The aim of this paper and the presentation is to shed light on different approaches to define and measure economic competencies by modern computer based methods. The presentation focusses on the conceptual difficulties of assessing economic competencies of secondary and vocational school students as well as on challenges of computer based adaptive testing. Previous studies in Germany were primarily related to the construct of “economic literacy” which was according to Soper and Walstad (1987) defined as knowledge, understanding and evaluation of macro- and microeconomic relations and developments. One of the most important results of this pioneering work was the Test of Economic Literacy (TEL) which was also norm-referenced by German speaking countries (Beck & Krumm 1998). Nevertheless, some criticism was being expressed on the underpinning economic concept and the limited perspective of macro- and microeconomic aspects. In our study economic competencies are defined according to Schumann and Eberle (2014) as knowledge and understanding in identifying and evaluating economic concepts in different contexts, and the skills, motivation and attitudes to apply this knowledge and understanding in order to make effective decisions across a range of economic situations in personal and working life and in the society as a responsible citizen. For measuring economic competencies we developed an adaptive test with approximately 300 items describing authentic and more or less complex economic situations in private and working life and in society. The items include different levels of difficulty addressing differentiated cognitive processes and requirements as well as affective and motivational resources. The items will be calibrated with a psychometric model of the item response theory placing persons and items on the same metric (Fischer & Molenaar 1995). We will present first results of the calibration study with approximately 1.200 adolescents. In particular we focus on the dimensions and the level of economic competence.

Beck, K., & Krumm, V. (1998). Wirtschaftskundlicher Bildungs-Test (WBT). Göttingen: Hogrefe. Fischer, G. H. & Molenaar, I.W. (1995). Rasch Models: Foundations, Recent Developments, and Applications. Springer. Schumann, S. & Eberle, F. (2014). Ökonomische Kompetenzen von Lernenden am Ende der Sekundarstufe II. Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft, 17(1), 103-126. doi:10.1007/s11618-013-0459-0. Soper, J.C., & Walstad, W.B. (1987). Test of Economic Literacy. Second Edition. Examiner's Manual. New York.