Life Skills and Citizenship Education (LSCE) Initiative : Field Trial Report

The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) in partnership with the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) conducted a field trial (FT) as part of the life skills and citizenship education (LSCE) initiative for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region for United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The assessment targets one age group equivalent to children in the first grade of lower secondary school (grade 7) and the FT was implemented in Egypt, Palestine, and Tunisia. The LSCE assessment instruments comprised different assessment items covering life skills within the domains of learning, employability, personal empowerment, and active citizenship. The assessment was supplemented by a student questionnaire and a school questionnaire related to LSCE, and perceived skills of the assessed students. This report outlines the goals of the LSCE study and describes the work undertaken within the context of the FT. The report outlines the item and scale analysis and the item selection process. The final section of the report provides the recommendations for the main study instruments.