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The development of 21st century skills among incarcerated youth: a needs assessment of teachers

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Content Running Head: 21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH i

The Development of 21st Century Skills Among Incarcerated Youth:
A Needs Assessment of Teachers

by

James Michael McKenna

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION

May, 2015

Copyright 2015 James Michael McKenna

21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH ii

Dedication
This work is dedicated to my wife
for believing I could become more than I was,
and for giving me the strength, and the space, to try.

21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH iii
Acknowledgements
This work stands as my greatest endeavor to date in a battle against lost potential, and I
would be lying if I said that my own potential was not included in that struggle. I would like to
thank three wise men for their guidance through this journey: Drs. Garcia and Castruita, I thank
you for taking a snarky Ed Psych into your cohort of hard chargers, and Dr. Rueda, I thank you
for joining the committee and for stepping forward to get me across the finish line when the need
arose.
I would also like to acknowledge my supervisors at the Los Angeles County Office of
Education, Dr. Cuauhtémoc Avila, Kim Hopko and Rick Ellis, for their support as I balanced
work, home life, and the program to the best of my ability. Finally, I thank all those who
participated in this study—though you remain nameless, you are remembered with gratitude.

21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH iv

Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ iii
List of Tables ............................................................................................................................... viii
List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ ix
Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... x
Chapter 1: Overview of the Study ............................................................................................... 1
Background of the Problem ....................................................................................................... 2
Statement of the Problem ........................................................................................................... 5
Purpose of the Study .................................................................................................................. 5
Framing 21st Century Skills ................................................................................................. 6
Significance of the Study ........................................................................................................... 6
Limitations of the Study............................................................................................................. 7
Delimitations of the Study ......................................................................................................... 7
Definition of Terms.................................................................................................................... 7
Organization of the Study .......................................................................................................... 9
Chapter 2: Literature Review .................................................................................................... 11
Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 11
Identifying and Addressing Need ............................................................................................ 11
KMO Framework .................................................................................................................12
Knowledge causes ..........................................................................................................13
Motivation causes. .........................................................................................................14
Organizational causes ....................................................................................................15
Teacher Beliefs ........................................................................................................................ 16
Reliability of Teacher Self-Report Tools .............................................................................16
Challenges with reliability of self-report tools ..............................................................16
Teacher Efficacy .................................................................................................................17
Teacher Expectations and Student Achievement ................................................................19
Motivation and Teacher Belief ...........................................................................................20
Incarcerated Youth ................................................................................................................... 20
Barriers to Achievement ......................................................................................................21
Challenges for Educators .....................................................................................................23
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH v
Summary of Challenges and Skill Deficits ..........................................................................23
21st Century Skills ................................................................................................................... 24
21st Century Skills Codified ................................................................................................24
Marzano and Heflebower’s Framework ..............................................................................26
Cognitive skills. .............................................................................................................27
Conative skills. ...............................................................................................................29
Best Practices to Develop 21st Century Skills ....................................................................30
Building digital literacy .................................................................................................30
Social-skills training ......................................................................................................31
Self-regulation................................................................................................................31
Cooperative learning. .....................................................................................................33
Problem-based learning. ................................................................................................34
Addressing Skill Deficits ......................................................................................................... 36
Summary .................................................................................................................................. 37
Chapter 3: Methodology............................................................................................................. 39
Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 39
Setting ..................................................................................................................................39
Participants and Sampling....................................................................................................39
Research Design....................................................................................................................... 40
Appropriateness of the Research Design .............................................................................40
Research Questions .................................................................................................................. 41
Instrumentation ....................................................................................................................42
Data Processing and Analysis ..............................................................................................43
Preparing the data for analysis. ......................................................................................43
Reading through the data. ..............................................................................................44
Coding the data. .............................................................................................................44
Interrelating themes and descriptions. ...........................................................................44
Ethical Considerations ........................................................................................................44
Reliability and Validity .......................................................................................................45
Quantitative reliability ...................................................................................................45
Qualitative reliability .....................................................................................................45
Summary .................................................................................................................................. 46
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH vi
Chapter 4: Results....................................................................................................................... 47
Quantitative Results .................................................................................................................47
Qualitative Findings .................................................................................................................52
Respondent 1 ......................................................................................................................52
Respondent 2 ......................................................................................................................54
Respondent 3 ......................................................................................................................57
Respondent 4 ......................................................................................................................59
Respondent 5 ......................................................................................................................61
Emerging themes ...............................................................................................................63
Summary of Findings ............................................................................................................... 66
Research Question 1 ...........................................................................................................66
Knowledge .....................................................................................................................66
Motivation ......................................................................................................................67
Organization ...................................................................................................................67
Research Question 2 ...........................................................................................................67
Knowledge .....................................................................................................................68
Motivation ......................................................................................................................69
Organization ...................................................................................................................70
Chapter 5: Discussion ................................................................................................................. 71
Discussion of the Findings ....................................................................................................... 72
Summary of Findings for Research Question 1 ..................................................................72
Summary of Findings for Research Question 2 ..................................................................73
Recommendations for the Program ......................................................................................... 74
Knowledge ..........................................................................................................................75
Information ....................................................................................................................75
Job aids...........................................................................................................................76
Training ..........................................................................................................................76
Education .......................................................................................................................77
Motivation ...........................................................................................................................77
Expectancy .....................................................................................................................77
Value ..............................................................................................................................77
Organization ........................................................................................................................78
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH vii
Technology ....................................................................................................................79
Recommendations for Evaluation ............................................................................................ 80
Impact of Recommendations ..............................................................................................80
Impact on Student Beliefs ...................................................................................................80
Impact of Program on the Problem .....................................................................................81
Probation Perceptions .........................................................................................................81
Conclusions ..............................................................................................................................81
References ..................................................................................................................................... 83
Appendix A: Survey Protocol ....................................................................................................... 95
Appendix B: Interview Protocol ................................................................................................. 100
Appendix C: Informed Consent Protocol ................................................................................... 101
Appendix D: IRB Approval ........................................................................................................ 102

21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH viii
List of Tables
Table 1. Operational Definitions 8
Table 2. Source Frameworks Used by Marzano and Heflebower (2012) 27
Table 3. Survey Responses Related to 21st Century Skills 48
Table 4. Extent of Current Teacher Emphasis of Individual 21st Century Skills 50
Table 5. KMO Challenges to Individual Skill Emphasis 51

21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH ix
List of Figures
Figure 1. Three levels of need. 12
Figure 2. An illustration of Clarke and Estes’ (2002) gap analysis problem-solving model. 13
Figure 3. Correlation between effort and the sum of personal and general teaching efficacy. 18
Figure 4. Organization of Marzano and Heflebower’s (2012) framework for 21st
Century Skills. 28
Figure 5. An adaption of Zimmerman’s (2008, p.178) model of the self-regulated learning
process. 32
Figure 6. Comparison of 21st Century Skills to IY skill deficits. 37
Figure 7. Data analysis, adapted from Creswell (2009, p. 185). 43
Figure 8. Framework for 21st Century Learning (2011). 69
Figure 9: Level 2 needs. 73
Figure 10. Level 3 needs. 74
Figure 11. Summary of recommendations. 75

21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH x
Abstract
This study is a needs assessment of teachers seeking to develop 21st Century Skills
among incarcerated youth (IY). The researcher uses Clark and Estes’ (2002) knowledge,
motivation, and organization (KMO) framework to describe those challenges. The researcher
surveyed 22 teachers (n=22) and interviewed five teachers in a program serving IY in juvenile
halls and camps in a metropolitan area. Data was coded to align with the KMO framework.
Findings of the study indicate a need for increased knowledge and motivation among
teachers for the development of 21
st
Century Skills. Further, the program chosen for research
lacked an explicit emphasis on 21
st
Century Skills, focusing more on process than concept.
Implications for practice include: the adoption of a framework for 21st Century Skills; the
provision of education and training to administrators and teachers on the framework as well as
best practices for developing and assessing the skills; organizational emphasis on 21st Century
Skills; the incorporation of 21st Century Skills into accountability measures; and the provision of
necessary technology resources and other materials to support the curriculum.
Future evaluation avenues include pre- and post-assessment of teacher efficacy after
implementing recommendations and a longitudinal study of employment history/recidivism
among former IY who attended the program. The researcher also recommends studying the
impact of the program on student perceptions of employability and self-efficacy for prosocial
behaviors. A final suggested study is a comparison of probation officers’ perceptions/behaviors
at program and non-program sites.

21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 1
Chapter 1: Overview of the Study
“The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast
The slow one now will later be fast
As the present now will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'”
—Bob Dylan
Times are changing. The Industrial Age is at an end, and a new age, called the
Knowledge Age by some, has brought with it a need for a drastic reshaping of the focus of the
nation’s efforts to educate its youth (Fadel & Trilling, 2009). If America is to compete globally
in the Knowledge Age, its workers must be adequately prepared for success in this new
economic context. For over 20 years, employers and post-secondary institutions have been
demanding a new set of cognitive, self-regulatory, and collaboration skills for their prospective
students and workers (Knox, 2006; U.S. Department of Labor, 1992). Known as 21st Century
Skills, these cognitive and conative processes enable students to gather, analyze, and utilize
information collaboratively and creatively to solve novel problems (Marzano & Heflebower,
2012).
With the current economy still emerging from the recent recession, Americans are
waking up to a new reality. Well-paying jobs in manufacturing have dramatically decreased,
having been outsourced to nations whose populaces are prepared to do more for less
compensation, replaced by machines, or made obsolete by new technology (Fadel & Trilling,
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 2
2009; Wagner, 2008). Young Americans leaving high school need 21st Century Skills in order to
succeed in the workforce and post-secondary educational pursuits (Knox, 2006; Wagner, 2008).
Incarcerated youth (IY) have demonstrated particularly significant challenges in finding
and maintaining gainful employment after being released. Deficient social skills, low academic
achievement, and self-perceptions of low employability due to criminal history stand in the way
of their achievement of fiscal subsistence (Abrams, Shannon, & Sangalang, 2008; Bullis &
Yovanoff, 2006). Failure to gain or maintain employment often leads to a return to incarceration
(Bullis & Yovanoff, 2006).
In order to best avoid this outcome, IY must possess the cognitive and conative skills
necessary for success in the new Knowledge Age. They must have 21st Century Skills, leaving
teachers of IY with a daunting mandate. How can teachers develop 21
st
Century Skills among
IY? Are they prepared to undertake the challenge, and do they think it’s a valuable pursuit? What
supports do they think they need to be successful? With these questions looming large, the
researcher will assess the needs of teachers in developing 21
st
Century Skills among incarcerated
youth.
Background of the Problem
From October 12, 2007 to March 3, 2008, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped
over 7,000 points, roughly 52% (The Wall Street Journal, 2008). Due to the interconnection of
national markets in the financial ecosystem (Fadel & Trilling, 2009), this downturn triggered the
global recession. At the start of the plunge, unemployment in the United States stood at 4.6%; it
would reach a high water mark of 10% by October, 2010 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2013). The
global recession has laid bare a hard truth: in order to remain competitive in the global economic
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 3
arena, the U.S. labor force must be ready to adapt to the new economic realities. Recent research
suggests that level of readiness is markedly deficient to the task (Kay, 2010; Knox, 2006).
The U.S. economy is transitioning from a job-base driven by manufacturing, mining and
construction to one that is defined by information and innovation. This shift began when
knowledge spending outstripped industrial spending in 1991 (Stewart, 1998), bringing with it the
need to redefine existing education systems in order provide the workers of the future (Kay,
2010). The world has seen a dramatic increase in the availability of Information Communication
Technology (ICT), a growth that is facilitating increased collaboration and competition (Wagner,
2012). Wagner (2008) asserts the jobs in this new Knowledge Age require “employees who
know how to solve a range of intellectual and technical problems” (p. xxii), creating a need for a
new type of product from educational systems.
This need has become starkly evident in the years following the start of the recession.
Though unemployment has retreated since its high of 10% in October of 2010 (The Wall Street
Journal, 2008), with the advent of globalization and increasing automation, Americans are
finding that well-paying industrial jobs are on the decline (Fadel & Trilling, 2009). At the same
time, though, employers are facing a shortage of skilled labor (Wright, 2013). Twenty-first
century employers seek workers who can work collaboratively to solve novel problems using
information gathered from increasingly digitally-based sources (Knox, 2006; Marzano &
Heflebower, 2012; Stewart, 1998;); these types of workers are not the focus of the Industrial Age
educational model (Care, Griffin, & McGraw, 2012).
This raises the following question: Why didn’t educators, policy makers and business
leaders see the need for new skills coming? In truth, some of them did. The concept of 21st
Century Skills began over two decades ago with a report from the Secretary’s Commission on
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 4
Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) (U.S. Department of Labor, 1992). The report codified the
skills potential employers needed most in the graduates of public education institutions, detailing
five areas of competency (resources, interpersonal, information, systems, and technology) and
three foundational skill areas (basic, thinking, and personal). The SCANS report concludes with
a cogent elocution of the mission of educators in the 21st century: “to create an entire people
trained to think and equipped with the know-how to make their knowledge productive” (U.S.
Department of Labor, 1992, p. 19).
How have recent graduates been faring without concerted efforts to develop these skills?
The facts do not inspire optimism. In June of 2012, 27% of recent high school graduates without
a college education had full-time jobs (The Associated Press, 2012). By July of 2013, the
unemployment rate for out-of-school youths ages 16-24 stood at 17.1%, with most job growth
existing in low-paying arenas like fast-food restaurants (Tseng, 2013). According to a report
from the Center for American Progress, the nearly one million young adults facing long-term
employment could represent a loss in earnings of 22 billion dollars (Ayres, 2013).
In addition to the macroeconomic implications, unemployment and underemployment
have numerous negative effects on individuals. Unruh and Waintrup (2008) state that people use
their employment status as a frame of reference in determining their position and worth. Seeking
to fulfill financial needs, an unemployed person is more motivated to engage in criminal activity
(Bushway & Paternoster, 2001). High unemployment further impacts those who are employed,
with job insecurity and reduced income expectancy cited as significant stressors by Green (2011)
and leading to increased crime according to Bushway and Paternoster (2001). These challenges,
compounded with the previously described barrier to employment, make the likelihood of former
IY returning to a state of incarceration disconcertingly high.
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 5
Soon to be joining the ranks of out-of-school 16-24-year-olds are students who have had
demonstrable challenges achieving long-term employment after leaving school: incarcerated
youth. Current supports are inadequate to aid IY in offsetting the negative influences on
employment brought about by low socioeconomic status, criminally-involved peers, and
perceptions of low employability (Bullis & Yovanoff, 2006; Tangeman & Hall, 2011). If the
majority of America’s youth are in need of skills desired by potential employers and educational
institutions (Fadel & Trilling, 2009; Kay, 2010; Marzano & Heflebower, 2012), then IY are in
even greater need, as unemployment frequently means a return to incarceration (Anthony et al.,
2010; Bullis, Yovanoff, Mueller, & Havel, 2002).
Statement of the Problem
Incarcerated youth are not adequately prepared to succeed upon release. They are likely
to face unemployment and incarceration soon after leaving high school (Bullis & Yovanoff,
2006), in part because many teachers of IY are not effectively developing their students’
problem-solving, interpersonal, and intrapersonal capabilities (Abrams et al., 2008; Bullis &
Yovanoff, 2006). In order to mitigate the particular disadvantages IY face in achieving
educational and occupational success upon release, challenges to the development of those skills
must be addressed. But what are those challenges, and what do the teachers need to overcome
them and be successful?
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the study is a needs assessment, focused on teachers, with respect to the
development of 21st Century Skills among IY. Altschuld and Kumar (2010) categorize needs in
three levels: level 1 needs are those of persons receiving goods and services, in this case, IY;
level 2 are needs of service providers, the teachers; and level 3 are those of the organization
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 6
supporting those service providers, the Program. Level 1 needs are identified in Chapter 2. The
level 2 and 3 needs will be framed in terms of Clarke and Estes’ (2002) knowledge, motivation
and organization (KMO) construct described in Chapter 2. Through a mixed-methods
examination of level 2 and 3 needs in a program for IY, the researcher will seek to answer the
following questions:
1. What are the perceptions of 21st Century Skills by teachers of IY, and what are the
perceived barriers to implementing them in instruction?
2. What are the needs of the Program related to implementing a focus on 21st Century Skills
into the curriculum?
Framing 21st Century Skills
In order to best gauge efforts to develop 21st Century Skills, those skills must be clearly
defined. For the purpose of this study, the researcher will use a framework of 21
st
century
cognitive and conative skills designed by Marzano and Heflebower (2012) and derived from
Dede’s (2010) study of preexisting frameworks. This framework, detailed in Chapter 2, focuses
on “a small but important set of skills (Marzano & Heflebower, 2012, p. 9)” that are specific
enough to be effective yet broad enough to adapt with an ever-changing 21
st
century landscape.
Significance of the Study
Several studies have focused on negative outcomes for former IY upon release and the
role of support services in mitigating those outcomes (Abrams et al., 2008; Anthony et al., 2010;
Bullis & Yovanoff, 2006; Bullis et al., 2002; Bullock, Fritsch, & Hogan, 2010). There is,
however, no existing research on the development of 21st Century Skills among IY, including
teacher perceptions of those skills. This study will inform the subject organization of its current
performance levels with regard to developing 21st Century Skills and provide interventions to
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 7
improve skill acquisition. Further, the study will provide insight on the challenges of
implementing new pedagogy into the education of IY.
Limitations of the Study
The study is limited by several factors, including the scope of the interviews and the
accuracy of survey respondents. Both the quantitative and qualitative data streams, survey and
interview, respectively, are self-report measures. Further, the absence of responses from a
significant portion of the survey sample presents the possibility of response bias. Finally, the
teachers sampled are all working at sites that are currently implementing changes to curriculum,
practice, and technology in order to develop 21
st
Century Skills among IY.
Delimitations of the Study
The study focuses on the needs of teachers of incarcerated youth. The challenges faced
by teachers of IY, detailed in Chapter 2, are not wholly idiosyncratic to the subject organization.
Nevertheless, this assessment of need is focused on teachers in a particular subject organization
and, therefore, not fully generalizable. Further, observations will not be conducted to verify or
refute teacher self-report data as such methods would be infeasible in the scope of this research.
Definition of Terms
Table 1 details the study’s specific vocabulary, abbreviations and operational definitions
thereof, and the sources used to create those definitions.

21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 8
Table 1
Operational Definitions
Term Operational Definition
21st Century Skills: Cognitive and conative skills necessary for professional and
post-secondary achievement (Marzano & Heflebower, 2012)
Cognitive skills Cognitive skills include the following three subcategories:
analyzing and utilizing information; addressing complex
problems and issues; and creating patterns and mental
models (Marzano & Heflebower, 2012).
Common Core State Standards
(CCSS):
Created by the National Governors Association Center for
Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School
Officers, these are “a clear set of shared goals and
expectations for the knowledge and skills students need in
English language arts and mathematics at each grade level to
ultimately be prepared to graduate college and be career
ready (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2012).
Conative skills “One’s ability to analyze situations in light of what one
knows and how one feels and select appropriate actions”
(Marzano & Heflebower, 2012, p. 10)
Design-based learning (DBL) “A concept of technical university education, in which
students work co-operatively and actively on
multidisciplinary design tasks, with the purpose of gaining
qualifications as creative professionals capable of integrating
all relevant aspects of education, in order to analyse existing
technical systems, to assess their quality, functionality and
cost price and with the purpose of designing new products and
systems with increased performance” (Whijnen, 2000, p. 5)
Industrial Economy Economy based on the mass production and consumption of
finished goods (Fadel & Trilling, 2009)
Juvenile court schools (JCS): County-run institutions that provide education services to
incarcerated youth. These schools are located in juvenile
halls, homes, ranches, camps, day centers and regional youth
educational centers (California Department of Education,
2013)
Knowledge Economy Economy based on the creation, collection, analysis and
synthesis of information; also known as an information
economy or information services economy (Fadel & Trilling,
2009; Friedman, 2007)
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 9
Knowledge, conceptual: Schemas and theories used for classification and
demonstrating relationships (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001)
Knowledge, factual: The specific terminology used for communication
understanding, and organization within a particular discipline
or system as well as details such as events, locations, names,
etc. (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001)
Knowledge, metacognitive: “Knowledge about cognition in general as well as awareness
off and knowledge about one’s own cognition” (Anderson &
Krathwohl, 2001, p. 55)
Knowledge, procedural: Knowledge of subject-specific skills, algorithms, techniques
and methods as well as the criteria for determining the use of
such (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001)
Motivation “The process whereby goal-directed activities are instigated
and sustained” (Meece, Pintrich, & Schunk, 2013, p. 5)
Need “A measurable discrepancy between the current and desired
state of an entity” (Altschuld & Kumar, 2010, p. 154)
Organization The work processes, material resources, value chains, value
streams and culture of a business, agency or institution
(Clark & Estes, 2002)
Partnership for 21st Century
Skills (P21):
Coalition of educational institutions, corporations, and
associations that advocates for 21
st
century readiness and
authored the P21 Framework (Fadel & Trilling, 2009)
Problem-based learning (PBL) A process of inquiry, emphasizing the value of asking
questions and including the development and utilization of
problem-solving models (Barell, 2007)
Recidivism The return of a previously paroled or discharged individual
to a detention facility within a specified time period
(California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation,
2010)
Self-system skills Component of cognitive skills that closely relate to
motivation, including emotions and beliefs about value and
self-efficacy (Marzano & Kendall, 2008)

Organization of the Study
Chapter 1 of the study introduced the problem, including background and significance,
and the research questions to be addressed by the study. Chapter 2 reviews the existing literature
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 10
related to Knowledge, Motivation, and Organization (KMO), 21
st
Century Skills, incarcerated
youth and teacher beliefs. Chapter 3 details the research methodology, including a justification
for the methods employed and a description of the subject organization. Chapter 4 provides an
analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data. Chapter 5 concludes the study with a discussion
of the findings, including recommendations for addressing needs and further evaluation.

21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 11
Chapter 2: Literature Review
Introduction
The researcher conducted a review of existing literature. The process began with
operationally defining need and the knowledge, motivation and organizational constructs
relevant to the description and remediation of identified needs. As these identified needs will be
based on the perceptions of teachers, this section also includes an exploration of teacher beliefs
about their abilities as well as those of their students, and the impacts of these beliefs on student
achievement. Next came a review of incarcerated youth (IY), including demographics and
predictive factors, barriers to achievement, challenges for educators of IY and specific skill
deficits of IY. Finally, the researcher provided an overview of 21st Century Skills, including the
historical derivations, pedagogical approaches, and the correlations between these skills and the
deficits of IY.
Identifying and Addressing Need
In order to best describe the function of a needs assessment, there must be a clear
definition of the meaning of the term and its component words. Put simply, a needs assessment is
a systematic attempt to determine and address the difference between a current state and a
desired state (Kaufman & English, 1979). Researchers (Altschuld & Kumar, 2010, p. 3;
Kaufman & English, 1979, p. 8) refer to the current and desired states as “what is” and “what
should be,” respectively. The need is the measurable discrepancy between the two states
(Altschuld & Kumar, 2010).
Needs exist in three levels (Altschuld & Kumar, 2010), pictured in Figure 1. Level 1
needs are those of people needing services. Level 2 needs are the needs of the providers of these
services. Level 3 needs are those of the organization supporting those providers. For the purposes
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 12
of this study, the researcher will identify the needs of teachers in developing 21st Century Skills
among IY (level 2), examine current supports employed by the subject program (level 3), and
make recommendations.

Figure 1. Three levels of need.

KMO Framework
To describe the needs, as well as the factors contributing to their existence, the
researcher will focus on knowledge, motivation, and organization (KMO). Clark and Estes’
(2002) Gap Analysis problem-solving model, shown in Figure 2, frames performance challenges
in terms of KMO, the “critical ingredients” (p. xv) affecting human performance. In the case of
this study, needs were framed using the KMO, but the researcher did not adopt the entire model.
The following subsections detail these three ingredients.
People, goods and/or services to fill needs Level 1
•Incarcerated youth need to develop 21st Century Skills in order to increase their employability.
Providers of those goods and/or services Level 2
•Teachers have needs in order to develop 21st Century Skills among incarcerated youth.
The organization supporting the providers Level 3
•The Program in which these teachers operate.
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 13
Knowledge causes. Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) describe four types of knowledge:
factual, conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive. Teachers of IY will need knowledge of 21st
Century Skills if they are to develop them among their students.
Factual knowledge. Factual knowledge includes facts, as its name suggests, as well as
the specific terminology used for communication understanding, and organization within a
particular discipline or system (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). Examples include the names of
parts of an engine, the specific type of lubricant used in its operation, and the temperature range
within which that engine should remain in order to function properly. Within this context, factual
knowledge would include knowing: (a) the term “21st Century Skills,” (b) the names of
pedagogical approaches, such as PBL; (c) the specific skills, such as navigating digital sources;
and (d) the goals and areas of emphasis identified by the educational agency in question.

Figure 2. An illustration of Clarke and Estes’ (2002) gap analysis problem-solving model.

21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 14
Conceptual knowledge. Conceptual knowledge encompasses the schemas and theories
used for classification and demonstrating relationship (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). Within
this context, conceptual knowledge would extend into the overarching concept of 21st Century
Skills, how the skills are divided into the conative and cognitive subsets, and how developing a
skill within an educational setting may relate to the use of that skill in other contexts.
Procedural knowledge. Knowledge of subject-specific skills, algorithms, techniques, and
methods as well as the criteria for determining when to use them (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001).
For example, a person seeking to start an automobile will need to know in what order the key
must be inserted, a gear must be selected, etc.
Metacognitive knowledge. According to Anderson and Krathwohl (2001), metacognitive
knowledge is knowledge “about cognition in general as well as awareness of and knowledge
about one’s own cognition” (p. 55). It is knowing “when and why to do something” (Rueda,
2011, p. 28), such as when to use a particular pedagogical approach or assessment in order to
develop or measure a particular skill or knowledge type. For example, a teacher seeking to
measure a student’s conceptual understanding of a word might have the student use the word in
an appropriate context rather than simply asking the student to spell the word correctly.
Motivation causes. Motivation is the purpose behind any and all behaviors. As one
group of researchers explains, motivation is the “process whereby goal-directed activities are
instigated and sustained” (Meece et al., 2013, p. 5). Several established motivational constructs
exist; for the purpose of this study, the researcher will discuss motivation as deriving from three
factors (outcome expectancy, value, and goals) and indicated by three elements (active choice,
persistence and mental effort) (Clark & Estes, 2002).
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 15
Outcome expectancy. A person’s outcome expectancy is his or her perceived likelihood
of success, incorporating both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Related motivational constructs
include: self-efficacy (Bandura, 1993), the task-specific belief in one’s ability to perform a task,
exclusive of external factors; and attributions (Wiener, 1972), self-judgments about one’s ability
to accomplish a task which may include factors outside of that individual’s control. Put simply, a
person is more likely to engage in a task if he believes he can be successful. Applying this
concept to the study, teachers looking to develop 21st Century Skills must have an expectancy of
success that is influenced by their perceptions of their own abilities, the abilities of their students,
the support of the organization and a host of other factors. A further exploration of teacher
beliefs is found later in this chapter.
Value. Value is the reward for engaging in and completing the task, and that reward
comes in different forms. Eccles and Wigfield (2000; 2002) detail four types of value: intrinsic,
attainment, utility, and cost. Intrinsic value, also called interest, is the enjoyment felt by a person
while undertaking a task more so than that of the end result. Attainment value, or importance,
has both internal and external factors. A task may be important because it relates to a person’s
self-concept or because it is valued by society. Utility is the value of the task as a component of
reaching a greater goal of the learner. Finally, cost is the negative aspects of task engagement,
including the amount of effort expended, the limitation or prohibition of engaging in other tasks,
and the emotional toll.
Organizational causes. Organizational causes are those that relate to the way the
organization functions and the resources at the disposal of its members. Clark and Estes (2002)
categorize organizational causes into three areas: work processes, access to material resources,
and value chains and value streams. Work process challenges arise when processes do not
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 16
produce results that align with organizational goals or when policies fail to support processes. A
lack of access to material resources can impede the efforts of workers despite their knowledge
and motivation to complete the task assigned. Finally, value streams are the ways departments
interact and the overall cost-effectiveness of the work flow, while value chains are more focused
on the means and effectiveness of the work processes in achieving specific goals.
Teacher Beliefs
As the needs assessment is based on the input from teachers, the researcher explored
teacher beliefs and the reliability of self-report measures in capturing teacher practices. First, the
researcher will discuss existing literature comparing teacher self-assessments of practice to their
actual teaching. The researcher will also discuss teacher beliefs and the impacts of those beliefs
on teacher motivation and student achievement. Included in this discussion are teacher efficacy,
teacher expectations, beliefs about students with disabilities (SWD), and the relationship
between content knowledge and teacher beliefs about learning.
Reliability of Teacher Self-Report Tools
Researchers employing self-report tools to measure teacher practice must weigh the need
for reliability with the feasibility of such measures. For example, a study (Montgomery & Baker,
2007) on teacher feedback revealed teachers thought they gave more detailed feedback than was
actually demonstrated. Self-reporting measures continue to be used in teacher evaluation due to
their feasibility with respect to cost in money and time (Boyle, Lamprianou, & Boyle, 2005).
Also, Haeffel and Howard (2010) assert that self-report measures may be accurate predictors of
behavior, stating that these tools can be particularly effective in assessing a person’s beliefs.
Challenges with reliability of self-report tools. Fletcher and Barufaldi (2002) point out
the potential for discrepancy between teacher self-reports and actual practice, stressing the need
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 17
for additional data to measure teacher practice. Lambert (2003) attributes this discrepancy to two
factors: difficulty recalling past events and social desirability.
Recall bias. The human memory is fallible, and measures relying on the ability of a
person to recall past events are subject to memory’s imperfections. According to Raphael (1987),
respondents to self-report measures may “embroider” (p. 167) their responses as a result of
external attention to their personal history. A study by Infante-Rivard and Jacques (2000)
suggests that increased perceived importance of a topic or event is positively correlated with bias
in the subject’s recall. Finally, the length of the recall period is positively correlated with
reported participation in target behaviors. In a study (Tarrant & Manfredo, 1993) of anglers
(fishermen), a comparison of immediate, 3-month, and 6-month intervals showed that
respondents with a longer interval of reporting are more likely to indicate a higher level of
participation.
Social desirability. Research suggests respondents to self-report measures are influenced
by the desire to convince the researcher, themselves, or both, that they engage a socially
desirable manner. Paulhus (2002) developed a two-factor theory of SDR, suggesting people try
to fool themselves through Self-Deceptive Enhancement (SDE) or others with Impression
Management (IM). Huang (2013) asserts that a respondent’s self-esteem is positively correlated
to their practice of socially desirable responding (SDR), though it’s correlation with job
performance was nil.
Teacher Efficacy
Teacher efficacy is a complex concept related to other existing motivational constructs.
In a review of research, Tschannen-Moran, Hoy, and Hoy (1998) discuss the correlation between
teacher efficacy and aspects of Bandura’s (1993) work on self-efficacy. Bandura describes self-
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 18
efficacy as being task-specific and makes clear distinctions between one’s ability, which is
internal, and the outcome itself, which could be affected by other external factors.
Building upon these distinctions, the researchers (Tschannen-Moran et al., 1998) also
describe how perceived locus of control impacts teacher efficacy. In short, if the teachers believe
that the power to develop 21
st
Century Skills among their students is intrinsic, then efficacy
becomes a function of effort. Conversely, if the teachers believe the true causality for this
development lies outside their influence, then their efficacy is based on their perception of
external supports and challenges.
Dembo and Gibson (1985) divided teacher efficacy into two aspects: personal teaching
efficacy (PTE), which is comprised of self-efficacy as well as outcome expectancies based on
internal causalities; and general teacher efficacy (GTE). They assert that PTE and GTE both
influence effort; this relationship is depicted in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Correlation between effort and the sum of personal and general teaching efficacy.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
EFFORT
TEACHER EFFICACY (PTE + GTE)
Correlation Between Effort and Teacher Efficacy
PTE GTE
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 19
Teacher Expectations and Student Achievement
Teachers who believe in their own abilities to help students are more likely to take the
necessary measures to ensure student achievement. According to Schunk, Pintrich, and Meece
(2008), PTE correlates positively with planning challenging activities, gathering resources, and
providing support to students with difficulties. These actions, in turn, promote student
achievement.
Teacher beliefs about student motivation and capabilities, components of the teacher’s
GTE, have been related to student achievement. Researchers (Hauser-Cram, Sirin, & Stipek,
2003) suggest a teacher’s beliefs about the academic expectations of their students’ parents affect
the teacher’s own standards for student performance. Expectations, in turn, have been positively
correlated with student achievement. Rosenthal and Jacobson’s (1968) landmark study of teacher
perceptions demonstrated elementary student achievement reflects teacher expectations in what
the researchers called the “self-fulfilling prophecy” or “Pygmalion effect.” Supporting this view,
Archambault, Janosz, and Chouinard (2012) assert that teachers with high efficacy and high
expectations promote achievement in their students.
However, teacher expectations are not necessarily inaccurate, particularly at the
secondary level. Jussim and Eccles (1992) found teacher expectations were accurate as they are
informed by various measures of performance and argue the impact of teacher expectations is not
nearly as significant as the Pygmalion effect might suggest. Taking both sides into account,
Schunk et al. (2008) recommend maintaining a growth mindset and ignoring factors unrelated to
performance in order to avoid or minimize any negative effects of low expectations.

21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 20
Beliefs about Students with Disabilities
Teacher beliefs about the capabilities of SWD vary across disciplines. According to
Klehm (2014), general education (GE) teachers have far less positive attitudes towards the
potential achievement of SWD than their special education (SE) counterparts. As such, they do
not ascribe great value to the amount of resources and time necessary to serve the needs of these
students. Klehm’s study suggests this disparity in beliefs between SE and GE is that SE teachers
receive more extensive education and training on SWD. This increased knowledge correlated
both to their beliefs as well as their practice, as SE teachers in the study were more likely to
employ evidence-based best practices as compared to GE teachers.
Motivation and Teacher Belief
Teachers are more likely to actively choose, persist and exert effort to develop 21
st

Century Skills among their students if they believe they can be effective, that the task has value,
and if that value warrants the effort necessary. The researcher incorporated these motivation
principles into the survey (Appendix A) and interview protocol (Appendix B). To inform the
reader of the challenge, value, and cost the teachers of IY face, the researcher reviewed literature
related to IY.
Incarcerated Youth
Promoting achievement in the IY population involves specific challenges for both
educators and IY themselves. Over 100,000 youths are incarcerated each year, hailing from all
SES, ethnic, and familial backgrounds (Bullis et al., 2002; Department of Justice, 2006);
however, there are trends worth noting. Over 80% are males, over 60% are minorities, and nearly
40% are African Americans (Department of Justice, 2006). In addition, up to 70% may be
eligible for special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 21
(IDEA) (Wolford, 2000) and nearly half are functioning academically at three or more grades
below what would be age-appropriate (Anthony et al., 2010), with more than 40% having
repeated at least one grade (Zabel & Nigro, 1999).
Beyond demographic predictors, several other factors have been identified as correlative
to the IY population. A study by Byrd and Taylor (2011) suggests the most significant of these
involves the criminality of parents, with other factors including peers engaged in gang activity
and substance abuse. Additionally, a significant overlap exists between the IY and child welfare
populations, with up to 20% of IY having been reported as victims of child abuse after the age of
six (Abrams et al., 2008). Given these statistics, it is clear that IY and teachers of IY must be
prepared to interact with a challenging and diverse population.
Barriers to Achievement
IY face significant barriers to their academic and social emotional growth. In the
classroom, they must overcome the cumulative effects of prior academic struggles (Anthony et
al., 2010). They must find success in classrooms where some teachers view their mission as
being instruments of punishment rather than education (Gagnon, Jolivette, Nelson, Scott, &
Sprague, 2008). They must work independently and keep frequent interruptions from hindering
their learning (White, 2002). They must learn to manage their conduct in an environment lacking
in peer models for prosocial behavior (Tangeman & Hall, 2011). Finally, IY are frequently
tasked with adhering to intricate level-based rehabilitation systems which they may not be
cognitively capable of navigating (Gagnon et al., 2008).
Upon release and reentry into society, IY face several obstacles, both real and perceived.
Many receive insufficient educational support while incarcerated and, upon release, experience
inadequate transition services (Anthony et al., 2010; Waintrup & Unruh, 2008). According to
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 22
Barclay (2004), IY perceive “insurmountable barriers” (p. 133) to success in school and work,
including deviant behavior, pre-employment and work maturity skills, physical appearance, and
interpersonal skills. Having been incarcerated for negative social behaviors and subsequently
exposed through incarceration to peers with a similar negative social history, many IY
experience low self-efficacy for prosocial behaviors, and, without adequate family and social
support, this negative mindset is reinforced (Tangeman & Hall, 2011). Further, the influence of
old friends and old habits proves challenging for many former IY (Bullis et al., 2002).
IY face a high likelihood of negative outcomes soon after release. Former IY are unlikely
to be engaged in education or employment (Anthony et al., 2010), leading primarily to a return to
incarceration (Bullis et al., 2002). Bullis et al. (2002), outline the difficulties of former IY in
finding success in returning to school, particularly those with low academic achievement. In their
five-year longitudinal study of recently-released juvenile offenders, only 25% returned to school
and over 60% returned to incarceration within six months of release. In California, the state with
the highest number of IY, the statistics are more severe: over 80% will be rearrested within three
years of release, half of whom will return to state-level incarceration within the first 18 months
(California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 2010).
In their summary, Bullis et al. (2002) stress the need for services to “promote successful
school and work placements” (p. 19), warning that, when faced with low or no income, former
IY are likely to participate in criminal behavior in order to meet personal and familial economic
needs. Supporting this assertion, a recent study of released offenders in the Indiana Department
of Corrections (Ho, Lockwood, & Nally, 2011) revealed nearly half of those studied earned less
than $5,000 annually between time of release and rearrest. In light of the new demands of the
Knowledge Age, the authors of the study declare, “post-release offenders must possess a
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 23
satisfactory level of competency in computer skills, reading, math, communication and
specialized job skills to secure positions in a shifting job-market” (p. 123).
Challenges for Educators
Educators of IY face significant obstacles in their efforts to promote academic
achievement and social emotional growth among IY. IY students undergo exaggerated mobility
due to their journey through the criminal justice system (White, 2002). As such, teachers have
students migrating in and out of their classes at any given point. These students are placed by
age, not by academic achievement or ability (White, 2002), and the provision of special
education supports is hindered by poor communication between educators of IY and the school
districts from which these students hail (Bullock et al., 2010). Teachers can only rely on class
time for promoting learning because security concerns as well as conflicting perceptions as to the
mission of correctional facilities (Gagnon et al., 2008) restrict access to academic materials and
ICT both within and outside the classroom. Finally, students frequently exhibit low motivation
for engaging in academic tasks, particularly when these tasks are not perceived to be applicable
to the real world (Abrams et al., 2008).
Summary of Challenges and Skill Deficits
As previously discussed, IY demonstrate diminished self-efficacy for academic tasks and
perceptions of low employability, negative social behaviors, and low engagement due to lack of
perceived utility of the curricula. Therefore, addressing these challenges would require
instruction that is engaging, improves academic self-efficacy, develops self-regulation, and
increases employability in the perception of both future employers and the IY themselves. The
delivery of such curricula must consider their individual needs as learners as well as the
development of a prosocial, empowered collective identity while overcoming the challenges of
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 24
mobility and the mixed, potentially even mismatched, missions of the educators and the juvenile
corrections personnel.
21st Century Skills
In order to assess the knowledge challenges associated with the development of 21
st

Century Skills, the researcher reviewed existing methods of defining, developing, and assessing
those skills. The concept of 21st Century Skills has its roots in the early 1990s, only reaching
mainstream consciousness through rapidly increasing emphasis by researchers, policy makers,
and practitioners in the last decade. On 10/18/2013, this researcher conducted three sequential
ProQuest searches for sources featuring “21st Century Skills” within the body of the text.
Restricting the first search to all sources dated prior to 1/1/1993 yielded 12 results. Expanding
the search to include all sources dated prior to 1/1/2003 revealed 151 results. Finally, considering
all such sources existing to date, the search yielded 7,204 results.
Among the earliest materials related to 21st Century Skills is a report from the U.S.
Department of Labor’s Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) (U.S.
Department of Labor, 1992). The report was commissioned as a result of increasing globalization
and the emergence of ICT. Developed with the input of corporations and post-secondary
education institutions, the report details specific skills and competencies necessary for success in
what was then and what continues to be an increasingly global labor market.
21st Century Skills Codified
Since the SCANS report, numerous authors, coalitions, and educational organizations
have developed their own frameworks for enumerating and implementing 21st Century Skills.
Among these are Tony Wagner’s (2008) survival skills for the new millennia; the Partnership for
21st Century Skills (Fadel & Trilling, 2009) comprehensive matrix of skills, curriculum and
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 25
strategies; and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) nine
competencies. As related by Dede (2010) in a comparative analysis, these frameworks fluctuate
in their points of emphasis, complexity, and incorporation of specific curriculum; however, some
central themes exist throughout the current models.
First, the pedagogical models of the 20
th
century are as obsolete as the industrial model
for which they were designed to prepare workers. As Wagner (2008) asserts, “The textbooks and
tests we used in the past were not designed to teach and assess the ability to reason or analyze—
and they remain substantially the same today” (p. xxiv). This shift in focus from “what you
know” to “what you can find out and then use creatively and effectively” requires new skills not
only of students, but of their teachers.
According to Dede (2010), a teacher in the 21
st
century must be “an expert in complex
communication, able to improvise answers and facilitate dialogue in the unpredictable and
chaotic flow of classroom discussion” (p. 52). Dede further asserts that although collaboration
has occurred in the workplace for centuries, the degree to which collaboration must take place
and the challenges presented to participants separated by geography and culture are
unprecedented. Therefore, based on his assertions, as well as those of other proponents of 21st
Century Skills, teachers must develop both collaborative and interpersonal skills, skills that are
largely overlooked in 20
th
century pedagogy (Dede, 2010; Fadel & Trilling, 2009).
Secondly, the priorities of the pedagogy must be aligned with the needs of employers and
post-secondary institutions. A survey of more than 400 employers found that nearly 70% of
participants viewed current high school graduates as deficient in the areas of critical thinking and
problem-solving (Wagner, 2008). Kay (2010) declares that 21
st
century teaching must be tied to
outcomes, and those outcomes must include the development of skills critical for “performance
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 26
and advanced learning” (p. xx) and that these skills are needed by all learners, not just a select
group. His interview with Annmarie Neal, an executive with Cisco Systems, yielded this advice
for teachers: “Throw out the textbooks! The answer isn’t in the books. The answers are in
everything but the books. Problems change and so approaches to problems need to change” (p.
17).
Finally, methods of assessment must be changed in order to measure the skills to be
developed. According to Marzano and Heflebower (2012), assessment, when used to inform the
development and pursuit of instructional goals, can be of great use to both educators and
students, but only if the assessments actually measure what is to be taught, and only then if what
is taught is what is of value. A recent study asserts that, although employers value collaboration
and the gathering and sharing of information and ideas, the current methods of assessment do not
target these skills. Instead, they require isolated work involving the ability to recall facts and
procedures in order to follow explicit directions (Care et al., 2012). Wagner (2008) summarizes
the problem when he writes that “the growing pressures to prepare all students for the increased
number of ‘high-stakes’ standardized tests [means that] … [t]hey simply don’t have the time to
worry about abstractions like workforce preparedness” (p. 13).
Marzano and Heflebower’s Framework
With the existence of various 21st Century Skills frameworks, each with its own
definitions and emphases, the researcher chose one particular framework in order to make clear
the necessary factual and conceptual knowledge needed to develop 21st Century Skills. For the
purpose of the study, the researcher has selected the framework developed by Marzano and
Heflebower (2012) because it represents a synthesis of major frameworks, based on Dede’s
(2010) review. These frameworks, listed in Table 2, served as the basis for the definition of five
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 27
categories of skills that “will have great application throughout the 21
st
century” (Marzano &
Heflebower, 2012, p. 9). These five categories are themselves separated into two types: cognitive
skills and conative skills. Each skill category is described in the following subsections with
Figure 4 showing the overall organization of the skills.
Table 2
Source Frameworks Used by Marzano and Heflebower (2012)
Framework Authors
Framework for 21
st
Century Learning Partnership for 21st Century Skills
enGauge 21st Century Skills
North Central Regional Educational Library
(NCREL) and Metiri Group
Definition and Selection of Key
Competencies
OECD
Essential Learning Outcomes
National Leadership Council for Liberal
Education and America’s Promise

Cognitive skills. The term cognitive as defined by Merriam-Webster (2013) refers to
anything of, relating to, or involving conscious mental activities (such as thinking,
understanding, learning, and remembering). Cognitive skills include the following three
subcategories: analyzing and utilizing information, addressing complex problems and issues, and
creating patterns and mental models (Marzano & Heflebower, 2012).
Analyzing and utilizing information. The ability to analyze and utilize information has
become increasingly important with the rise of ICT (Fadel & Trilling, 2009; Friedman, 2007).
With the wealth of information available, consumers of that information must be able to both
find specific information and to determine the validity of the source of that information. This
skill category includes navigating digital sources, identifying common logical errors, generating
conclusions, and presenting and supporting claims (Marzano & Heflebower, 2012). Dede (2010)
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 28
highlights the importance of this skill category when comparing conventional education, which
utilizes absorption of “predigested” (p. 54) information to complete routine tasks, and the 21
st

century necessity of finding and vetting multiple sources of information in order to solve
complex problems.

Figure 4. Organization of Marzano and Heflebower's (2012) framework for 21st Century Skills.

Cognitive Skills
Analyzing and utilizing
information
Navigating digital sources
Identifying common
logical errors
Generating conclusions
Presenting and
supporting claims
Addressing complex
problems
Focus
Divergent and convergent
thinking
Problem-solving protocol
Creating patterns and
mental models
Identifying basic
relationships
Creating graphic
representations
Drawing and sketching
Generating mental
images
Conducting thought
experiments
Performing mental
rehearsal
Conative Skills
Understanding and
controlling oneself
Understanding
interpretations
Cultivating useful ways of
thinking
Avoid negative ways of
thinking
Understanding and
interacting with others
Perspective taking
Responsible interaction
Controversy and conflict
resolution
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 29
Addressing complex problems. Problem-solving has been consistently identified as a key
skill for 21
st
century workers (Barell, 2010; Bell, 2010). Marzano and Heflebower (2012) present
three problem-solving strategies as particularly valuable: focus, divergent and convergent
thinking, and a problem-solving protocol (p. 71).
Creating patterns and mental models. These skill categories involve the comprehension,
utilization and visual representation of complex, often abstract concepts. Skills within this
category include: identifying basic relationships between ideas, creating graphic representations,
drawing and sketching, generating mental images, conducting thought experiments, and
performing mental rehearsal. This portion of the framework has its roots in the work of Bartlett
(1932), as the learner must first develop schema and then utilize that schema to both absorb new
information as well as utilize that information to perform what Anderson and Krathwhol (2001)
would identify as understanding tasks, such as exemplifying, classifying, comparing and
explaining. According to Mayer (2011), creating schema is necessary in order for students to
transcend superficial knowledge acquisition into the more meaningful knowledge structures.
Coates (1995) summarizes this category well when he describes how students must learn how to
learn.
Conative skills. The globalized work environment of the 21
st
century dictates that
students be able to work collaboratively within a diverse team to solve complicated problems
without explicit instructions or continuous oversight. Marzano and Heflebower (2012) divide the
conative skills category into two subcategories: understanding and controlling oneself, and
understanding and interacting with others.
Understanding and controlling oneself. According to Care et al. (2012), 21
st
century
workers will operate in interdisciplinary teams in a horizontal management structure. As such,
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 30
workers in the 21
st
century must be able to regulate their own efforts in order to fulfill
commitments to the group and to identify the limits of their own perspectives when analyzing
complex situations. This concept is closely related to self-regulation (Zimmerman, 2002), as it
emphasizes monitoring, evaluating and controlling one’s behavior.
Understanding and interacting with others. Binkley et al., (2012) emphasize the need
for students to develop the ability to communicate clearly and respectfully, to compromise, and
to hold themselves and others accountable. These skills will contribute not only to professional
success but also to the “emergent intelligence” (Dede, 2000, p. 283) derived from the
collaboration of a multitude of people through ICT. As described in the framework (Marzano &
Heflebower, 2012), this category includes skills such as perspective taking, responsible
interaction, and controversy and conflict resolution.
Best Practices to Develop 21st Century Skills
As previously detailed, developing 21st Century Skills requires teachers to shift their
pedagogy and emphasis away from the traditional industrial age model. To do this requires not
only factual knowledge of specific terminology, but conceptual and procedural knowledge to
develop and assess those skills. The following subsections detail the support in literature for
emphasizing digital literacy and self-regulation and for the incorporation of pedagogical tools
including cooperative learning and problem-based learning (PBL).
Building digital literacy. The proliferation and permeation of ICT into the lives of
people worldwide mandates students develop the technical and logical tools to effectively utilize
various forms of ICT. In order to access the information, students must be able to manipulate the
various hardware; further, new mandated assessments will be delivered in a digital format
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 31
(National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School
Officers, 2010), requiring students to utilize technology in order to demonstrate their capabilities.
Technical aspects evolve over time (Dede, 2010); however, the ability to discern
relevance, validity and other aspects of information transcends the particular modes of data
acquisition. If, as Wagner (2008) asserted, students will be measured by what they can do with
what they can find out, then the value of what they produce will be dependent on the research
they conduct. As their report on the economic imperative of developing 21st Century Skills
asserts, “To succeed in life and to keep our country strong and prosperous, all of today’s students
must graduate able to deal with ambiguity and capable of higher order analysis and complex
communication” (Dede, Korte, Nelson, Valdez, & Ward, 2005, p. 3).
Social-skills training. Twenty-first century proponents describe the necessity for
students to be able to function in collaboration with others in order to be successful. Businesses
agree, basing decisions to terminate personnel primarily on a person’s team-working skills
according to Care et al. (2012). Fadel and Trilling (2009) describe the ability to collaborate
“effectively and creatively with team members and classmates regardless of differences in
culture or style” (p. 80) as essential for success in the 21
st
century. Ambrose, Bridges, DiPietro,
Lovett, and Norman (2010) highlight the need for teachers to establish a positive learning
climate that promotes engagement. To that end, they recommend anticipating and preparing for
potential areas of conflict, requesting input from students on class climate, and facilitating active
listening to promote civil discourse. Fisher and Frey (2010) highlight the need to teach courtesy,
particularly with regard to the use of ICT.
Self-regulation. Zimmerman (1998) defines self-regulation (SR) as self-generated
thoughts, feelings and actions for attaining goals. As a component of social cognitive theory,
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 32
self-regulation is comprised of a cycle of self-observation, self-judgment and self-reaction
(Schunk et al., 2008). Conforming to these descriptions, a self-regulated learner (SRL) has the
metacognitive awareness to assess current abilities, set goals, select and employ strategies to
achieve these goals, and, finally, reevaluate the new level of capability. Further, engagement in
SR increases self-efficacy in the setting and pursuit of goals, enhancing motivation and task
completion (Schunk et al., 2008).
Zimmerman (2008) details the cycle of SR with a three-phase model, as shown in Figure
5. Beginning with the forethought phase, the individual assesses the situation, sets goals, and
creates an action plan. In the second phase, performance, the individual takes the actions,
monitoring and adjusting their engagement as necessary to meet the goals. In the self-reflection
phase, the individuals evaluate their performance, including the causes for their level of
achievement, in order to guide the next forethought stage.

Figure 5. An adaption of Zimmerman’s (2008, p.178) model of the self-regulated learning
process.

A successful 21
st
century worker is an SRL. Coates (1995) sums up the imperative for SR
in the pursuit of employment, stating, “Young workers must recognize that a world of
Performance
Self-reflection
Forethought
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 33
opportunity exists, but only for those who are prepared and continually searching for ways to
expand employment skills” (p. 24). Knox (2006) describes a 21
st
century workplace where
workers must be able to act effectively without specific directions, to “deal with ambiguity and
embrace unfamiliar challenges” (p. 33). Zimmerman (2002) emphasizes this point, arguing that,
when faced with challenges, it is the student’s responsibility to identify the need and address it;
even if the teacher is capable of addressing every need, doing so would undermine the student’s
development as an SRL.
Cooperative learning. Students can be better engaged in the curriculum by facilitating
their working together, whether it be for a short exercise or an extended project. Cooperative
learning is defined by Johnson and Johnson (2010) as “the instructional use of small groups so
that students work together to maximize their own and each other’s learning” (p. 202). Such
grouping can enhance learning and promote increased self-regulation and prosocial behaviors
(Palinscar & Scott, 2010). Cooperative learning opportunities allow students to develop their
ability to work in teams, either in the same space or through the use of ICT, holding themselves
and others accountable and resolving conflicts (Dede, 2010; Johnson & Johnson, 2010).
Individual instruction vs. collaborative learning. The benefits of cooperative learning
are dependent on the nature of the task. According to Cognitive Load Theory (CLT), cooperative
learning allows learners to engage in more challenging cognitive tasks than they might attempt as
individuals (Kirschner, Paas, & Kirschner, 2009); however, the cognitive demands of
collaboration, such as communication, moderating one’s behavior, etc., are not worth taking on if
the task is mundane (Volet, Vauras, & Salonen, 2009). If the cognitive load of the task is too
low, students will learn more working individually than in collaboration (Kirschner, Paas,
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 34
Kirschner, & Jansen, 2011). Therefore, the collaborative instructional processes outlined should
be used to help students do more, not less.
Along with the cognitive aspects of a task, there are social learning implications to be
considered. Students with challenges in social skills will need support in order to engage in
collaboration. With many IY having a low self-efficacy for prosocial behaviors (Tangeman &
Hall, 2011), the introduction of collaborative learning will require scaffolded support in order to
overcome student resistance to collaborative effort.
Problem-based learning. The ability to solve problems has been repeatedly identified as
a chief requirement for success in the 21
st
century, with workers performing tasks in quasi-
autonomous groups rather than at the specific direction of superiors in a strict hierarchy. PBL has
demonstrated efficacy in preparing students to meet this responsibility. Research (Barron et al.,
1998) demonstrates the value of PBL as a method for promoting student agency, and a
comparison of PBL to lecture-based (LB) instruction (Derous, Loyens, & Wijnia, 2011) showed
PBL’s superiority in advancing student-directed learning, stating that PBL is “undoubtedly more
student-centered compared to LB environments” (p.111).
Barell (2007, 2010) describes problem-based learning (PBL) as a process of inquiry,
emphasizing the value of asking questions. Guiding this inquiry, PBL includes the development
and utilization of problem-solving models (Barell, 2007, 2010; Dede et al., 2005; Fadel &
Trilling, 2009; Marzano & Heflebower, 2012). As Bell (2010) asserts, “PBL is a key strategy for
creating independent thinkers” (p. 39); this preparation for attacking novel problems is essential
to the 21
st
century worker (Barell, 2010; Kay, 2010).
Focusing on the collaborative aspects of project-based learning, proponents of this
approach (Bell, 2010; Bender, 2012; Fadel & Trilling, 2009) point to its ability to foster
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 35
communication, negotiation and teamwork. However, opinions differ as to the implementation of
PBL as well as whether or not it is a strictly collaborative process. Barell (2007) outlines
methods by which the topic and complexity of these questions can be manipulated to address the
specific learning objectives and promote student engagement in the curriculum. These methods
include independent as well as collaborative inquiry, an example of the latter being project-based
learning; however, in his later work (Barell, 2010), he makes the assertion that entire curriculums
should be redesigned around the use of PBL while still allowing for individual work. Fadel &
Trilling (2009) echo this sentiment, but emphasize the use of collaborative PBL to “study
complex, real-world problems using a case study approach” (p. 111), incorporating it into their
description of project-based learning.
Project-based learning. Project-based learning is a collaborative process of student
inquiry, problem-solving, and creation which requires students to engage in both cognitive and
conative processes. Bender (2012) draws a clear distinction between individual projects used in
traditional pedagogy to address specific unit learning objectives and project-based learning,
which he describes as a process of collaboration in which students address complex, real-world
problems with which they find personal relevance. This is not to suggest that project-based
learning cannot be utilized to address learning objectives; as Bender (2012) states, project-based
learning can serve as an adjunct or a replacement for a traditional unit.
Design-based learning. Another form of PBL is design-based learning (DBL). DBL’s
purpose is to “help students construct scientific understanding and real-world problem-solving
skills by engaging them in the design of artifacts” (Dershimer, Fortus, Krajcik, Mamlok-
Naaman, & Marx, 2004, p. 1082). According to Doppelt (2009), DBL is comprised of six steps:
defining the problem and identifying the need, collecting information, introducing alternative
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 36
solutions, choosing the optimal solution, designing and constructing a prototype, and evaluation.
DBL has been shown to be effective in increasing motivation and enhancing the learning of
students who generally underperform when exposed to the traditional curriculum, particularly
African-American males (Doppelt, Mahalik, & Schuun, 2008).
Addressing Skill Deficits
A comparison of the predominant skill deficits of IY to the 21st Century Skills proposed
for development, as depicted in Figure 6, produces a cogent argument for the particular
importance of instilling 21st Century Skills in this particular population through the use of
identified best practices. Poor self-regulation, low self-efficacy for prosocial behaviors
(Tangeman & Hall, 2011), perceived and/or actual low employability (Barclay, 2004; Bullis &
Yovanoff, 2006), inadequate social skills, and insufficient problem-solving capabilities are likely
contributors to the individual’s state of incarceration. In short, IY chose to meet a need by
engaging in a behavior that is prohibited by society. As physiological and emotional needs will
still demand action (Maslow, 1943), IY require the skills to meet those needs in ways that are
valued and rewarded by society in order to avoid prolonging or returning to a state of
incarceration (Bullis et al., 2002).
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 37

Figure 6. Comparison of 21st Century Skills to IY skill deficits.

In reviewing the barriers to achievement and the benefits of 21
st
Century Skills
development, a clear correlation emerges: IY lack the cognitive and conative skills necessary for
achievement. IY demonstrate deficits in problem-solving and, therefore, would benefit from
learning to use problem-solving protocols to identify logical errors and to conduct thought
experiments. Further, their tendency to engage in negative social behaviors and act singularly
require practiced collaboration, guided social interaction, and increase self-system skills in order
to better engage in the community upon release.
Summary
Incarcerated youth face a multitude of challenges in the 21
st
century. In order to best meet
these challenges, they must be equipped with the skills deemed essential for contributing to both
their own economic well-being as well as that of their communities. Educators of IY face
numerous obstacles to developing these skills among their students. As such, any endeavor to
Problem-solving
Inquiry
Self-regulation
Collaboration
Critical thinking
Social
interaction
Self-regulation
Self-efficacy
21st Century Skills
Skill Deficits for IY
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 38
help teachers address this problem must account for and address the knowledge, motivation, and
organizational challenges present. Also, those wishing to measure and improve teacher practice
must understand aspects of teacher efficacy and the relationship between teacher beliefs and
student achievement. Finally, research of the development of 21
st
Century Skills among IY is
non-existent, making this study an early or perhaps even initial examination of the topic.

21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 39
Chapter 3: Methodology
Introduction
This chapter is a description of the research methodology; included in that description is
the subject organization, followed by the description of and the justification for the research
design. The section concludes with the measures taken by the researcher to provide reliability
and validity.
Setting
The Metro County Office of Education (MCOE) is tasked with providing educational
services to a variety of students, including IY, in a large metropolitan area in the Southwestern
United States. With an average daily attendance of 1,800 students, MCOE serves over 11,000 IY
and at-risk youth every year in various settings such as juvenile halls, probation camps and
community day schools.
In an effort to increase academic achievement and employability among IY, MCOE
developed a competitive grant program called Rise To Skills Academy (RTSA). The grant is a
two-year program focusing on professional development and technological upgrades. Schools
wishing to become an RTSA must complete a grant application. Currently, MCOE has several
schools that are in the first and second years of the grant program. The two schools that have
completed the program and become RTSAs, both probation camps for female IY, were
recognized at the state level in 2013 for educational excellence.
Participants and Sampling
In order to best answer the research questions, the researcher used purposeful, criterion-
based sampling (Patton, 2002). Specifically, the researcher needed to gather data from schools in
various stages of the RTSA process: cohorts I, II, and III. Focusing on potentially more
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 40
successful schools may have revealed an inaccurate picture of the need and prevented the
identification of KMO obstacles, while concentration on Y1 or non-participant schools would
have again yielded a skewed assessment as well as providing little data in the possible mitigation
of KMO causes for the needs. The survey sample size was dictated by the staffing numbers for
the school sites selected; every teacher at these sites was sent a survey via email. This simple
criteria, being a teacher at a selected site, constitutes a form of convenience sampling (Fink,
2013). The researcher prepared and submitted a one-page research proposal (Appendix A) to the
Executive Board of the MCOE. The board approved the research on 9/7/2013. The researcher
consulted the RTSA grant program director to distribute the surveys and to schedule the
interviews and observations.
Research Design
The study is a needs assessment of teachers for developing 21
st
Century Skills among IY.
To that purpose, the researcher drafted, piloted, revised and deployed a quantitative survey
instrument. The researcher then interviewed teachers using a structured protocol. The researcher
analyzed the quantitative and qualitative data to produce the results and findings contained in
Chapter 4. Based on these results and findings, the researcher provided a set of recommendations
to address the needs of the Program; these are detailed in Chapter 5.
Appropriateness of the Research Design
The research questions were designed to assess and describe need from the perspective of
the teachers and are best answered through two phases of data collection, beginning with surveys
(qualitative) and followed by interviews (qualitative). In this manner, the researcher seeks to
describe the KMO challenges from the perspective of teachers as well as the factors influencing
those perceptions. The researcher collected data from schools at opposite ends of the RTSA grant
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 41
program: those in the initial implementation stage and fully-certified schools, in order to
maximize variation in the sample and to gauge possible mitigating factors to the KMO
challenges currently being employed by the Program.
Research Questions
Research Question 1 asks both to what extent teachers of IY perceive themselves capable
of developing 21st Century Skills among their students as well as why those perceptions were
formed. In short, what are the level 2 needs? To answer the “to what extent” portion of the
question, the researcher developed and distributed a survey of teachers of IY. Consisting of
primarily closed-ended questions, the survey constitutes a quantitative research strategy,
providing numeric data related to attitudes, trends or opinions (Creswell, 2009). The survey
questions also outline various assumed challenges based on the review of the existing literature.
Do the teachers lack factual, procedural, conceptual and/or metacognitive knowledge? What, if
anything, is negatively impacting their motivation? Are organizational supports perceived to be
adequate? These questions, however, are still focused on “what” or “to what extent” the
challenges are experienced; they do not adequately describe the reasons for the challenges or
how impactful those challenges are perceived to be by the teachers.
In order to answer fully why something is happening requires descriptive data derived
from open-ended questions. The phenomenological component of the question demanded the
researcher gather rich descriptive data not yielded by quantitative measures. To that end, the
researcher included open-ended questions on the survey and then interviewed five teachers, four
at the beginning stages of the RTSA process and one at the end.
Research Question 2 focuses on the level 3 needs, which are related to the level 2 needs.
The researcher identified level 3 needs based on the findings for Research Question 1 as well as
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 42
data gathered in an interview with the Program Director related to methods currently employed
by the Program to identify what supports were currently being implemented to aid teachers in
developing 21st Century Skills. The findings for Research Question 2 informed the
recommendations for practice detailed in Chapter 5.
Instrumentation
The researcher developed a survey protocol (Appendix A) to measure teacher perceptions
of 21st Century Skills and to identify knowledge, motivation, and organizational challenges to
their development among IY. The instrument was piloted among educators of at-risk youth who
were not subjects of the sample. As a result of that piloting, the demographics section was
modified so that respondents could indicate the particular stage in which their site was engaged
in the RTSA process. Also, introductory passages describing concepts related to 21
st
Century
Skills were removed so as not to overtly emphasize the social desirability of particular choices.
Included in the survey is an informed consent form advising respondents of the subject and
purpose of the study as well as the measures in place to protect their identities.
Using the existing literature and the Marzano and Heflebower (2012) framework, the
researcher created a structured interview protocol (Appendix B) to guide the qualitative
measurement. The protocol begins with demographic items and then focuses on the teacher’s
perceived self-efficacy, needs, expectations and attributions related to the development of
cognitive and conative skills. The researcher constructed items to align to various aspects of the
KMO framework described in Chapter 2; for example, the item “I have the time and materials
necessary to develop these skills” correlates to organization challenges, while selecting “I don’t
know how” as a reason for not emphasizing a skill indicates a lack of procedural knowledge.
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 43
Table 3 in Chapter 4 outlines the aspects of KMO identified in each item. The survey was
deployed through the use of Qualtrics, a web-based analytical software program.
Data Processing and Analysis
To support a descriptive needs assessment, data was gathered and analyzed in two
phases. The first phase entailed the gathering and analysis of survey data. The respondents were
stratified by cohort (I, II, and III). The survey included items to measure the frequency at which
the teacher addressed the development of 21st Century Skills use as well as items to measure
various attitudes through the use of scales. The researcher used Creswell’s (2009) approach to
qualitative data analysis (pp. 185-190) in the second phase of data collection and analysis. Each
step is explained in the following sections and depicted in Figure 7.

Figure 7. Data analysis, adapted from Creswell (2009, p. 185).

Preparing the data for analysis. The researcher transcribed the audio recordings of the
interviews and imported the transcriptions into qualitative research software. Completed
interview and observation protocols were organized into separate piles for later analysis.
Prepare the data for
analysis
Read through data
Code the data
• Themes
• Descriptions
Interrelate
themes/descriptions
Interpret the
meaning of
themes/descriptions
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 44
Reading through the data. Transcriptions and interview protocols were read in parallel
according to respondent, question by question. First the researcher read the transcription of the
question and response, then the researcher read the notes corresponding to that question. During
this step, the researcher began hand-writing a list of possible nodes based on initial
interpretations of the data.
Coding the data. Coding was conducted through a multiple-step process. Interviews
were transcribed by the researcher. These transcripts were imported into qualitative research
software. Using the software, nodes were created; these nodes represent emerging themes as well
as predicted areas for analysis based on the research questions, the initial reading of the data, and
the prior experience of the researcher. The transcripts were then read and responses were first
coded openly, then axially coded by relation to knowledge, motivation and/or organization, and
then finally categorized by node. The process was repeated for a portion of the data by a second
coder.
Interrelating themes and descriptions. The researcher identified the nodes and protocol
notes that applied to each research question. The data collected for each question was reviewed
again in order for the researcher to synthesize the data into findings as well as select specific rich
data that could best illustrate and reinforce those findings.
Ethical Considerations
The researcher petitioned and received permission (Appendix D) to conduct the study
from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the University of Southern California (USC). All
survey, interview and observation protocols include an informed consent portion. The consent
form outlines the purpose of the study (Merriam, 2009) as well as the guidelines for use of the
information and the protection of the respondent’s identity. All respondents’ names have been
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 45
changed. The name of the organization and grant program were changed; however, the
organization requested that the researcher present an executive summary with the organization
and grant names intact.
Reliability and Validity
Patton (2002) proposed that single-method studies are more likely to suffer from internal
bias and other issues than are multiple-method studies. In keeping with that assertion, the
researcher employed various methods as suggested by research.
Quantitative reliability. The researcher coded the survey items shown in Chapter 4,
Tables 3 and 5, to correspond to aspects of KMO. Likert-scale items measuring agreement, as
shown in Table 3, were constructed with six points, a forced-choice method for eliminating a
neutral position. Research suggests mixed support for the optimal number of Likert-scale items
(Fink, 2013; Lissitz & Green, 1975).
Qualitative reliability. To best promote reliability of the qualitative data, the researcher
compared the interview transcriptions to the original audio recordings in order to verify
accuracy. The researcher also maintained consistency of codes in both the quantitative and
qualitative methods (Creswell, 2009). To address possible bias by the researcher, the qualitative
coding process was repeated by a second coder using a sample of the qualitative data (two of five
interviews). This second coder was provided a list of codes and operational definitions of each.
Intercoder reliability for the axial coding (K, M, or O) was calculated by hand to be 82.6% (90 of
109).
Validity. For validity, the researcher triangulated multiple data streams (literature,
documents, survey and interviews) to compare for consistency, or a lack thereof. For the
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 46
interviews, the researcher purposefully sampled teachers at opposite ends of the RTSA process in
an effort to maximize variation in the sample (Merriam, 2009).
Threats. Despite the measures taken by the researcher, threats to reliability and validity
remain. In addition to the challenges with teacher self-report measures reviewed in Chapter 2,
surveys are subject to the bias and self-awareness of both the author and the respondent (Fink,
2013). Although 99 subjects were given the survey, only 22 completed the survey leaving 77
nonresponses, resulting in a potential response bias (Creswell, 2009). This same response bias
applies to the interviews, as they were conducted on a voluntary basis. As such, the sample may,
for example, represent teachers who afford the topic greater emphasis than the majority of their
counterparts who did not respond.
The study is also limited by the scope of the research. MCOE, though responsible for
educating 11,000 IY per year, is one of many organizations throughout the United States.
Further, the study focuses specifically on schools participating in the RTSA grant program. Only
teachers at these schools were surveyed, and of those teachers, five were interviewed.
Summary
The researcher conducted a needs assessment in order to answer the two research
questions. Teachers were purposefully sampled, surveyed and interviewed with safeguards put in
place to protect respondents. The researcher analyzed the quantitative data for trends and
compared the answers given for each item to the aspects of KMO identified by that item. The
qualitative data was coded and analyzed for emerging themes.
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 47
Chapter 4: Results
Overview
This chapter is a presentation of the study findings. More precisely, the study will shed
light on the challenges of developing 21st Century Skills among incarcerated youth (IY) by
identifying the level 2 and 3 needs of a Program for IY. The research subjects were composed of
teachers of IY working for a county office of education, the MCOE, and serving in schools that
are participating in a particular grant program, Rise to Skills Academy (RTSA). In addition to
these interviews, the researcher interviewed the Director of the RTSA program; this interview, as
well as a review of documents related to RTSA, informed the researcher of supports currently
employed by the Program. The survey and interviews were all conducted in order to examine the
two research questions presented in Chapter 1:
1. What are the perceptions of 21st Century Skills by teachers of IY, and what are the
perceived barriers to implementing them in instruction?
2. What are the needs of the Program related to implementing a focus on 21st Century Skills
into the curriculum?
Quantitative Results
Table 3 details the results of questions focused on teacher attitudes towards developing
21st Century Skills as a whole. The survey utilized a 6-point Likert-scale question using the
following values: (1) strongly disagree; (2) disagree; (3) somewhat disagree; (4) somewhat
agree; (5) agree; and (6) strongly agree. A mean value of 5 or higher would indicate agreement
and demonstrate a particular KMO area of strength; meanwhile, any mean below 4 would
indicate mixed or even negative self-efficacy related to the development of 21st Century Skills
and a KMO challenge.
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 48
Twenty of the 22 respondents (n=22) were working in sites in the early portion of the
RTSA process; the other two are teachers who have experienced the entire program. A
comparison of responses by these two groups is contained in Chapter 5 as it helps to inform the
recommendations. The majority of respondents (81.8%) completed the survey in under 10
minutes. The complete survey protocol is contained in Appendix A.
Table 3
Survey Responses Related to 21st Century Skills

Question Mean SD
Knowledge I have heard of 21st Century Skills 4.86 1.39
I understand the concept of 21st Century Skills 4.86 1.39
I know how to develop them in my students 4.50 1.50
I am aware of my students’ development of 21st Century Skills 4.41 1.47
Motivation My students need these skills 5.32 1.36
I can positively affect student achievement by developing 21st
Century Skills
4.68 1.46
I am capable of delivering lessons that develop these skills in
my students
4.73 1.28

I am interested developing these skills in my students 5.27 1.39

My organization places emphasis on these skills 4.73 1.39
Organization I have received training on 21st Century Skills 4.14 1.58
I have the time and materials necessary to develop these skills 3.45 1.44
The curriculum supports developing 21st Century Skills 3.95 1.65

As demonstrated in Table 3, the majority of the items yielded a mean between 4
(somewhat agree) and 5 (agree), indicating a lukewarm-to-positive agreement to the items. Items
10, 11 and 12, which were coded for indicators of motivation, resulted in the highest mean
responses, indicating a perception of value and importance for the development of 21st Century
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 49
Skills among IY. The item yielding the lowest result was number 8, “I have the time and materials
necessary to develop these skills”; respondents indicated a nearly neutral attitude (3.45).
After answering items related to the broad topic of 21st Century Skills, survey
participants were asked to indicate on a 5-point Likert scale the extent to which they address
particular skills in their teaching: (1) Never; (2) Seldom; (3) Sometimes; (4) Frequently; and (5)
Always. Respondents indicating “Seldom” or “Never” were then provided with a list of
presumed challenges from which they could indicate the reason for why this lack of emphasis
occurs as well as an “other” selection which would then allow the respondent a chance to write
in their own reasons for why the skill in question is not addressed. A mean score of 4 or higher
would indicate a particular skill receives significant emphasis in the classrooms of those
surveyed.
As shown in Table 4, the teachers surveyed indicated mixed levels of emphasis for
individual 21st Century Skills, with 11 of the 20 skills described being addressed less than
frequently (Mean score < 4.0). “Performing mental rehearsal” and “conducting thought
experiments” were the lowest scoring skills (3.14 and 3.32, respectively). These skills are part of
a larger skill-set Marzano and Heflebower (2012) call “creating mental patterns and models” (p.
93) and address the IY challenges in self-regulation and problem-solving. As such, their lack of
attention by teachers is notable. Cognitive skills (items 1 through 14) received a lesser degree of
emphasis as compared to the conative skills (items 15-20), with four of six conative skills
scoring a mean above 4.
As described previously, respondents indicating a skill emphasis of “seldom” or “never”
were prompted to identify the cause for such a response from a list of assumed causes. Table 5
displays all the causes that were selected by respondents. The items were designed to identify
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 50
particular KMO aspects, including (but not limited to): factual knowledge (Kf); conceptual
knowledge (Kc); procedural knowledge (Kp); cost (Mc); importance (Mimp); and organization
(O). The “other” response was accompanied by the opportunity to provide input, which the
Table 4.
Extent of Current Teacher Emphasis on Individual 21st Century Skills
Skill Mean Variance
Navigating digital sources 3.68 1.27
Identifying common logical errors 3.45 0.55
Generating conclusions 3.86 0.60
Presenting and supporting claims 4.00 0.67
Focus 4.14 0.69
Divergent thinking 3.95 1.00
Convergent thinking 3.77 0.95
Problem-solving protocols 4.09 0.75
Identifying basic relationships 4.18 0.73
Creating graphic representations 3.73 0.97
Drawing and sketching 3.45 1.12
Generating mental images 4.14 0.89
Conducting thought experiments 3.32 1.37
Performing mental rehearsal 3.14 1.46
Understanding interpretations 3.86 0.98
Cultivating useful ways of thinking 4.05 0.81
Avoiding negative ways of thinking 3.95 1.09
Perspective taking 4.05 0.81
Responsible interaction 4.14 0.79
Controversy and conflict resolution 4.09 1.04
Note. (n = 22)
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 51
Table 5.
KMO Challenges to Individual Skill Emphasis

Knowledge
Causes
Motivation
Causes
Organizational
Causes

Skill
I've never heard
of this
I don't know
what this means
I don't know
how
It's not a school
priority
I don't have
what I need
(time/materials)
Other
Navigating digital sources 1 1 0 0 1 1
Identifying common logical
errors
0 2 0 0 0 0
Generating conclusions 0 1 0 0 0 0
Presenting and supporting
claims
0 1 0 0 0 0
Focus 0 1 0 0 0 0
Divergent thinking 1 1 0 0 0 0
Convergent thinking 1 1 0 0 0 0
Problem-solving protocols 0 1 0 0 0 0
Identifying basic
relationships
0 1 0 0 0 0
Creating graphic
representations
0 1 1 0 0 0
Drawing and sketching 1 1 0 1 1 0
Generating mental images 0 1 0 0 0 0
Conducting thought
experiments
2 3 1 0 0 0
Performing mental
rehearsal
0 0 0 0 0 0
Understanding
interpretations
0 0 0 0 0 0
Cultivating useful ways of
thinking
1 1 0 0 0 0
Avoiding negative ways of
thinking
1 1 0 0 0 0
Perspective taking 1 1 0 0 0 0
Responsible interaction 1 1 0 0 0 0
Controversy and conflict
resolution
1 1 0 0 0 0
Total Responses 11 21 2 1 2 1
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 52
respondent gave as “technical skill level,” which this researcher interpreted as a knowledge
challenge. Respondents who indicated they seldom or never emphasized a particular skill pointed
to lack of knowledge [choosing I’ve never heard of this, I don’t know what this means, I don’t
know how, or Other (technical skill level)] nearly 95% of the time (35 of 37 responses), with
56.7% of those responses (21 of 35) focusing on procedural knowledge. In other words,
respondents who failed to address particular skills did so because they didn’t know what the
skills were or how to develop the skills in their students.
Qualitative Findings
This researcher interviewed five teachers of IY. The interviews were tape-recorded, with
the permission of the participants, and later transcribed verbatim. Using the data analysis
procedure outlined in Chapter 3, the researcher examined the data in order to ascertain the
respondents’ perceptions of 21st Century Skills as well as KMO challenges to their development
among IY. In order to avoid gender as a means of identification, all respondents will be referred
to through the use of masculine pronouns.
Respondent 1. Respondent 1 (R1) is a teacher at a juvenile hall in the beginning phase of
RTS. He has been teaching IY for his entire 15-year career as an educator. He holds a multi-
subject teaching credential and currently teaches various English, social science, and elective
classes.
R1 displayed little knowledge of 21
st
Century Skills in the initial stages of the interview.
When asked to describe the cognitive skills students need to be successful, his response focused
primarily on reading.
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 53
They really need skills with comprehension, reading, decoding. Some of our
students are still at the basic level. Many of them can read, but they have
difficulty with comprehension again, context clues and things like that.
When asked how or if a particular aspect of 21st Century Skills, digital literacy, was addressed in
his class, R1 demonstrated metacognitive knowledge of the student needs as well as the
importance of the both the skill in question as well as the development of self-regulation.
We encourage them to be more independent learners and find things on their own.
Oftentimes, they’re, I don’t want to say lazy, but they’ll be discouraged, so we
have to really encourage them and just to take responsibility for their own
learning … if you don’t know a word, or if you type in a word, go to a thesaurus,
and things like that.
Further prompting revealed basic procedural knowledge related to vetting information, digital or
otherwise, but no detailed information on how to develop the skill or how the skill might transfer
into separate settings.
Sometimes the teacher will not always be there. You just need those skills to help
yourself know what to do, what steps. What happens when you get stuck? What
do you do?
Over the course of the interview, R1 hinted at conceptual knowledge of conative skills. For
example, R1 would like to implement collaborative learning strategies; however, he echoes the
literature (Tangeman & Hall, 2011) as he describes the lack self-efficacy for pro social behaviors
and self-regulation among students as significant barriers.
…like cooperative learning groups. I would love to do more of that, but that is a
challenge here because the kids again will get side-tracked. They talk about gang-
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 54
related things and other things that are off topic ... you learn more sometimes in a
group. Most of our kids, they’re used to doing independent work, things on their
own, and slacking. …It’s hard for them in team-building to see that that’s a
learning process or growth for them.
R1 laid out several organizational obstacles. First, technology is a challenge, as hardware
may malfunction and access to digital content is limited due to security concerns.
I think I can do more as far as helping them succeed, and I think there are
hindrances. Sometimes the machine doesn’t work. Sometimes we may be off-line.
…We can’t film or take pictures….
He does not overlook both the need and current opportunities for training in order to best utilize
the technology, demonstrating metacognitive knowledge of his own capabilities as well as
perceived value in the improvement of his own capabilities.
I think also, I have to stay current with current trends and things, too, which is
important for us. Right now, we have iPads, so we go to training for that and
learning different things to help them. I do feel most of the teachers—I think
that’s an area we can all improve on. Technology is always going ahead. Just
staying current. …
Finally, R1 believes a classroom aide is necessary to facilitate multiple collaborative learning
groups or small-group instruction.
Respondent 2. Respondent 2 (R2) has been teaching for 25 years, all of them spent
serving IY. He is credentialed to teach multiple subjects and works in a juvenile hall site. He has
participated in several professional development opportunities for PBL and is contributing to
planning a shift in curriculum; however, at the time of the interview, the site had not
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 55
implemented any curriculum or pedagogical changes, nor had technology upgrades been put into
effect.
R2 points out both supports and challenges that affect his personal (PTE) and general
teaching efficacy (GTE). He makes several optimistic statements about how the RTSA program
would improve the curriculum as well as the technology.
PLCs are working on curriculum now … designing projects primarily around
Microsoft Office and using those CTE skills, career tech ed kinds of things. We’re
building this all in. We haven’t gotten there yet, but the fundamentals are in place.
Everything’s being pulled down right now to paint and install SMART Boards in
every classroom on the wall. That will be coming up in the next three weeks.
Despite his optimism, he pointed out several challenges which are supported by the existing
research outlined in Chapter 2. These include:
 the technical skills of his fellow teachers
Many of [the other teachers] never used Publisher. They’ve looked at a
spreadsheet, but never created one. … They probably used Outlook more than
anything for their email and a little bit of Word, but they don’t really know much
about Word.
 high teacher turnover
We’ve turned over 100% in four years … we finally get a culture going and bam we lose
eight people.
 lack of support from probation personnel
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 56
If probation is texting, looking at the internet, or watching movies on the phone,
and/or sleeping, and/or talking to kids … talking negatively about the teacher in
front of the kids here in the unit. These things have happened and do happen.
 low student achievement prior to incarceration and criminality among peers
We’ve got some really terrible situations here where kids are not at risk, they’re
beyond risk. They’ve already dropped out. They’ve already hooked up with the
wrong people.
 high percentage of students with disabilities
More than half our population is special ed. Many of our other kids who are not
diagnosed as special ed also have emotional disturbance issues.
 lack of family support
On the outside, they’re slanging, banging, and hanging. They’re not really going
to school and doing academic things. Their homes are not academic language
places. They probably don’t read at home. Their parents probably don’t read at
home. They probably smoke weed, drink beer, and watch TV.
One of the most significant obstacles R2 sees educating IY in his setting is the high
turnover rate of students, which is also consistent with the existing literature. He believes this
lends greater credence to an emphasis on transferable skills rather than content knowledge in this
context.
I would focus on more portable skills, and not so much on content because the
content in eight days, I doubt if you do significant content. … So working in that
environment you have to accept that what you do is giving [them] some portable
skills. …What you’re going to do is fill some gaps, add some base information to
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 57
help better decision-making, stuff like that. You’re not really going to do a lot.
You can do a little bit.
R2 believes the organization should lower class sizes to a maximum of 12 students to
minimize the number of subjects being addressed simultaneously, though he believes that some
of that challenge will be mitigated by future changes in curriculum. He acknowledges the costs
of the undertaking but maintains an expectancy of success: “It’s not going to be easy, but the
more we do it, the better we’re going to get at it.”
Respondent 3. Respondent 3 (R3) has been teaching for seven years, all spent serving
the IY population. He holds a multi-subject teaching credential and received additional
certification for English-Language Arts, Math, Social Science, and Science through
supplemental coursework. He teaches classes in each of the four listed domains to high school
students at a juvenile detention center. Teachers at this site have received several professional
development opportunities in order to develop knowledge of 21st Century Skills and PBL;
however, technical upgrades and shifts in teaching and curriculum have not yet been adopted.
R3 demonstrated factual, conceptual, and metacognitive knowledge of 21st Century
Skills, commenting on the types of skills needed by IY as well as impending curricular and
pedagogical shifts intended to bring about their development. For instance, he clearly outlines
the necessity of the conative skills described by Marzano and Heflebower (2012) as well as their
development through the use of PBL:
A lot of group activity, project-based learning—we’re moving in that direction.
… [Students] need to be able to work in groups, understand instructions,
understand how to work with peers in their class. … When they’re doing
[projects], they’re learning to communicate and come up with solutions.
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 58
He also emphasizes the shift in focus from factual knowledge of content to the development of
transferable skills:
We’re going deeper into things instead of just learning a bunch of little information.
R3 believes teacher motivation and turnover are the greatest challenges in the
development of 21st Century Skills among IY. He states repeatedly that he is being given every
opportunity by MCOE to grow as an educator through professional development, and finds fault
with peers whom he feels neglect such opportunities due to the cost of engaging in the task of
learning.
This is a great place to learn to [develop 21st Century Skills] because they offer
so many professional developments and trainings. Really, if you’re a teacher for
[MCOE], and you want to learn how to do things like this, 21
st
century teaching,
this is the perfect place to be. … I think the teachers that aren’t doing it, they’re
just lazy. They don’t want to learn. That’s really how I feel. … I feel like a lot of
teachers, they’re not going into the 21
st
century. They’re stuck on what they used
to do 10-20 years ago.
R3 voices a positive sense of teaching efficacy, both personal and general. He asserts that
the shift to PBL and a skills-focused curriculum will increase student motivation through
relevance and utility, allowing them to, as he states, “see how they’re connected to everything
and relate it back to themselves so that they feel like they’re a part of the world.” He further
connects this to increased individual and collective self-efficacy of both students and staff:
It will be excellent. What I’ve learned about all this, I think the kids, this allows
them to be creative and to really learn, and to tie everything they learn to the rest
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 59
of the world and reflect it back onto themselves and give them something to feel
proud about.
R3 identified administration as being a source of support, providing professional
development opportunities and empowering him to try new things in his teaching. He also
anticipates that increasing the technological capabilities of the staff and students will further his
efforts to develop 21st Century Skills. He sums up his feelings about upcoming tech upgrades
and their augmentation of ongoing pedagogical and curriculum shifts by stating:
That’s going to give [students] those 21
st
century school skills by learning to use
the technology we’re getting and more of some of what we already have. And to
be able to solve world issues and create projects to express their ideas about
solving things and then be able to share it with other people.
Respondent 4. Respondent 4 (R4) has been teaching for 17 years, all serving IY as a
member of MCOE. He has a multiple subject teaching credential, a pupil personnel services
(PPS) credential, and a reading certificate. He is currently serving as a literacy specialist in a
juvenile hall.
As with all interview subjects, R4 was provided the following prompt from the interview
protocol (Appendix B):
With 21st century skills being a growing topic in education, how do we make sure
students are ready for life beyond high school in today’s world? The next
questions will focus on that. Describe the cognitive skills that you feel students
need to be successful.
According to R4, focus is key because, as he states, “students have low attention spans.” He
asserted that he had been trained on a particular procedure designed for math teachers to help in
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 60
this area, but provided no details regarding the pedagogical approaches. When probed for more
information by the researcher, R4 offered reading comprehension as another key 21
st
Century
Skill.
R4 voiced a low teaching efficacy when asked about his ability to develop 21
st
Century
Skills in his present context. Further, while his description of pedagogical approaches of peer
teachers does relate to creating graphic representations, the students are mostly utilizing teacher-
created models rather than those of their own design.
Alone it would be hard to do. I think the teachers have to work together. All in all,
when I go into the classrooms that are not specifically working with [English
language learners (ELLs)] but they are using handouts. The graphic organizers
mostly. … Our ELLs, that’s one of the strategies that they’re told. They use it
with all the kids. … If I see a teacher struggling and I don’t see them using
graphic organizers, than my job is to give them something to work with, for their
kids.
When R4 was asked to describe the interpersonal and self-regulation skills students need
to be successful, he focused on the interpersonal skills necessary.
They need to know how to socialize and how to ask questions. Think-pair-share.
How do you do that? You have to model a lot for the students. When they get
together, it’s either gang talk, they don’t know what to think, they don’t know
when they’ve read a passage, okay, then what? They have to be shown in little
baby steps.
When prompted to identify if he addresses self-regulation, R4 focused mainly on adherence to
social norms:
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 61
I don’t know. If I have to. If I have a student that needs that, I will. In the past, I
had one student who would just storm in the room every day. I’d have him go
right back out.
When asked to identify the challenges he faces in developing 21
st
Century Skills among
his students, R4 identified student turnover as the biggest impediment to the development of
reading comprehension and writing.
They’re coming and going all the time. It’s hard to work and see progress with
reading comprehension and the writing that they need. … Let’s say our kids
stayed with us a full year. I think [MCOE] would see big results.
Further decreasing his GTE, he states that he does not receive support from the organization in
order to develop 21
st
Century Skills: “I don’t feel any support in the last two years.” When asked
to describe what the Organization could do to help, however, he stated that he would like training
on behavior management, with no mention of 21
st
Century Skills individually or as a collective.
Respondent 5. Respondent 5 (R5) has been teaching for 18 years, with the last 11 in
community day schools and juvenile detention camps. He holds a single subject credential in
secondary social science and has demonstrated subject-matter competency in a variety of subject
areas via state testing.
R5 teaches in the prototype school for the RTSA program. In contrast to Respondents 1-
4, he has received several years of ongoing professional development and coaching in order to
implement PBL. R5 and his fellow teachers constructed site-specific curriculum to develop both
content knowledge and transferable skills. He offered the following description:
We’re an interdisciplinary project-based approach that uses themes and also ties
in the social and emotional aspects that the student needs to build within
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 62
themselves to the themes and projects. … It’s not only to build projects, but to
create a social, emotional connection to what they are doing as well as having the
fundamental background with the Common Core State Standards that gives them
the proficiency to do the project well.
When prompted to identify cognitive skills students needed to be successful, R5 focused on
critical thinking skills, emphasizing the need for transferable skills over factual knowledge of
content as well as the motivational value of PBL:
The biggest skill set that is necessary is the critical thinking skill set. Not just
being able to take a formula in mathematics and do it, but being able to
understand how it can apply in the real world and then use it in a real world
application, which is really where the project-based setting allows us to have that
skill set be implemented hands-on.
R5 also placed emphasis on the value of collaboration as a skill, particularly for IY. He
echoes the research outlined in Chapter 2 when he describes IY’s negative self-efficacy for
prosocial behaviors and the challenges of gaining and maintaining employment upon release:
…with our incarcerated youth, our at-risk population, that have had obvious
difficulties working together having dealt with conflicts between other youth,
maybe gangs or other issues in school, that’s not something they have a strong
skill set with. … The skill set of working collaboratively with team mates is so
important because if they don’t have that skill set and are unable to do that,
working in the workforce is going to be something that is difficult.
R5’s discussion of 21
st
Century Skills was relegated to broad concepts and pedagogical
approaches rather than the identification of specific skills and the methods by which they may be
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 63
developed. He did stress the need for metacognitive knowledge of student abilities in order to
best foster engagement and learning in a PBL approach:
As you create your groups, you really have to organize them well where you have
strengths of a certain student that can then hold those that must scaffold up for the
material to help them work together. If you are not creating good teams, then your
project at the end, you might not reach completion because your team hasn’t
worked well together.
R5 stated that teachers seeking to develop skills in the same manner must be prepared to
pay the cost in time and effort necessary. He is critical of some of his peers who, from his
perspective, are not willing to absorb that cost in order to help IY succeed.
It’s an arduous task that, if you are not a teacher with a great amount of energy
and willingness to push, it can be extremely difficult. … I think a lot of our
teaching population sells our students short.
R5 sees additional areas of emphasis by the organization as being an additional drain on
human capital. He describes numerous initiatives that are competing for time and priority,
including incorporation of increased content knowledge into the curriculum in order to boost
passing rates on state-mandated high school graduation exams.
It’s an issue because if you focus too much then you are going to get less results
in comparison to honing in on key points during a specific period of time and
getting the most out. That’s the scary crossroads we’re at.
Emerging themes. Analysis of the qualitative data produced several themes related to
the research question as well as implications for future research, with the latter to be detailed in
Chapter 5. These themes relate to teacher knowledge of 21
st
Century Skills, the relationship
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 64
between that knowledge and motivation to develop 21
st
Century Skills among IY, and
organizational challenges to the development of these skills.
Knowledge. The respondents demonstrated little beyond broad conceptual knowledge of
21
st
Century Skills. No frameworks were identified or referenced, nor was specific terminology
evident aside from the following terms: critical thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving.
Respondents 2, 3, and 5 identified project-based learning as a method by which 21
st
Century
Skills could be developed; however, only R5 demonstrated any procedural knowledge of this
practice and that was primarily used to outline the differences between PBL and existing models
of direct instruction in use in MCOE.
Collaboration was a repeated point of emphasis, and respondents described situations in
which the conative skills should be targeted. However, while teachers state that students need to
learn to collaborate, they do not detail any specific inter- or intrapersonal skills or how such
skills should be developed. No respondent displayed evidence of knowing when collaboration is
an appropriate pedagogical strategy. Various respondents erroneously identified skills as being
21
st
Century Skills; for example, R1 emphasized reading comprehension several times.
It should be no surprise that there are knowledge challenges, as all respondents identified
the need for professional development in order to improve their skills. R5 described his journey
through the RTSA process as being facilitated by a teacher coach; however, this process was,
according to the Director, focused on the pedagogical approach of PBL rather than specific 21
st

Century Skills.
Motivation. As a group, the respondents gave evidence of motivation for promoting
achievement among their students, a trend consistent with the quantitative findings. Several
respondents described the importance of working with this population, and all stated that the
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 65
efforts they put forth were worthwhile. This motivation appeared directed towards improving the
outcomes for IY without emphasis on particular 21
st
Century Skills, although collaboration was
identified as important by all respondents. Also, problem-solving and critical thinking were listed
as important by several respondents, though not all.
Respondents 2, 3, and 5 question the motivation of some of their peer teachers, believing
they find the cost of developing 21
st
Century Skills outweighs any and all other aspects of value.
Questions of collective self-efficacy were consistent across the three sites in which the
respondents teach. Also consistent among respondents was the impact of student turnover on
teacher efficacy for fostering any type of learning; the longer the student remains at one site, the
greater the perceived ability of the teachers to promote student achievement.
Organization. Respondents identified both support and challenges provided by the
organization. They all discussed the need for technological improvements. Respondents 1, 2, and
3 expect technology to improve as a result of the RTSA program, and this expectation is
buttressed by the experiences of R5 who has completed the RTSA process.
Respondents had mixed reviews for support of administration in their efforts to develop
21
st
Century Skills among their students. They all acknowledged being provided opportunities
for professional development. R2, R3, and R5 identified the shift in curriculum and pedagogy as
necessary to support their efforts, a move that could not happen without administrative approval.
Technology and curriculum. Technology was identified as a challenge to the
development of 21
st
Century Skills. Hardware, software, bandwidth and security were all
mentioned as areas of concern, while most respondents hold positive expectations for
improvement in technology as part of the RTSA program. There were mixed levels of
expectancy regarding the impact of the changes in curriculum inherent in the RTSA program. R5
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 66
spoke highly of the program’s impact on his teaching. However, R1 and R4 made little reference
to the impact of the program; R4 also displayed the least amount of knowledge regarding 21
st

Century Skills.
Summary of Findings
Research Question 1
The first research question asks, “What are the perceptions of 21st Century Skills by
teachers of IY, and what are the perceived barriers to implementing them in instruction?” More
simply, what are the level 2 needs? In short, the teachers perceive 21
st
Century Skills to be
something important to the improvement of their students, though they lack detailed factual,
conceptual, procedural and metacognitive knowledge of these skills. They also pinpointed
organizational obstacles to improving their ability to develop 21
st
Century Skills among their
students, including student and teacher turnover, lack of instructional and behavioral support in
the classroom, and technology.
Knowledge. Teachers completing the survey asserted their knowledge of 21
st
Century
Skills as detailed in Table 4; however, when asked about particular skills, they frequently
identified their lack of knowledge as an impediment to addressing many of these skills in their
teaching. The teachers interviewed failed to identify any formalized framework. They believe
collaboration is a valuable skill, but failed to demonstrate a detailed understanding of methods
for building conative skills as well as the appropriate use of collaborative learning as a
pedagogical tool. The results on Table 3 for items 1-4 show survey respondents asserted their
knowledge of skills and their ability to develop them in their students. As previously discussed,
however, this conflicts with respondents’ frequent lack of specific factual and conceptual
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 67
knowledge. The conflict suggests challenges with metacognitive knowledge; put simply, they
don’t know what they don’t know.
Motivation. Quantitative data demonstrates strong motivation among participants for the
development of 21
st
Century Skills among IY, and the interview respondents echo this sentiment.
However, the low rate of participation in the research (66 of 99 teachers failed to open any
emails related to the survey), challenges with teacher self-assessment as described in Chapter 2,
and input from interview respondents suggest that such strong motivation is not consistent across
the teacher population.
Organization. Organizational challenges are evident in the three areas described in
Chapter 2: work processes, access to material resources, and value chains and streams. When
asked to indicate their degree of agreement or disagreement with the statement, “I have the time
and materials necessary to develop 21
st
Century Skills among my students” on the 6-point Likert
scale, the mean result was 3.45, a nearly neutral position between “somewhat disagree” and
“somewhat agree.” Interview respondents spoke of challenges utilizing technology due to
inadequate hardware and security concerns. They also indicated there were competing
organizational priorities, including testing and judicial processes, as well as the belief that the
probation personnel did not support, and sometimes undermined, their efforts.
Research Question 2
The second research question asks, “What are the needs of the Program related to
implementing a focus on 21st Century Skills into the curriculum?” As discussed in Chapter 2, a
need is the difference between the current state and the desired state, or more plainly, between
“what is” and “what should be” (Altschuld & Kumar, 2010, p. 3; Kaufman & English, 1979, p.
8). Based on the theory that 21
st
Century Skills will help IY increase their employability and
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 68
decrease recidivism, the desired state is one where the teachers have knowledge of 21
st
Century
Skills, are motivated to develop them among their students, and are supported in these efforts by
the Organization. The following sections detail the level 3 needs in terms of knowledge,
motivation, and organization challenges.
Knowledge. As discussed previously, teachers lack knowledge of 21
st
Century Skills, and
this need does not appear to be fully mitigated by existing supports. Teachers may believe that
the RTSA program will train them to develop 21
st
Century Skills, but this is not wholly accurate.
According to the Program Director (personal communication, November 13, 2014), there is no
specific framework adopted by the Organization. Further, the professional development sessions
currently offered do not contain specific information on 21
st
Century Skills. A review of the
website for the Buck Institute for Education, www.bie.org, identified by the Program Director as
source material for professional development, revealed a “pick and choose” database of skills. A
BIE manual on Project-Based Learning (Larmer, Ross, & Mergendoller, 2009), distributed to
participants in the Program’s professional developments, makes reference to the 4 C’s: critical-
thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity (Kay, 2010). These skills are part of the
Framework for 21
st
Century Learning, but as shown in Figure 8, they comprise only one-third of
the skills prescribed by that construct. In short, in order to implement 21
st
Century Skills into the
curriculum, the Program needs to adopt a framework and then increase teacher knowledge of that
framework.

21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 69

Figure 8. Framework for 21st Century Learning (2011).

Motivation. Survey and interview data show evidence of respondent motivation for the
development of 21
st
century skills among IY; however, only one-third (33 of 99) of teachers
sampled opened the survey email and only 22 completed the survey. Considering the six-week
period the survey was open, this lack of participation does not suggest a high degree of perceived
value for the topic. Further, interview respondents also indicated a lack of motivation among
their fellow teachers. Finally, based on a study by Archambault et al. (2012) which demonstrates
a positive relationship between pedagogical knowledge and teacher beliefs—beliefs which, in
turn, affect teacher efforts—knowledge challenges are likely impacting motivation. In sum, the
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 70
findings suggest a need for increased teacher motivation for the development of 21
st
Century
Skills among IY.
Organization. As previously described, there are numerous organizational challenges;
these challenges indicate a gap between the current and desired states. According to survey and
interview respondents, the current state is one where teachers do not have sufficient time and
materials to develop 21
st
Century Skills among their students. Further, they suggest that
probation personnel, student turnover, testing, and court proceedings impede their abilities to
successfully promote student achievement. There are competing priorities: the students must be
educated and engaged in content knowledge, but they must also be assessed academically,
medically and psychologically; present for court proceedings; and meeting with probation
personnel. They must have digital literacy, but they must have severely limited access to the
internet. With the presumed desired state being that teachers are provided adequate
organizational support to develop 21
st
Century Skills among their students, then the current need
is for increased coherence of work processes, agreement of values between educators and
probation personnel, and assessments procedures that inform and improve instruction.

21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 71
Chapter 5: Discussion
The age of industry is at an end, replaced by the creation, utilization, and proliferation of
knowledge. The jobs of this Knowledge Age require a different skill set than that suited to the
assembly line (Fadel & Trilling, 2009). Originating from a Department of Labor report in the
early 1990s (U.S. Department of Labor, 1992), 21
st
Century Skills are widely touted as essential
for success in today’s world of work (Binkley et al., 2012; Coates, 1995; Dede, 2010; Fadel &
Trilling, 2009; Wagner, 2008).
Incarcerated youth (IY) are not adequately prepared to succeed in this 21
st
century
workplace, and the ramifications of unemployment are severe. Upon release, IY are likely to face
unemployment and incarceration soon after leaving high school (Bullis & Yovanoff, 2006), in
part because many teachers of IY are not effectively developing their students’ problem-solving,
interpersonal, and intrapersonal capabilities (Abrams et al., 2008; Bullis & Yovanoff, 2006). As
detailed in Chapter 2, teachers of IY can address these specific skill deficits by developing 21
st

Century Skills.
The purpose of the study is to assess the needs of a Program educating IY. Focusing on
teachers, the researcher gathered and analyzed quantitative and qualitative data in order to
answer the following questions:
1. What are the perceptions of 21st Century Skills by teachers of IY, and what are the
perceived barriers to implementing them in instruction?
2. What are the needs of the Program related to implementing a focus on 21st Century Skills
into the curriculum?
The researcher used Altschuld and Kumar’s (2010) definition and level system for needs.
The researcher also adopted the conceptual framework of Clark and Estes (2009) for identifying
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 72
challenges in three areas: knowledge (K), motivation (M), and organization (O). To make clear
the skills encompassed under the 21
st
Century Skills umbrella, the researcher selected the
framework developed by Marzano and Heflebower (2012).
The subject organization for the study is the Metro County Office of Education (MCOE),
a regional provider of education services to over 2,000 IY daily. The researcher purposefully
sampled teachers of IY who worked at sites participating in a grant program. This program, Rise
To Skills Academy (RTSA), consists of technological upgrades to software, hardware, and
internet bandwidth; professional development in project-based learning (PBL); and a shift in
curriculum to a thematic, interdisciplinary approach. The survey was distributed by email to 99
teachers, generating 22 completed surveys. The researcher then interviewed 5 teachers as well as
the Director of the RTSA program.
Discussion of the Findings
The researcher analyzed the quantitative and qualitative data to identify the level 2 and 3
needs of the Program. These findings informed the development of the recommendations that
follow this section.
Summary of Findings for Research Question 1
The results and findings of the study suggest that the efforts by teachers to develop 21
st

Century Skills among IY are impeded by knowledge, motivation and organizational challenges.
Teachers lack detailed factual and conceptual knowledge of 21
st
Century Skills, but they don’t
always seem to know the lack is there, which is, in turn, a lack of metacognitive knowledge. The
RTSA program develops procedural knowledge for the development of some 21
st
Century Skills
through the Program’s focus on project-based learning, but this procedural knowledge is not
informed by other knowledge types. Motivational challenges are evident by the lack of study
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 73
participation, results from interviews, and the assumed reduced expectancy produced by the
knowledge and organizational challenges. The organization lacks an overt, specific emphasis on
21
st
Century Skills, and teachers indicate they lack the time and materials necessary to develop
21
st
Century Skills among their students. Finally, teachers believe competing priorities within the
Program as well as between educators and judicial personnel and processes impede their efforts.
The level 2 needs are summarized in Figure 9.

Figure 9: Level 2 needs.

Summary of Findings for Research Question 2
As with the level 2 needs, the needs of the Program were described in terms of
knowledge, motivation, and organization. The Program needs a framework for 21
st
Century
Skills in order to develop the necessary factual and conceptual knowledge to better inform
current pedagogical practices to develop those skills and further develop procedural knowledge.
The program has a need to increase teacher motivation to develop 21
st
Century Skills.
• Lack of factual, conceptual and metacognitive knowledge of 21st Century Skills
• Current procedural knowledge incomplete and uninformed by other knowledge
types
Knowlege
• Expectancy hampered by knowledge and organization challenges
• Inconsistent value of 21st Century Skills
• Lack of attainment value
Motivation
• No overt emphasis on 21st Century Skills
• Lack of time and materials
• Competing paradigms and priorities
Organization
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 74
Organizationally, the Program needs coherence between its processes and its goals as well as
between educators and probation personnel. Finally, the teachers need increased technological
capabilities; currently the Program augments technology but not all sites have undergone this
upgrade, and security concerns remain an obstacle to the development of digital literacy.

Figure 10: Level 3 needs
Recommendations for the Program
The findings illustrate the needs of the Program, the gulf between the current and desired
state. Identifying need is valuable, but only if it informs efforts to meet those needs. The
researcher compared the needs to current Program supports and existing research in order to
develop the following recommendations for improvements in KMO. The researcher also
employed a feasibility criteria (Altschuld & Kumar, 2010, p. 151) to the recommendations,
restricting them to options that are most easily actionable under current logistical, financial and
contractual constraints. A summary of these recommendations is depicted in Figure 11.
• Need a framework for 21st Century Skills
• Incorporation of framework into current professional development of pedagogy
Knowlege
• Emphasis on 21st Century Skills
Motivation
• Coherence between priorities and practice
• Increased technical capacity
Organization
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 75

Figure 11. Summary of recommendations.

Knowledge
The following recommendations are intended to address level 2 needs related to factual,
conceptual, procedural and metacognitive knowledge. According to Clarke and Estes, these
knowledge areas are best addressed through the provision of information, job aids, training and
education.
Information. The Program should first select a framework for 21
st
Century Skills. Dede
(2010) warns that the term 21
st
Century Skills is being used as an “umbrella term” (p. 51) to
describe nearly any type of knowledge or skill. His comparison of frameworks shows great
conceptual overlap among leading endeavors. Choosing a framework would provide the Program
• Adopt and communicate a framework for 21st Century Skills
• Distribute job aids related to 21st Century Skills and pedagogical best practices
• Train teachers in the framework and identified best practices for developing
and assessing 21st Century Skills
• Align training to performance objectices
• Incorporate 21st Century Skills into PLCs
Knowledge
• Increase expectancy through knowledge recommendations and performance
feedback
• Choice and voice
• Emphasize 21st Century Skills
• Tie 21st Century Skills to teacher performance objectives
Motivation
• Align processes with priorities
• Increase technological capacity
Organization
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 76
with an organized collection of skills with clearly defined terminology and recommended
methods for development and assessment. Teachers in the study frequently lacked factual
knowledge about 21
st
Century Skills. One possibility for such behavior is that the teachers are
not familiar with the specific terminology used by the survey. This terminology comes directly
from Marzano and Heflebower’s (2012) framework. The teachers may, however, have had
conceptual knowledge of certain skills but used different specific terminology to define them.
Therefore, a consistent system of organization and terminology, a lingua franca, would better
facilitate communication about 21
st
Century Skills.
Job aids. The Program should obtain and/or create “job aids” (Clark & Estes, 2002, p.
58) to facilitate use of the framework and identified best practices, such as those described in
Chapter 2, to develop and assess 21
st
Century Skills. Examples of such aids include printed
materials outlining and describing the chosen framework, sample lesson plans, guides for
developing lessons and assessments, and videos of model lessons.
Training. The Program currently provides training in project-based learning (PBL). As
reviewed in Chapter 2, PBL is considered by many proponents of 21
st
Century Skills as best
practice for developing many cognitive and conative skills; as such, training in this area provides
some procedural knowledge, but without factual and conceptual knowledge to provide context.
Incorporating the adopted framework, as well as other best practices for developing and
assessing 21
st
Century Skills, would provide teachers with more complete knowledge of 21
st

Century skills, including their development and assessment. According to Clarke and Estes
(2002), such training should be tied to performance objectives and should expressly demonstrate
how those objectives can be realized.
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 77
Education. According to interview respondents and the Program Director, teachers in
RTSA sites engage in professional learning communities (PLCs) on a regular basis in order to
enhance their practice and develop curriculum. Such PLCs should incorporate the adopted
framework and best practices into the examination of site-specific practice and planning. This
continuing education, which should include incorporating current research into ongoing
reflections on practice, would enable teachers to handle novel problems (Clark & Estes, 2002),
including those related to the development and assessment of 21
st
Century Skills.
Motivation
The following subsections focus on increasing teacher motivations. They contain specific
recommendations as well as impacts of knowledge and organization recommendations on
motivation.
Expectancy. As described in Chapter 2, teacher efficacy is related to motivation.
Personal teaching efficacy (PTE) is the belief in one’s own capabilities to promote student
achievement in an area (Dembo & Gibson, 1985). When answering an item coded for motivation
related to efficacy, participants indicated agreement (Mean 4.73). However, when compared to
qualitative data, this expectancy does not seem founded on significant knowledge related to 21
st

Century Skills. This discrepancy could be an indicator of a lack of metacognitive knowledge
and/or the influence of social desirability, Further, interview respondents identified a segment of
their peers as lacking in motivation. The aforementioned recommendations to inform and
enhance the factual, conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive knowledge of teachers are also
needed to raise PTE.
Value. Overt focus by the Program on 21
st
Century Skills brings two value aspects of the
expectancy-value theory of motivation (Eccles & Wigfield, 2000) described in Chapter 2:
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 78
importance and utility. By emphasizing the development of these skills, the Program is
demonstrating the importance of the endeavor. Further, by building the conceptual knowledge of
teachers as to the relevance of these skills in the future workplace, the Program would be
emphasizing the utility of these skills. Such training should, whenever possible, allow learners to
collaborate with trained people in order to increase the likelihood of transfer (Clark & Estes, 2002).
In addition to the potential enhancement of motivation through increased knowledge, the
Program can add attainment value through assessment and acknowledgement of effort and
effectiveness on the part of both teachers and students. RTSA currently allows teachers choice
and control in the development of the thematic curriculum and the projects. Schunk et al. (2008)
support the activation of intrinsic motivation in this manner; therefore, the researcher
recommends the same tactic be applied to the manner by which teachers will develop and assess
21
st
Century Skills. Further, teachers should be involved in the selection of the 21
st
Century
Skills framework to be adopted, allowing for even more choice and control.
Administration can model importance and interest in the development of 21
st
Century
Skills. Also, administrators can increase a teacher’s expectancy of success by providing positive
yet accurate feedback as well as maintaining challenging yet reasonable standards for
performance through the drafting, monitoring, and assessment of individualized performance
goals related to the development of 21
st
Century Skills (Schunk et al., 2008). Finally,
development of 21
st
Century Skills can be incorporated into teacher performance goals,
potentially adding attainment as well as cost value.
Organization
While survey respondents indicated they could create lessons to develop 21
st
Century
Skills, they did not agree that they had the time and materials necessary to do so or that the
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 79
curriculum supported such efforts. Interview respondents anticipate a shift in curriculum and
upgrades to technology and materials to better facilitate these skills as a result of the RTSA
program. The Director described ongoing professional development in which site teachers
developed curriculum specifically for their population. Therefore, the researcher recommends
explicit incorporation of 21
st
Century Skills into such curriculum.
Interview respondents also cited high student turnover and lack of instructional support in
the classroom as impediments to 21
st
Century Skills development. As high student turnover is a
challenge consistent with current research (Byrd & Taylor, 2011) and outside the purview of the
Program to change, the researcher recommends the incorporation of that reality into the timeline
for lessons and skills development. According the Program Director, the juvenile halls will limit
the scope of their projects to fit the average turnover of 15 days. As for the lack of instructional
support, the researcher recommends reexamining this challenge after instructional best practices
are implemented, as research (Fallis & Opotow, 2003) suggests engaging, differentiated
instruction diminishes task-avoidant behavior.
Technology. In order to prepare students for a world of work that incorporates
information communication technology (ICT), students will need to access technology in a
manner that approximates future use in the workplace. RTSA incorporates increases in hardware,
software, and bandwidth into its Program; however, security concerns inhibit inquiry and the
development of digital literacy. Some RTSA teachers are using wikis to provide a secure web
space within which the student can search for needed information. However, according to
interview data, this practice is not uniform among RTSA teachers. In order to promote inquiry
utilizing ICT while preserving security, educators must develop procedures for bounded and/or
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 80
guided research. All teachers should be trained to create wikis and encouraged to share them
across the Program.
Recommendations for Evaluation
The researcher suggests several avenues of future assessment based on the current
findings as well as the theoretical constructs adopted. These recommendations include:
 Pre- and post-assessment of teacher efficacy after implementing recommendations
 Longitudinal study of employment history/recidivism among former IY who
attended RTSA
 Impact of RTSA on student perceptions of employability and self-efficacy for
prosocial behaviors.
 Comparison of probation officers’ perceptions/behaviors between RTSA and non-
RTSA sites
Impact of Recommendations
Any intervention should be assessed for efficacy as well as the integrity with which it
was employed. Numerous cycles of inquiry and problem-solving models include evaluation
plans. As the study focused on teachers’ perceptions of their personal and general efficacy, the
researcher recommends that a greater number of respondents be recruited to measure their beliefs
both before and after the implementation of the recommendations.
Impact on Student Beliefs
Research outlined in Chapter 2 describes barriers to achievement for IY, including
perceived lack of employability. The researcher suggests a measurement of IY’s expectancy of
employability at the beginning and end of an extended term of incarceration (six months or
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 81
more) to determine to what extent IY develop a greater expectancy of employment as a result of
the Program’s emphasis on 21
st
Century Skills.
Impact of Program on the Problem
As the hypothesized correlation between the development of 21
st
Century Skills and
increased employability of former IY is fundamental to the study as well as the Program, this
hypothesis should be tested. A longitudinal study of the employment outcomes for students
attending RTSA sites should be undertaken. Prior longitudinal studies focused on employment
outcomes for a three-year period following release.
Probation Perceptions
Qualitative data as well as existing literature suggest probation personnel do support
efforts by educators to promote achievement among IY. However, Respondent 5 described a
positive trend in support and collaboration between educators and probation personnel at his site.
This potential outlier suggests future research into probation personnel’s beliefs about the
academic potential of IY and possible correlations with efforts to promote 21
st
Century Skills.
Conclusions
In reflecting upon this problem and the lessons learned from both the existing research as
well as this study, the words of two famous men come to mind. First, Frederick Douglass once
opined, “It is easier to build strong children than to fix broken men” (Frederick Douglass
Quotes). Incarcerated youth must believe they can care for themselves and, oftentimes, their
families through employment. If not, they will likely return to a state of incarceration, further
establishing their identities as those who live outside normal society. The task of developing
these students into creative, collaborative thinkers falls to educators, and that task is fraught with
challenges.
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 82
According to Benjamin Franklin, “Motivation is when your dreams put on work clothes”
(Benjamin Franklin Quotes). Previous research as well as findings of this study detail the
numerous logistical, political, and material challenges faced by educators of incarcerated youth.
These challenges are not insurmountable, but to engage and persist in the face of such challenges
requires, among many things, the belief that such efforts have the possibility of success and are
worth doing. Programs serving incarcerated youth must foster and develop this belief among
educators of IY. These programs must also instill the belief among incarcerated youth that their
futures are not fixed, and that they can become positive, productive members of their
communities.

21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 83
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21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 95
Appendix A: Survey Protocol
University of Southern California

Rossier School of Education
INFORMATION/FACTS SHEET FOR EXEMPT NON-MEDICAL RESEARCH

The Development of 21st Century Skills among Incarcerated Youth You are invited to
participate in a research study. Research studies include only people who voluntarily choose to
take part. This document explains information about this study. You should ask questions about
anything that is unclear to you.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of the study is to analyze the development of 21st century skills among
incarcerated youth (IY) who receive educational services from a county office of education.
Using the premise that all teachers should be using identified best practices to develop these
skills, the researcher will: assess current use of best practices to develop 21st century skills by
teachers of IY to determine the performance gap; investigate causes of performance gaps in the
delivery of best practices; and develop a plan of interventions to address the causes of these
gaps.

PARTICIPANT INVOLVEMENT
If you agree to take part in this study, you will be asked to complete an on-line survey which is
anticipated to take about 10 minutes.

CONFIDENTIALITY
There will be no identifiable information obtained in connection with this survey. Your name,
address or other identifiable information will not be collected. Required language: The members
of the research team and the University of Southern California’s Human Subjects Protection
Program (HSPP) may access the data. The HSPP reviews and monitors research studies to
protect the rights and welfare of research subjects.

INVESTIGATOR CONTACT INFORMATION
Principal Investigator James McKenna via email at jmmckenn@usc.edu
Faculty Advisor Dr. Pedro Garcia via email at pegarcia@usc.edu or 213-740-1208
IRB CONTACT INFORMATION
University Park Institutional Review Board (UPIRB), 3720 South Flower Street #301, Los
Angeles, CA 90089-0702, (213) 821-5272 or upirb@usc.edu

 I have read the above information regarding the purpose and confidentiality of the study

How long have you taught Incarcerated Youth?
 0-2 years
 3-5 years
 6-10 years
 Over ten years
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 96
Which option best describes your professional status as a teacher?
 District Intern
 Probationary I
 Probationary II
 Tenured

At what stage is your school in the Road To Success Academy certification process?
 Cohort 1 (2-year model) - 2014-2015 Implementation Year
 Cohort 2 (3-year model) - 2015-2016 Implementation Year
 Cohort 3 (2-year model) - 2015-2016 Implementation Year

To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements related to 21st century
skills?

Strongly
Disagree
Disagree
Somewhat
Disagree
Somewhat
Agree
Agree
Strongly
Agree
I have heard of 21st
century skills
     
I understand the
concept of 21st
century skills
     
I know how to develop
them in my students
     
I am aware of my
students'
development of 21st
century skills
     
I can positively affect
student achievement
by developing 21st
century skills
     
I am capable of
delivering lessons that
develop these skills in
my students
     
I have received
training on 21st
century skills
     
I have the time and
materials necessary
to develop these skills
     

21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 97

Strongly
Disagree
Disagree
Somewhat
Disagree
Somewhat
Agree
Agree
Strongly
Agree
The curriculum
supports developing
21st century skills
     
My organization
places emphasis on
these skills
     
My students need
these skills
     
I am interested
developing these
skills in my students
     

To what extent do you currently address the following skills in your teaching practice?

Never Seldom Sometimes Frequently Always
Navigating digital sources     
Identifying common logical errors     
Generating conclusions     
Presenting and supporting claims     
Focus     
Divergent thinking     
Convergent thinking     
Problem-solving protocols     
Identifying basic relationships     
Creating graphic representations     
Drawing and sketching     
Generating mental images     
Conducting thought experiments     
Performing mental rehearsal     
Understanding interpretations     
Cultivating useful ways of thinking     
Avoiding negative ways of thinking     
Perspective taking     
Responsible interaction     
Controversy and conflict resolution     

21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 98
You selected “Seldom” or “Never” for the following skills. Please select any and all reasons why
you chose that answer.

I've never heard
of this
I don't know what
this means
I don't know how
I do n’t see how
this fits with my
teaching
I have no interest
in addressing this
It's not a useful
skill
It would take too
much
time/energy to
address this
It's not my
responsibility
I don't have what
I need
(time/materials)
It's not a school
priority
Other
Navigating
digital sources
          
Identifying
common
logical errors
          
Generating
conclusions
          
Presenting and
supporting
claims
          
Focus           
Divergent
thinking
          
Convergent
thinking
          
Problem-
solving
protocols
          
Identifying
basic
relationships
          
Creating
graphic
representations
          
Drawing and
sketching
          
Generating
mental images
          
Conducting
thought
experiments
          
Performing
mental
rehearsal
          
Understanding
interpretations
          
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 99
Cultivating
useful ways of
thinking
          
Avoiding
negative ways
of thinking
          
Perspective
taking
          
Responsible
interaction
          
Controversy
and conflict
resolution
          

You chose “Other” as the reason you seldom/never develop the following skill(s). Please add
any additional information to help others understand the obstacles involved for developing each
skill listed.
Navigating digital sources
Identifying common logical errors
Generating conclusions
Presenting and supporting claims
Focus
Divergent thinking
Convergent thinking
Problem-solving protocols
Identifying basic relationships
Creating graphic representations
Drawing and sketching
Generating mental images
Conducting thought experiments
Performing mental rehearsal
Understanding interpretations
Cultivating useful ways of thinking
Avoid negative ways of thinking
Perspective taking
Responsible interactions
Controversy and conflict resolution
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 100
Appendix B: Interview Protocol
Name:
Site:
Date & Time:

1. What are the perceptions of 21st Century Skills by teachers of IY, and what are the
perceived barriers to implementing them in instruction?
2. What are the needs of the Program related to implementing a focus on 21st Century
Skills into the curriculum?
The first part of this interview will focus on some background information
1. How long have you been teaching and how much of that time has been spent teaching
incarcerated youth?
2. What teaching credentials do you hold and what subject or subjects do you teach?
3. Why did you choose to work with this population?
21st Century Skills is a growing topic in education – how do we make sure students are
ready for life beyond high school in today’s world? The next few questions will relate to
that challenge.
4. Describe the cognitive skills students need to be successful:
a. How are you addressing those skills in your classroom?
i. Pedagogical strategies?
ii. Technology?
b. Describe your ability to develop these skills among your students?
c. What are the challenges in developing those skills?
d. How does the organization support your efforts to develop those skills?
e. What else could the organization do to help you?
f. If you had all those supports, how effective would your efforts be, in your
estimation?
5. Describe the interpersonal and self-regulation skills students need to be successful:
a. How are you addressing those skills in your classroom?
i. Pedagogical strategies?
ii. Technology?
b. Describe your ability to develop these skills among your students?
c. What are the challenges in developing those skills?
d. How does the organization support your efforts to develop those skills?
e. What else could the organization do to help you?
f. If you had all those supports, how effective would your efforts be, in your
estimation?
6. Is there anything you’d like to add that would better help me understand the various
factors involved in developing 21st Century Skills among incarcerated youth?

21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 101
Appendix C: Informed Consent Protocol
You have been invited to take part in a research study. Please take as much time as you need to
read the consent form. This research study is being conducted by a graduate student in order to
complete a classwork assignment for the Doctor of Education program at the University of
Southern California.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
This study focuses on the teaching practices of teachers who serve the Incarcerated Youth (IY). I
hope to learn about current practices, thoughts and attitudes of teachers toward particular
teaching practices, and the challenges faced in developing 21st Century Skills among IY. You
are invited as a possible participant because of your current teaching assignment.

CONFIDENTIALITY
All identifying information will remain strictly confidential. Insights gathered by you and other
participants will be used in writing a needs assessment for your organization in order to guide the
creation and delivery of supports for the development of 21st Century Skills among IY. Though
direct quotes from you may be used in the paper, your name and other identifying information
will be kept anonymous; neither you nor your work assignment will be made public.
AUDIO RECORDING
It is preferable that the interview be recorded to ensure the accuracy of the answers provided;
however, you may choose not to be recorded, in which case the interviewer will rely solely on
note-taking to preserve the content of your discussion. Once the report is completed, the audio
recordings will be destroyed.
By signing below I acknowledge that I have read and understand the above information. I am
aware that I can discontinue my participation in the study at any time.
Circle one: Audio recording is permitted / is not permitted
Interviewee: ______________________________________________ Date: _____________
Interviewer: ______________________________________________ Date: _____________

21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 102
Appendix D: IRB Approval

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
UNIVERSITY PARK INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD
FWA 00007099
Exempt Review

Date: Mar 06, 2014, 11:51am
Principal Investigator: James McKenna
ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
Faculty Advisor: Pedro Garcia
ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
CoInvestigators:
Project Title: 21st century skills for IY USC
UPIRB # UP1400132

The iStar application and attachments were reviewed by UPIRB staff on 3/6/2014.

The project was APPROVED.

Based on the information provided for review, this study meets the requirements outlined in 45
CFR 46.101(b)(1,2) and qualifies for exemption from IRB review. The study is not subject to
further IRB review. IRB exemption of this study was granted on 3/6/2014.
21st CENTURY SKILLS AMONG INCARCERATED YOUTH 103
To access IRBapproved documents, click on the “Approved Documents” link in the study
workspace. These are also available under the “Documents” tab.

Researchers are reminded that some site/schools require permission to conduct research even if
the research is exempt from IRB review.

Sincerely,

Ryan M. Brooks, M.A. Psy., IRB Administrator

This is an autogenerated email. Please do not respond directly to this message using the "reply"
address. A response sent in this manner cannot be answered. If you have further questions, please
contact your IRB Administrator or IRB/CCI office.
The contents of this email are confidential and intended for the specified recipients only. If you
have received this email in error, please notify istar@usc.edu and delete this message.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract This study is a needs assessment of teachers seeking to develop 21st Century Skills among incarcerated youth (IY). The researcher uses Clark and Estes’ (2002) knowledge, motivation, and organization (KMO) framework to describe those challenges. The researcher surveyed 22 teachers (n=22) and interviewed five teachers in a program serving IY in juvenile halls and camps in a metropolitan area. Data was coded to align with the KMO framework. ❧ Findings of the study indicate a need for increased knowledge and motivation among teachers for the development of 21st Century Skills. Further, the program chosen for research lacked an explicit emphasis on 21st Century Skills, focusing more on process than concept. Implications for practice include: the adoption of a framework for 21st Century Skills

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Asset Metadata

Creator McKenna, James Michael (author)

Core Title The development of 21st century skills among incarcerated youth: a needs assessment of teachers

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Education (Leadership)

Publication Date 04/29/2015

Defense Date 02/02/2015

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag 21st century skills,employability,evaluation,framework,incarcerated youth,needs assessment,OAI-PMH Harvest,recidivism

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor García, Pedro Enrique (committee chair), Castruita, Rudy Max (committee member), Rueda, Robert (committee member)

Creator Email james.mckenna@live.com,jmmckenn@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-566035

Unique identifier UC11302100

Identifier etd-McKennaJam-3427.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-566035 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-McKennaJam-3427.pdf

Dmrecord 566035

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights McKenna, James Michael

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA