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Work Keys
was an innovative response from ACT Inc. to the growning concern
that American workers lack the workplace skills necessay in meeting
the challenges of technological advances, organizational restructuring
and global economic competition. Work Keys is a system for documenting
and improving workplace skills. Currently there are eight skills
identified by ACT. They are Reading For Information, Locating Information,
Writing, Listening, Applied Technology, Applied Mathmatics, Teamwork
and Observation.
Work Keys provides
individuals with relevant, reliable information regarding their
exhisting skill levels and the levels needed to perform the jobs
they want. In addition, the system is designed to effectively serve
business, industry, labor and educational entities. Employers can
use Work Keys to identify skills requirements of jobs. The information
can help them select or futher train their employees. Educators
can use the job skill information to develope appropriate curricula
and instruction that targets the skills and skill-levels needed
in the workplace.
The Work Keys
system is based on a set of measurement scales that can be used
to compare and individual's employability skills to job requirements.
Prior to Work Keys system, no scale exhisted suitable for measuring
both the generalizable employability skills required for specific
jobs and the employability skills an individual achieved. The Work
Keys skills scales describe skill requirements for individualized
jobs using levels of proficiency and make it possible for educators
to determine how to prepare students more completely for the workplace,
and for business-people to determine the qualifications of potential
employees and design job-training programs that will help current
employees meet the demands of their jobs. Work Keys was developed
as a multi-functional system with four interactive components: profiling,
assessment, instructional support and research and reporting.
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