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Education
America's public schools will be challenged to deliver a 21stcentury education that will prepare all students for success in the new global workplace. New state-of-the-art assessment and accountability systems will be used to measure such learning and progress(American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, White House, 2009). The Global Competence Aptitude Assessment (GCAA)®, recognized by the American Council on Education, is a widely accepted objective measure of these critical skills.
"America's future depends upon our ability to develop a citizen base that is globally competent."
American Council on Education
The need to develop and measure Global Competence begins at the high school level and extends into the post-secondary education years.
Audience
The Global Competence Aptitude Assessment (GCAA)® is the world's most comprehensive measure of student and faculty/staff global preparedness. The audience for the original version of the GCAA® is the continuum of college upperclassmen through individuals already comprising the workforce
The Global Competence Aptitude Assessment - Young Adult (GCAA-YA)® version is based on the original GCAA® and the spirit and intention are preserved wherever appropriate. The
GCAA-YA® may be a better option for a younger audience, such as high school students or students in their first one to two years of college. The context for the GCAA-YA® questions is geared towards situations
young people may encounter; questions have an academic setting, rather than a workplace context. The Assessments are designed to work in concert, so a university freshman can take the GCAA-YA® during his/her first semester, and then complete the original GCAA® during the senior year.
 Education Applications for the GCAA® and the GCAA-YA®
- Measuring student preparedness for the global workforce
- Benchmarking student maturation and achievement
- Identifying areas for curriculum or program improvement
- Assessing learning outcomes, such as pre- and post-education abroad
- Validating international curricula
- Determining educators' knowledge gaps to maximize transfer of learning
“We must not only provide experiences and education designed to develop global competence, we must demonstrate that our efforts are actually effective. The GCAA® is an excellent instrument for providing information about a person's level of global competence because it generates a comprehensive and detailed report on global skills, attitudes and knowledge.”
Dr. Howard Rollins, Professor and Creator of the International Plan, Georgia Institute of Technology
“The GCAA® should be used by every social studies educator, for it empowers and challenges students to not only understand the world, but to be globally competent in an international society.”
Michael Beckett, Social Studies Teacher and Secretary/Faculty Representative, International Model United Nations Association
“Thorough. This assessment has a good variety of real life situations for cross-cultural problem solving.”
Will Phillip, Retired Director of Organizational Advancement, NAFSA: Association of International Educators
“We are in desperate need for such a measure in public education.”
Dr. Bob Hollister, Superintendent, Eastern Lancaster County School District, Pennsylvania, USA
“Excellent questions that call for judgment rather than merely factual knowledge.”
Dr. Lewis G. Jillings, Former Executive Director and Associate Dean for Internationalization, The Pennsylvania State University
“There is plenty of depth to the assessment. I think that it has value beyond those involved with international projects, because it speaks to a mind-set...beyond regional and country boundaries.”
Kim Cahill, Managing Editor, Journal of International Management
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