Unveiling secondary student perceptions of the application of 21st century skills in classroom instruction

With the increasing demand for skills needed for the workforce and success in life, teachers are expected to prepare students to steadily confront challenges. In a globalization era, it is imperative to align content, instructional strategies, and assessment with research on effective teaching in the 21st century. However, studies revealed that Lebanese teachers' practices fall short of 21st century standards. Our research investigated students' perceptions of 21st century skills (21CS) and whether they believed 21CS are applied in classroom instruction. A questionnaire adapted from Hixson, Ravitz, and Whisman (2012) was administered to 944 Grade 11 students from 23 Lebanese public schools. Questions addressed teaching practices associated with critical thinking, collaboration, communication, creativity and innovation, self-direction, global connections, and local connections. Statistical analyses including Friedman tests, Wilcoxon Signed-Rank tests, Spearman's rank-order correlation, and repeated measures ANOVA revealed that although significant positive correlations exist among all seven 21CS, classroom teaching neither favored the uniform development of these skills nor encouraged their consistent application across subjects and subject-clusters. Importantly, findings showed that practices associated with creativity, innovation, and global connections were inadequately experienced by students in most subject-disciplines. Recommendations include designing curricula rooted in 21CS and aligned with educational reform initiatives, as well as frameworks for analyzing and assessing the implementation of 21CS skills and their alignment with curriculum standards, teaching, and assessment. We also discuss the value of continuous professional development for in-service and pre-service teachers, while focusing on leveraging technology to ensure effective application of these skills in classrooms and beyond.