If developmental assessments are to have meaning, they must be aligned with curricular objectives. For example, measures of moral or ego development are not, by themselves, an adequate assessment of leadership skills, even though ego development may be an important component of leadership. If a curriculum is intended to develop decision-making skills, assessments should evaluate developmental progress in acquiring decision-making skills. This means that it is essential to understand:

the range of skills required for good decision-making;
the developmental pathways through which decision-making skills optimally develop;
the particular decision-making skills required to perform various job functions; and
effective methods for developing these skills.

We have designed an iterative methodological approach designed to accomplish all of these goals. We call this methodology—represented in the spirals shown above—developmental maieutics. The approach begins with the establishment of a collaborative relationship with our client. This is fundamental because the client has expert knowledge required to design initial curricula or assessments. Guided by the client's needs, and informed by existing research and expert knowledge, we then:

identify the particular skills that characterize the targeted skill domain(s);
based on existing knowledge, describe different developmental levels of each skill;
implement learning activities designed to promote the development of these skills; and
design/implement developmental assessments of these skills.

These developmental assessments are administered to learners before and after students engage in the learning activities, so we can trace development within individual learners and evaluate the effectiveness of the learning activities. The method employed to describe these learning trajectories is represented in the small sub-spiral on the right of the figure. This method is described in detail at lectica.info, and in a variety of publications.

Based on our findings, we then refine the learning activities and assessments designed in steps 3 and 4, above. At this point, our level of understanding of skill development within the selected domain(s) is such that we can implement on-line assessments of these skills. Inevitably, this leads to another iteration in the cycle, as we begin the process of banking what we have learned in our on-line curricular and assessment databases.

Depending upon the amount of work we have already undertaken in a given domain, we can begin working with new clients at various points in the maieutic cycle. For example, we have already learned a great deal about the development of some of the skills required for decision-making, problem-solving, leadership, and moral reasoning. We are therefore prepared to implement on-line assessments of skills within these domains.

The case of the decision making curriculum

One of the most comprehensive and ambitious projects we have undertaken has been the design and evaluation of a developmentally informed decision making curriculum. Our government client came to us with a list of ten decision making texts that had been selected by a group of decision making experts. Our task was to analyze these texts to determine:

their developmental levels; and
the skills their authors identified as part of the decision making domain.

After submitting these texts to a comprehensive analysis of their conceptual content, we identified a skill hierarchy for the domain. The skill map shown below portrays some of the skills of the decision-making domain. The turquoise boxes represent the first level of the decision-making hierarchy—its most general or encompassing level. The yellow boxes (sub-areas) unpack the broad skills represented at the first level, and the blue boxes (regions) elaborate the concepts of the second level.

Decision making graphic

The developmental analysis allowed us to describe three levels for each skill. For example, we described three levels of learning tasks for region 3: public good, in the sub-area, ethical values. Under public good, we included those skills that can be employed to evaluate (1) perceptions of the public good and (2) effects of decisions on the public good.

We urge you to explore the pages of this site as well as those at lectica.info, our public information site. There you will find information about aspects of developmental maieutics and a number of links to academic publications in which we have employed this methodology.