Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 2015

Vol. 59, No. 4, 395–412, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2014.904423

How Do Students Value the Importance of Twenty-first Century

Skills?
Arto Kalevi Ahonen and Päivi Kinnunen
University of Jyväskylä

Frameworks of twenty-first century skills have attained a central role in school

development and curriculum changes all over the world. There is a common
understanding of the need for meta-skills such as problem solving, reasoning,
collaboration, and self-regulation. This article presents results from a Finnish study, in
which 718 school pupils aged 11 to 15 years were asked to anticipate the skills they
would need in the future. Accordingly, they were asked to value and rank the twenty-
first century skills listed in existing frameworks and pick out those they regarded as the
most important they had learned. Social skills and collaboration were ranked highest,
both in the listed frameworks and in the students’ free responses. As might have been
expected, the boys appreciated technical skills more, while the girls ranked social skills
more highly.
Keywords: twenty-first century skills, social skills, school, student

Introduction
Many organizations and researchers have produced frameworks of the skills that children
and students need in their life and work in the twenty-first century (Gordon et al., 2009;
Griffin, Care, McGaw, & 2012). Employers and society at large expect a school system to
be able to produce a workforce with relevant skills for the market (Ananiadou & Claro,
2009). In addition, other areas of society may provide opportunities for acquiring twenty-
first century competences. A recent national expert panel found that Finnish school leaders
and politicians agree on the need to bring the teaching and application of twenty-first
century skills more to the fore in our schools (Salo, Kankaanranta, Vähähyyppä, & Viik-
Kajander, 2011). There seems to be a recognition that the development of the school
system necessitates better embedding of twenty-first century skills, as well as new assessment
tools and teaching and learning methods, in order to equip citizens to function in the knowl-
edge society (see Krokfors, Kangas, Vitikka, & Mylläri, 2010). At the same time, some argue
that the Finnish school system is at a crossroads, where we have to decide whether a school
can operate separately from other sectors of life and society or whether it has to keep pace
with and be part of social development (e.g., Pohjola, 2011; Vähähyyppä & Mikama,
2010; Välijärvi, 2011). Moreover, recent research evaluating the implementation of the
Finnish National Core Curriculum for elementary education has shown that, even though

Arto Kalevi Ahonen, Finnish Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä; Päivi
Kinnunen, Faculty of Information Technology, University of Jyväskylä.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Arto Kalevi Ahonen, University of
Jyväskylä, Finnish Institute for Educational Research, Keskussairaalantie 2, PO Box 35, Jyväskylä,
40014 Finland. E-mail: arto.k.ahonen@jyu.fi
© 2014 Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research
396 AHONEN AND KINNUNEN

twenty-first century skills are well-recognized and referred to at curricular level, they do not
yet play a clear role in everyday school practices and are mostly neglected in regular teaching
and learning (Kartovaara, 2009; Siekkinen & Saastamoinen, 2010).

The Twenty-first Century Skills Frameworks

The issue of skills needed for the twenty-first century has been the subject of educational
policymaking and research for over a decade; the skill sets have been defined in various edu-
cational initiatives in the USA, Australia, the European Union, and the OECD. These defi-
nitions have much in common and all include elements of collaboration, communication,
ICT literacy, and social/cultural skills, along with skills such as civic participation, creativity,
critical thinking, and problem solving (see also Voogt & Pareja Roblin, 2010).
The European Union identifies eight areas of key competences for lifelong learning, and
the scope of each is precisely defined (Gordon et al., 2009). As part of the ATC21S inter-
national research project (Assessment & Teaching of 21st Century Skills), a large group of
researchers defined twenty-first century skills as ways of thinking, ways of working, tools
for working, and living in the world (Binkley et al., 2012). In the United States, the Partner-
ship for 21st Century Skills, a joint government–corporate organization, has devised its own
definition of twenty-first century skills. According to its website, the skills are: core subjects
and twenty-first century themes, life and career, communication, collaboration, creativity,
critical thinking, and information, media and technology skills (P21Skills, 2013). The
OECD has formulated its own version of twenty-first century skills and competences
through the Definition and Selection of Competences (DeSeCo) initiative, which also under-
pins PISA (the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment) (Ananiadou & Claro,
2009). Overall, economic and societal changes closely related to recent developments in tech-
nology and consequently in the characteristics of jobs and the home environment seem to be
regarded as the most important drivers of demand for twenty-first century skills (Voogt &
Pareja Roblin, 2010). Table 1 presents a comparison of three frameworks alongside their adap-
tation in the Finnish National Curriculum from 2004. The skills are presented in the curricu-
lum as cross-curricular themes C, or as working methods W.
Although the twenty-first century skills—often labelled as “soft” or “generic” skills—
have been widely recognized in curriculum standards, the main emphasis in standards and
assessment is still on the “hard” skills that are found in language and mathematics learning
as well as “hard” factual knowledge (Scardamalia, Bransford, Kozma, & Quellmalz, 2012,
p. 250). The consensus among researchers in the learning sciences is that these two are
not in conflict. Thinking skills and working skills are actually learned best together in
their natural context (e.g., Rotherham & Willingham, 2009; Silva, 2009).
The majority of the twenty-first century skills and competences are embedded in cross-
curricular themes in the Finnish National School Curriculum. Although these themes are
regarded as central at curricular level, putting them into practice is not always so simple.
The study by Kartovaara (2009) indicated that school leaders in Finnish comprehensive
schools do not consider these themes to be well-established in their teaching; also, they
find teaching of them difficult. Moreover, the study found that there are great differences
between schools in the degree to which they adopt twenty-first century skills in their teaching
and learning programmes. A recent study conducted by the Finnish National Board of Edu-
cation found students’ knowledge of cross-curricular themes to be good but that their attitudes
toward them needed improvement (Lipponen, 2012). Teachers think that cross-curricular
 IMPORTANCE OF TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY SKILLS 397

Table 1
Comparison of Twenty-first Century Skills Frameworks

Finnish National
Assessment and A Partnership for 21st OECD Curriculum 2004
Teaching for 21st Century Skills Cross-curricular themes C
Century Skills P21Skills DeSeCo and working methods W

Ways of thinking
Creativity and Creativity and Information as a product: Human growth (C)
innovation innovation Restructuring and modelling Skills for thinking, learning,
Critical thinking, Critical thinking, of information and and problem solving (W)
problem solving, problem solving developing of own ideas
decision making (knowledge)
Learning to learn,
meta-cognition

Ways of working
Communication Communication Effective communication: Work skills (W)
Collaboration Collaboration Collaboration and virtual Social skills (W)
(teamwork) interaction Active participation (W)

Tools for working

Information literacy Information literacy, Information as a source: Media skills and
ICT literacy media literacy Searching, evaluating, and communication (W)
ICT literacy organizing information Human technology(W)
ICT literacy (W)

Living in the world

Global and local Flexibility and Ethics and social impact Cultural identity and global
citizenship adaptability dimension of awareness (C)
Life and career Initiative and self- communication: Participatory citizenship and
Cultural awareness direction Social responsibility entrepreneurship (C)
and social Social and cross- Social impact Responsibility for the
responsibility cultural skills environment, well-being,
Productivity and and a sustainable future (C)
accountability Safety and traffic (C)
Leadership and
responsibility

themes do not have a clear enough role in the school curriculum and are therefore often absent
from their teaching (Niemi, 2012).

Previous Research and Focus of the Study

Smidt (2011) studied the role of key competences in the context of language studies. He
stressed the DeSeCo key competences as central to all learning, finding that basic skills such
as reading, calculating, and expressing oneself were also relevant. Nevertheless, there is not
much research available on students themselves valuing or ranking the twenty-first century
skills or any other list of skills presented to them. In a study by Gillmore (1998), 3,000
398 AHONEN AND KINNUNEN

graduates of the University of Washington ranked the importance of the abilities they actually
used in their work five to 10 years after graduation. The top-ranked abilities were (1) defining
and solving problems, (2) locating information needed to help make decisions or solve pro-
blems, (3) working and/or learning independently, (4) speaking effectively, and (5) working
effectively with modern technology, especially computers. Interestingly, as Barth (2009) and
Scardamalia and colleagues (2012) also stress, these skills outranked knowledge and abilities
specific to their field, whatever that happened to be.
Giota (2010) studied Swedish adolescents’ motivation in school, showing that achieve-
ment goals are multidimensional and pupils in school pursue not just a single goal at
any one time but different goals simultaneously. Another study (Laihiala-Kankainen,
Kala-Arvisto, Kraav, & Raschetina, 2010) looked at ninth graders’ values and future goals
in Finland, Russia, and Estonia. It was found that goals related to family (meeting a
person to love, starting a family, having and bringing up children) were rated highest in
importance and were the strongest explanatory factor for the variance between items in the
study. A study by Viljaranta, Nurmi, Aunola, & Salmela-Aro (2009) also suggested that
differences in school achievement in early years led students to value different school
subjects, which then contributed to their planning of future educational trajectories.
Gender differences in relation to education have been a fairly popular topic of research for
decades. In this study, gender differences concern rankings and valuations of the twenty-first
century skills. Here, the gender differences most often have to do with the students’ study per-
formance, motivation, or attitudes toward learning. Based on the previous studies, the girls
typically seem to have better academic skills and higher motivation to learn. In analyzing
PISA data, West (2002) found evidence of a boy culture with patterns of low achievement
in countries as diverse as Brazil, Finland, and Canada. Zimmerman and Martinez-Pons
(1990) examined student differences in self-regulated learning with several variables, includ-
ing gender, on the basis of interviews with students in grades 5, 8, and 11. They discovered that
girls tend to employ self-monitoring, goal-setting, planning, and structuring of their study
environment much more often than do boys. Chyung (2007) stated that female students
improved their self-efficacy significantly more and scored significantly higher on the final
exam than male students. Also, school culture and curriculum have been studied and judged
variously to both favor (Skelton, 2001) and work against (Gentry, Gable, & Rizza, 2002) boys.
In the present study, the aim is to take account of students’ own opinions about the impor-
tance of the skills they need for the future, how they appreciate and value twenty-first century
skills, and what they describe as being the most important skills and competences they have
learned so far. The study focuses on the following research questions:
(1) What kinds of skills do students anticipate they will need in the year 2020?
(2) How do students rank and value the importance of twenty-first century skills?
(3) What skills and things in general do the students describe as being the most impor-
tant they have learned so far?
(4) What kind of gender differences are there?

Methodology
Procedures
This study was conducted in collaboration with the Cicero Learning Center of the Uni-
versity of Helsinki and the Finnish Institute for Educational Research and Agora Center at
 IMPORTANCE OF TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY SKILLS 399

the University of Jyväskylä. A survey titled “21st Century Learner,” intended to capture stu-
dents’ appreciation of skills and competences for the future, was conducted at the end of
2010. The questionnaire was reviewed in an expert panel and the platform for the research
and particular items were pilot-tested prior to the actual study, where 34 students from
grades 7 to 9 answered the questionnaire. The research platform and questions worked
mainly as expected, and the pilot study revealed only minor mistakes, which were corrected
prior to the study. The students used school computers during school time to answer ques-
tions in an electronic survey. This article presents the results of three items in the question-
naire, namely: what skills the students thought they would need in the year 2020, which of the
twenty-first century skills the students valued most, and which skills already learned they
considered to be the most important. The survey tool infrastructure was provided by Fountain
Park, based in Helsinki, Finland.

Sample
The schools were selected from among schools that participate in research and develop-
ment projects, run by named research institutes, during the school year. A link to the online
survey was sent to 23 schools and a preselected sample of responses of 718 students from
grades 5 to 9, aged from 11 to 15 years, was collected in 17 schools during November
and December 2010. There were 361 girls and 357 boys, of whom 175 were in grades 5
and 6 and 543 in grades 7 to 9. Background information was limited to the variables of
class, gender, and school.

Measurements
The first item presented a question: “Think about moving to the year 2020. What kinds of
skills do you think you will need in your life then?” The respondents were supposed to type a
list of skills in text fields of 60 characters and they were also encouraged to explain their
answer in a space of 150 characters. The idea of this question was to get a first-hand
picture of students’ own ideas regarding the spectrum of skills they anticipated would be
needed in the relatively near future, say in 2020.
Next, the intention was to find out how students value and rank the twenty-first century
skills presented to them. A list of skills for evaluation by participants in the study was drawn
from existing frameworks (Table 2). This list included all the skills from the ATC21S frame-
work (Binkley et al., 2012), presented one skill at a time. Two further skills, namely, inde-
pendent initiative and ecological awareness, were added, based on a curriculum and
theoretical review of the twenty-first century skills frameworks. Each skill was followed
by a short explanatory text. The question relating to “Important skills now and in the
future” consisted of a screen showing a dartboard and 14 different skills, as illustrated in
Table 2, with short explanations at the side (Figure 1).
On the screen, the students were prompted to drag and drop one skill at a time on to the
dartboard at a location that reflected their rating of its importance: the more important, the
closer to the center. When the text was dragged on to the board, a circle with a + sign and
a number showing the value appeared in the cursor. The values set on the dartboard varied
from 45% at the outer edge of the ring, numbered 1, to 100% at the center, numbered 10.
The skills placed outside the dartboard received values from 44%, at just outside the dart-
board, to 1%, at the edge of the square platform. The skills that were not moved at all did
400 AHONEN AND KINNUNEN

Table 2
The list of Twenty-first Century Skills and their Explanations in the Dartboard Task

Skill Explanation

Collaboration
Problem solving
Creativity
Communication
Critical thinking
Information literacy
Technical proficiency
Citizenship
Independent initiative
Work skills
Cultural awareness
Social responsibility
Learning skills and lifelong
learning
Ecological awareness
Ability to work together with others in different groups striving for a common goal
Ability to perform tasks and solve problems by reasoning and bringing together
prior knowledge and experience in new ways
Ability to think differently and create new objects, ideas, and methods
Ability to express oneself clearly and to listen to others
Ability to assess and relate received information by using one’s own critical
faculties
Ability to receive, utilize, and apply information from diverse media sources
Ability to utilize and apply technology and ICT in various everyday life situations
Ability to participate in society and awareness of the political systems of decision
making, in local, national, and global contexts
Ability to control one’s own everyday life and plan the future
Ability to act flexibly in different work situations and work patterns and to plan
one’s own career
Knowledge of one’s cultural background and ability to respect and adapt to other
cultures
Knowledge of one’s responsibility toward other people and ability to consider and
treat them as equals
Knowledge of different ways of learning and ability to work independently;
Recognizing one’s strengths and weaknesses and understanding the process of
lifelong learning
Acting responsibly towards nature and the environment

not receive a value and were omitted from the calculation of averages. Each number on the
dartboard represented 5.5 percentage points, meaning that placing the cursor on the ring num-
bered 9 indicated values between 88.5 and 94%, whereas the area marked 10 indicated values
from 94.5 to 100%.
The third item focused on the skills or competences the students themselves described as
being the most important they had learned, either in school or in their free time. The students
were asked to think about skills in general, not just school subjects. The question, “In your
own opinion, what are the most important things you have learned so far, either in school or in
your free time?” was open-ended, allowing students to write their responses freely.

Analysis
The data from the first question consisted of students’ lists of the skills they would need in
the year 2020. Qualitative content analyses were conducted on the first and third items. The
categories were first established by two independent reviewers on the basis of several rounds
of reading. Next, the researchers met and merged their categories and set common selection
criteria. After that, the data were reread independently by the two researchers and the group-
ing was verified. Finally, the responses were organized into thematic groups according to
their content and the grouping was triangulated against available data and related theory.
 IMPORTANCE OF TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY SKILLS 401

Figure 1. A screenshot of the question “Important skills now and in the future”.
Source: Fountain Park (www.fountainpark.fi/en)

The responses were then merged into an Excel spreadsheet and the percentages for each
group calculated. The counts for the grouped responses were then cross-tabulated with
their respective percentages and illustrated in a graph.
The data from the dartboard questions could be interpreted and analyzed according to the
placing of each skill on the board. The majority of the responses for the skill of collaboration
(Figure 2) were placed within the ring numbered 7; very few students placed it on the lower-
numbered rings or outside the dartboard. Hence, this skill scored the highest mean value of all
skills, 87%. By way of comparison, the skill of cultural awareness received the lowest
ranking, an average 75%, with higher standard deviation (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Images showing responses for the skills “collaboration,” on the left, and “cultural
awareness,” on the right. Source: Fountain Park (www.fountainpark.fi/en)
402 AHONEN AND KINNUNEN

The responses to the dartboard questions were analyzed statistically, based on the
placing of each skill by the students. The analyses remain on a descriptive level. The
average percentage of the scorings based on the placing of skills and the standard deviation
(SD) of all responses for each skill were calculated. The results were also examined by
gender. The scored skills were divided into four blocks according to their respective
averages and SD.

Results
Skills Needed in 2020
We first present the results for students’ anticipation of skills they will need in the year
2020. As the students could give multiple responses, we received a total of 743 responses,
comprising 1,017 separate mentions of skills. The responses were received in equal
numbers from the 371 boys and 372 girls, but, as can be seen in Figure 1, the girls listed
more skills overall in their responses. The responses were exported into Excel, analyzed
qualitatively, and grouped into thematic groups formed according to the content analysis
and based on their relevance to the theme. The thematic groups and their percentages for
girls and boys are presented in Figure 3. As the results show, the students most commonly
believed they would need technical skills in the year 2020, as 18% of the mentions were
related to technology. The responses related to technical skills came evenly from boys (94
mentions) and girls (90 mentions). Generally, the students believed that technical develop-
ment will continue to increase the amount of technology in their everyday life. The technical

Figure 3. The skills the students anticipated they would need in the year 2020.
 IMPORTANCE OF TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY SKILLS 403

skills they mentioned consisted mainly of ICT skills, general technical skills and ability to use
technical equipment. Below is an example of a listed skill and its explanation:

ICT skills, media literacy

It is necessary to know ICT, because many everyday life tasks will be placed on the web.
It is also important to read information critically. (Girl, grades 7–9)

Second place in the overall frequency of mentions was occupied by social skills, with a
share of 15% of the responses, for which girls accounted for 11.4%, while only 30 (3.7%) of
the total 184 mentions came from boys. This thematic group included collaboration, team
work, interpersonal skills, interaction, and interpersonal communication. The need for
social skills was often explained by the increasing amount of group work that was likely
to be the norm in the future and the need to get along with people, as can be seen in the
example below:

Social skills

I need social skills to be able to get along with all kinds of people, including the “not so
nice ones.” (Girl, grades 7–9)

This was followed by reading and mathematics grouped together, with a share of 13%.
This group included all the mentions associated with numeric skills and mathematics,
along with reading, writing, and speaking the mother tongue. According to our interpretation,
the students often mentioned these as basic skills that enabled other activities. The responses
came fairly evenly from boys (5.2%) and girls (7.8%):

I need literacy and math the most, also physical education.

Math is really important, because calculation is needed in almost every profession as well
as literacy. Physical education is also important. (Boy, grades 5–6)

The next three groups, each with a 9% share, were domestic and household skills, other
school subjects, and foreign languages. Responses regarding other school subjects include
mentions of all such subjects besides mathematics and mother tongue and came most
often from boys (5.1%). Domestic and household skills were mentioned more often by
girls and were deemed likely to be necessary when, in the future, they had a household of
their own. Foreign languages were also mentioned mostly by girls, English being the
language specified most frequently:

Home economics

I need these household skills in my everyday life, paying bills, cleaning, cooking, etc.
(Boy, grades 7–9)

I need math, history, physical education and geography.

404 AHONEN AND KINNUNEN

I need math if I become an engineer and history if I become an archaeologist and physical
education if I need to stay in good shape or if I become a Phys Ed teacher. Geography is
needed when I travel around the world. (Boy, grades 5–6)

Foreign languages

I need foreign languages. If I travel abroad, I cannot speak Finnish there. Or if I move or
get work abroad, I will need several foreign languages. Also in my home country I might
need several other languages. (Girl, grades 7–9)

A small group of responses (16 mentions, or 1.6%) named “other 21st century skills,”
including, for example, creativity, reasoning, or working skills. However, a large number
of responses fell into the “others” (106 mentions), “don’t know” (42 mentions), and
“nothing” (24 mentions) groups. These represented 18% of the responses altogether, and
are not shown in Figure 3, which presents the actual counts.

Ranking of Importance
Table 3 presents the average percentage rankings for boys (n = 283), girls (n = 279), and
overall (N = 562). The right-hand side of the table presents the results converted into a score
on the board, illustrating the importance of the particular skill. Overall, the skill of collabor-
ation was valued the highest, with a mean of 87%, representing an average score of 8.6 on the
dartboard. When each ring on the board covers 5.5% of the whole rating scale and the rating
94.5% corresponds to a placement at the edge, at number 10, the average score is calculated
by subtracting the overall percentage from 94.5, dividing the result by 5.5, and then subtract-
ing the result from the top score number 10. The formula for calculating from 87% is then:

Table 3
Overall Ratings of the Skills

Rating (%) SD Rating (%) SD Rating SD Overall average

Skill mean boys Boys mean girls girls (%) all All score on the board

Collaboration 84 18 89 10 87 14 8.6
Independent initiative 84 15 86 12 85 13 8.3
Work skills 84 14 86 12 85 13 8.3
Learning skills and 81 17 83 13 82 15 7.7
lifelong learning
Technical proficiency 85 17 79 16 82 17 7.7
Creativity 81 16 82 12 81 14 7.6
Social responsibility 78 16 84 13 81 15 7.6
Problem solving 81 17 81 13 81 15 7.6
Communication 77 18 84 11 80 15 7.4
Ecological awareness 76 20 81 15 78 18 7.0
Critical thinking 79 16 78 12 78 14 7.0
Citizenship 77 17 78 12 77 15 6.8
Information literacy 77 16 76 13 76 15 6.6
Cultural awareness 75 18 76 13 75 16 6.5
 IMPORTANCE OF TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY SKILLS 405

10 – ((94.5 – 87)/5.5) = 8.6. Independent initiative and work skills were ranked next, at 85%
overall, and were among the top four for both genders, at 84% or more. The boys ranked
technical literacy to be the most important skill, at 85%, whereas the girls ranked it
second-lowest, at 78%, with the highest SD. Overall, the lowest ranking was given to cultural
awareness, at 75%, equivalent to an average score of 6.5.
Figures 4 and 5 show a combination of the importance ratings and SD for each skill, sep-
arately for boys and girls. The girls gave higher scores than boys to all skills except for tech-
nical proficiency and information literacy. The girls’ ratings of most of the skills also showed
lower SD, varying from 10 to 13% in all other skills except technical proficiency. The SD of
boys’ responses varied from 14% in work skills to 20% in ecological awareness. Figures 4
and 5 show the SD and ranking of the skills when interpreted together. The girls commonly
thought that collaboration, independent initiative, and communication were the most impor-
tant skills. In the main, they accorded lowest ratings to critical thinking and citizenship, but
information literacy and cultural awareness attained lower ratings of 76%, with only a slightly
higher SD of 13%.
The boys agreed that independent initiative, work skills, and creativity were the most
important competences. Technical proficiency received the highest rating of 85%, but also
showed a higher SD of 17%; similarly, collaboration got a rating of 84% with a SD of
18%. The boys mostly agreed that information literacy and social responsibility were the
least important skills. Cultural awareness was ranked the lowest overall, but showed the
highest SD, along with ecological awareness. An interesting difference compared with the
girls is that the boys placed social responsibility in the lower block of importance, at 78%,
whereas girls placed it at the top of the higher block, giving it importance of 84%.
The students were also asked to freely describe the most important things they had
learned in life, either at school or in their free time (Figure 6). We received answers from
564 students, of whom 293 were girls and 271 boys. The students mentioned 898 separate

Figure 4. The ratings of importance and standard deviation for the skills ranked by the girls.
406 AHONEN AND KINNUNEN

Figure 5. The ratings of importance and standard deviation of skills ranked by the boys.

things, of which 28 were nonsense or unidentified and were removed from the analysis.
Social skills received the largest number of mentions, 221, representing 24% of all the
things students thought to be the most important they had learned so far. The thematic
group of social skills consisted of such things as collaboration and interaction with people,
and respect, understanding, and tolerance for others. The students stated they had learned
the social skills and collaboration both at school and in their free time. Below is a typical
example of a response in the social skills category:

Social skills, such as getting along with other people. I have also gained self-confidence
from my hobbies and the presentations I have given in class, etc. (Girl, grades 7–9)

Responses referring to specific school-based subjects such as mathematics, literacy, and

foreign languages were the next in frequency, receiving shares of 19, 16, and 12%,
respectively:

Math. It is needed in every profession, at least to some extent. (Girl, grades 7–9)

At school I have learned basics about math, literacy, history and have learned to work
together with other people. In my free time, I have learned to appreciate small things
and to be polite to other people. (Girl, grades 7–9)

Social skills, reading and speaking English. (Boy, grades 7–9)

There was a big gap between this group and the next set of responses, which included ICT
skills and physical activity skills, each having a share of 6%. These were followed by a
 IMPORTANCE OF TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY SKILLS 407

Figure 6. The most important skills learned.

category described as “all things,” in which students rated everything as equally important.
Other school subjects such as history, physical education or arts and crafts formed one
category, as well as domestic skills such as housekeeping, which all received a 3% share
of the total mentions. The responses “I don’t know” or “nothing” accounted for 3% of all
mentions.
The answers students gave in their free responses did not cover many of the twenty-first
century skills listed in the ranking question. In our analysis, the aim was to produce an intui-
tive grouping of skills, rather than groups based on any existing framework. Therefore, only
the groups of social skills and ICT skills can be considered to belong to the twenty-first
century skills frameworks. The responses were rather short and diverse, but they fitted com-
fortably into the themed groupings presented, and interpretation was in most cases
straightforward.

Discussion
When students were able to express their views freely, the two most commonly mentioned
skills that they thought they would need in the year 2020 were actually included in the existing
twenty-first century skills frameworks. Technical proficiency, especially ICT skills and an
ability to use electronic equipment, was seen most often as necessary in future. The second
set of skills was social skills, which are found in all the frameworks in various formats.
Third in this ranking came numeracy and literacy, which were seen as basic skills for most
activities in the knowledge society. Based on these results, it can be argued that students actu-
ally do find twenty-first century skills to be relevant for their future life.
Another central finding of this study is that, overall, students ranked collaboration the
highest among the 14 listed twenty-first century skills. In addition, a quarter of the students
mentioned social skills as the most important things they had learned in life so far. Collab-
oration was described in this study as “an ability to work together with others in different
groups striving for a common goal.” We can assume that the term “collaboration”
408 AHONEN AND KINNUNEN

(“yhteistyö” in Finnish) is well known to the students, as it is commonly used and the impor-
tance of it is stressed also in schools. In the students’ free responses, they described “social
skills” as the most important thing they had learned so far. This result was somewhat surpris-
ing, because in this kind of context students usually tend to cite certain traditional subjects
they (are taught to) consider most important. In Finland, these are mathematics, the
mother tongue, and a foreign language (typically English) (Jakku-Sihvonen & Komulainen,
2004; Laukkanen & Lauriala, 2010).
Even though Finnish students attained good results in recent international comparisons on
literacy and numeracy based on TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science
Study) and PIRLS (Progress in International Reading and Literacy Study), their attitudes
and motivation toward learning were among the weakest of the 50 participating countries
(Kupari, Sulkunen, Vettenranta, & Nissinen, 2012). The researchers argued that there is a
need for change in our school pedagogy and that students’ intrinsic motivation for learning
should play a central role in planning any teaching and learning activities, both in and outside
the classroom (Kupari et al., 2012).
Critical thinking, creativity, and even information literacy are not skills unique or specific
to this century; they have been important human skills for thousands of years (Rotherham &
Willingham, 2009). What is actually new is the extent to which changes in the global and
national economy mean that collective and individual success depends on having such
twenty-first century skills (Rotherham & Willingham, 2009). Moreover, it is well known
that these skills are not separate from content but are always connected with subject matter
(Silva, 2009). This raises the question about the school’s role in students’ learning of these
skills. Indubitably, we know much less about how to teach collaboration, creativity, and inno-
vation than about how to teach mathematics or languages, for instance.
There is an ongoing reform of the national core curriculum in Finland. The draft version
of the core curriculum for the year 2016 moves firmly toward greater involvement of twenty-
first century skills, as most of the skills listed in the frameworks described above are to be
covered in the new core curriculum. For example, the skill of “multiliteracy” covers many
different types of literacy: reading, writing, mathematical literacy, visual literacy, media lit-
eracy, and digital literacy (OPS 2016, 2013). How can such ideas be embedded in school
culture and pedagogical practices? To date, the problem has been that teachers in Finland
and elsewhere have few tools and models available for this purpose. Along with a complete
instructional programme, successful inculcation of twenty-first century skills in schools
requires new assessments that can accurately measure richer learning and the accomplish-
ment of more complex tasks (Gordon et al., 2009; Pepper, 2011; Rotherham & Willingham,
2009). If schools are able to provide more meaningful learning, the twenty-first century skills
will become central (see Smidt, 2011). International student assessments such as PISA 2015
are transferring into a computer-based format, which allows assessment of more complex
skills, such as collaborative problem solving. This may have an impact also on teaching
and learning at school.

Limitations of This Study

This study has certain limitations. The limited background information on the respon-
dents did not allow any further analysis of their socioeconomic or urban/rural status. As
the data were collected from a preselected or a so-called purposive sample, the schools
and students were not selected randomly, and the data cannot therefore be taken as a
 IMPORTANCE OF TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY SKILLS 409

representative sample of the student population in Finland. Usually, construct validity refers
to multiple measurements with existing and valid measurements of the same concept
(Cook & Campbell, 1979; Dane, 1990). In this case, previous measurements are lacking,
but we can rely on coherent theory and accurate concepts behind the study and design of
the measurement tool (see Binkley et al., 2012). The statistical analyses remained on a
descriptive and exploratory level and the form of the data does not allow for more advanced
statistical techniques. Therefore, further data should be collected and sound statistical
methods used in order to obtain better understanding of students’ appreciation of twenty-
first century skills.

Conclusion
In the present study, the students’ responses reflected a high regard for school subjects:
math and literacy skills were among the top three most important things learned. However, an
interesting finding is that students appreciate social skills more than mathematics and literacy.
While further research is needed to confirm possible changes in attitudes over time, the top
rankings now given to social skills and collaboration are a remarkable finding and a clear
indication of this direction. In their responses, students noted that they had learned social
skills often related to school. On the other hand, observation of practice in schools suggests
that we tend to talk about collaboration more than actually practice it (Norrena, 2013). Social
skills are most likely learned also in extracurricular and informal activities during the school
day.
The girls gave the highest rating to collaboration, with an average score of 8.6 on the scale
from 1 to 10. Boys put it at fourth place, with an average score of 8.3. Differences between
boys and girls were greatest in rankings of skills of technical proficiency and social respon-
sibility. The girls ranked technical proficiency as the ninth most important skill, whereas
boys put it right at the top. Conversely, while girls ranked social responsibility in fourth
place on the scale, boys ranked it ninth. It is possible that this result reflects the traditional
values of our society. In Finland, nurses are still predominantly female and engineers
male, and, according to the responses from this study, this will continue to be the case for
some time into the future.
The organizations behind the twenty-first century skills frameworks do not actually rank
or prioritize the skills that they propose. This is left to educational policy and decision
makers. It is interesting to speculate whether the deeper voices of society are reflected in
the student ratings for the skills. If cultural awareness is rated lowest, this perhaps echoes
the general lack of value accorded to cultural issues in our society. Further, citizenship
was ranked among the least important skills. The results of the International Civic and Citi-
zenship Education Study (ICCS 2009) showed Finnish students to have below-average inter-
est in civic and citizenship issues (Suoninen, Kupari, & Törmäkangas, 2010). This was
despite the fact that the students scored the highest points for their societal knowledge. It
appears that a high level of knowledge does not guarantee great interest in or a positive atti-
tude toward the subject. However, according to the present study, students do appreciate
twenty-first century skills and recognize their importance for their future life. In particular,
they value social skills, collaboration, and related activities. Introducing twenty-first
century skills more widely in pedagogical practices and evaluation could result in more
appreciation for schooling and raise motivation for learning.
410 AHONEN AND KINNUNEN

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