March 2009     It turns out that being voted "Most likely to succeed" in high school might actually be a good predictor of one's financial and educational success later in life.

According to a University of Illinois professor who studies the sociology of education, Year 10 students who were rated by their teachers as having good social skills and work habits, and who participated in extracurricular activities in high school, made more money and completed higher levels of education 10 years later than their classmates who had similar standardized test scores but were less socially adroit and participated in fewer extracurricular activities.

Christy Lleras, a professor of human and community development, says that "soft skills" such as sociability, punctuality, conscientiousness and an ability to get along well with others, along with participation in extracurricular activities, are better predictors of earnings and higher educational achievement later in life than having good grades and high standardized test scores.

"That's not to say that academic achievement in high school doesn't matter – it does," Lleras said. "But if we only look at standardized test scores, we're only considering part of the equation for success as an adult in a global marketplace. Academic achievement is part of the story, but it's not the whole story. You've got to have the social skills and work habits to back those achievements up."

With the generational shift from a manufacturing-based economy to a service- and information-based one, employers value workers who can not only boast about their scores, but are also able to get along well with the public and co-workers, Lleras said.

"I think we've known this intuitively for a long time that employers are looking for something beyond cognitive skills," Lleras said. "Leadership now is not an individual thing, it's how well you get along in a team and get people organized."

"There's this pervasive idea that if we just teach and test the basic skills, students are going to do much better in school and in life," she said. "It would be great if we could just snap our fingers and tomorrow everyone could read, write and do math at grade-level. But an obsession with testing and routinized thinking doesn't foster the non-cognitive soft skills that pay off as an adult."

"In addition to testing, what high-performing schools do really well is provide the kinds of opportunities through extracurricular activities, rigorous course work and high-quality teachers that help create good citizens and good workers and foster the kinds of work habits, behaviors and attitudes that we know employers value," she said.

If high-stakes testing is the only remedy for low-performing schools, Lleras said, "then we may fail to help those students develop the soft skills they need to successfully complete higher levels of education and secure a better job in the labor market."

So what can parents take away from her research?

"I think that incentives are very important, particularly for adolescents," Lleras said. "Teens need to see that their efforts in high school matter and will eventually pay off. This gives parents evidence they can use to talk to their kids about the importance of working hard, getting along with others and participating in extracurricular activities."

From a media release by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 25 March 2009

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