Media Contact:
| ETS: | Kristen Mitchell |
|---|---|
| Email: | kmitchell002@ets.org |
PRINCETON, N.J. (May 14, 2026) — The ETS Research Institute today announced it has received a grant from Overdeck Family Foundation to advance research in support of the Skills for the Future (SFF) initiative, a joint effort between ETS and The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The grant will support research and development to extend SFF learning progressions from high school into grades 6 through 8, beginning with a focus on collaboration as a foundational durable skill.
Evidence from the 2026 ETS Human Progress Report underscores just how essential collaboration has become: 71% of workers globally identify collaboration as one of the most important skills for next generation jobs, linking it directly to economic mobility, adaptability, and long-term success. While Skills for the Future has made progress in capturing evidence of collaboration at the high school level, educators still lack practical, scalable, research validated tools to assess and support collaboration during the critical middle school years.
“Durable skills like collaboration are essential for student success, yet there is still much to learn about how those skills develop and how they can be assessed earlier in meaningful ways,” said Meghan McCormick, Senior Research & Impact Officer, Overdeck Family Foundation. “We are pleased to support the ETS Research Institute’s work to strengthen the research base for collaboration in the middle grades and contribute tools and evidence that can support educators and systems at scale.”
What the grant will support:
- Refining learning progressions for the middle grades: ETS Research Institute will define developmentally appropriate subskills, indicators, and performance levels that align to high school expectations and are grounded in learning sciences research with ongoing educator input.
- Design and pilot classroom-ready collaboration assessments: The work will produce six short, learning-progression–aligned collaboration task modules embedded in authentic disciplinary contexts, developed through iterative co-design with middle school educators and enhanced with AI-enabled features to capture key collaboration behaviors, followed by cognitive interviews and a classroom pilot to strengthen validity and usability.
- Develop a growth-oriented middle school collaboration skills record: Teams will prototype a student skill record that integrates task performance, process data, and learning progression evidence to present collaboration development in terms of strengths, growth, and next steps, and will test usefulness through structured educator feedback.
“Middle school is a critical period for understanding how collaboration skills develop and how they can be meaningfully assessed,” said Lydia Liu, Associate Vice President, Research Institute, ETS. “This research focuses on building and validating developmentally appropriate tools that provide credible, actionable insight into collaboration skills and better support educators in making instructional decisions.”
Intended outcomes and driving impact
This work will produce early, scalable tools that are both rigorous and practical for schools, including:
- A validated middle-to-high school learning progression in collaboration
- Classroom-ready collaboration assessment modules with human- and AI-assisted scoring guidance
- A prototype collaboration skills record that informs instruction and student growth conversations
- Evidence of feasibility, student experience, and validity to support future scaling
In partnership with states already engaged in Skills for the Future, including Indiana, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and Missouri, ETS Research Institute will work with participating districts and education partners to refine collaboration learning progressions and develop classroom‑feasible assessment tasks for middle school students. Building on high school pilots, the project will generate evidence on feasibility, student experience, instructional usefulness and validity to inform scaling and expansion to additional durable skills.
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About ETS
ETS is a global education and talent solutions organization enabling lifelong learners to be future ready. Our mission—advancing the science of measurement to power human progress—drives our focus on helping everyone, everywhere, demonstrate their skills and chart their path to future readiness for life. We deliver trusted assessments and skills solutions—including TOEFL, TOEIC, GRE, Praxis and Futurenav—and groundbreaking initiatives powered by our Research Institute. With a global footprint in more than 200 countries and territories, we help over 50 million individuals each year measure their proficiency and unlock new opportunities. Learn more at www.ets.org.