this goal. Also, many companies in Japan have started promoting an “English-only” policy in the workplace. However, some educators are concerned that this policy may strengthen linguistic or cultural imperialism, and will not lead to the production of truly international-minded adolescences who can function successfully in the globalizing world. In the beginning phase of this study, a questionnaire was created reflecting important previous studies and projects conducted in both the U.S. and Europe. By a questionnaire survey of over 300 workers who are considered internationally successful in various sectors, an attempt has been made to elucidate and identify the competencies and skills deemed indispensable to global human resources (preferably referred to “global citizens” in our study) with an eye toward creating a metric for assessing readiness to be one of them. The resulted list of items roughly consists of four major parts: knowledge of language and culture, intercultural competence, critical thinking skills, and generic competencies. The most interesting finding in the list’s validation process was that rank-and-file workers in companies valued various general competencies in addition to English proficiency while people in the upper management placed more importance on adaptability to diverse multilingual and multicultural environments. Then, an assessment rubric made up with 40 items based on both quantitative and qualitative validation was created, and secondly, depending on the different natures of skills and competencies, a battery of assessment tool consisting of several essay tests and a checklist was constructed, the piloting results of which, using 300 university students and 90 company workers, will be presented and shared, with ideas for teacher/supervisor workshop for evaluation.
