What are the SCANS skills? In 1990 the U.S. Secretary of Labor appointed a Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) to examine the demands of the future workplace. The Commission surveyed businesses, organizations, unions, and more. They found that workplace competency depends on 36 skills "that high-performance workplaces require and that high-performance schools should produce." These skills can be divided into 5 basic competencies that are built on a 3-part foundation.
You are probably learning and practicing SCANS skills every day in your college classes! Many day-to-day classroom activities, such as working in groups, making powerpoint presentations, and organizing and prioritizing study topics, are skills that are valued in most jobs. You can be more effective in both school and in the workplace if you are aware of the skills that you are learning.
Listed below are
Or take a short quiz and find out what SCANS skills you have mastered and are already using!
a. Reading: locates, understands, and interprets written information in prose and in documents such as manuals, graphs, and schedules.
b. Writing: communicates thoughts, ideas, information, and messages in writing; and creates documents such as letters, direction, manuals, reports, graphs, and flow charts.
c. Arithmetic/Mathematics: performs basic computations and approaches practical problems by choosing appropriately from a variety of mathematical techniques.
d. Listening: receives, attends to, interprets, and responds to verbal messages and other cues.
e. Speaking: organizes ideas and communicates orally.
2. Thinking Skills: thinks creatively, makes decisions, solves problems, visualizes, knows how to learn, and reasons.
a. Creative Thinking: generates new ideas
b. Decision Making: specific goals and constraints, generates alternatives, considers risks, and evaluates and chooses best alternative.
c. Problem Solving: recognizes problems and devises and implements plans of action.
d. Seeing things in the Minds Eye: organizes and processes symbols, pictures, objects, and other information.
e. Knowing How to Learn: uses efficient learning techniques to acquire and apply new knowledge and skills.
f. Reasoning: discovers a rule or principle underlying the relationship between two or more objects and applies it when solving a problem.
3. Personal Qualities: displays responsibility, self-esteem, sociability, self-management, integrity, and honesty.
a. Responsibility: exerts a high level of effort and perseveres towards goal attainment.
b. Self-esteem: believes in own self-worth and maintains a positive view of self.
c. Sociability: demonstrates understanding, friendliness, adaptability, empathy, and politeness in group settings.
d. Self-Management: assess self accurately, sets personal goals, monitors progress, and exhibits self-control.
e. Integrity/ Honesty: chooses ethical courses of action.
The Five Competencies
a. Time: selects goal-relevant activities, ranks them, allocates time, and prepares and follows schedules.
b. Money: uses or prepares budgets, makes forecasts, keeps records, and makes adjustments to meet objectives.
c. Materials and Facilities: acquires, stores, allocates and uses materials or space efficiently.
d. Human Resources: assesses skills and distributes work accordingly, evaluates performance and provides feedback.
a. Participates as a Member of a Team: contributes to group effort
b. Teaches others New Skills
c. Serves Clients/ Customers: works to satisfy customer's expectations
d. Exercises Leadership: communicates ideas to justify position, persuade and convince others, responsibly challenge existing procedures and policies
e. Negotiates: work toward agreements involving exchange of resources, resolves divergent interests.
f. Works with diversity: works with men and women from diverse backgrounds.
a. Acquires and evaluates Information
b. Organizes and Maintains Information
c. Interprets and Communicates Information
d. Uses Computers to Process Information
a. Understands Systems: knows how social, organizational, and technological systems work and operates effectively with them
b. Monitors and Corrects Performance: distinguishes trends, predicts impacts on system operations, diagnoses systems' performance and corrects malfunctions.
c. Improves or Designs Systems: suggests modifications to existing systems and develops new or alternative systems to improve performance.
5. Technology: Works with a variety of technologies.
a. Selects Technology: chooses procedures, tools or equipment including computers and related technologies.
b. Applies Technology to Tasks: understands overall intent and proper procedures for setup and operation of equipment.
c. Maintains and Troubleshoots Equipment: prevents, identifies, or solves problems with equipment, including computers and other technologies.
SCANS Worksheet Directions
Identify 3 SCANS Competencies that you are using at work or at school.
For each worksheet:
1. Describe a specific activity or task.
2. Identify the competency including the sub-categories.
3. Identify the underlying Foundational Skills involved in the competency
4. Describe a similar activity at work or at school (the opposite of what listed first) that uses this competency.
5. Suggest three different tasks from EITHER work or school that might involve this competency in the future. Be VERY SPECIFIC when identifying task or activity.
Example:
SCANS Worksheet
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