Acquired Skills

The indicator measures the learning benefits of any skills-transfer activities that aim to contribute to strengthening people’s resilience, such as training or demonstrations. Not only can it be used for a single activity (e.g. training), but also for the sum of different skills-transfer activities.

Determine the indicator's value by using the following methodology:

1) Define a limited number (3 - 5) of the most important skills that people should have in order to contribute to strengthening their resilience.

2) Decide the minimum result a person needs to reach in order to pass a test (for example, being able to demonstrate at least 3 out of 4 essential skills correctly).

3) As a next step, prepare observation-based tests (including clear instructions for asking people to demonstrate the skills) that enable the data collectors to decide which of the desired skills the

survey participants have. Avoid having unrealistically high or unnecessarily low requirements by pre-testing the difficulty of the skills people are supposed to demonstrate with at least 10 randomly selected target group members.

4) Administer the test to a representative sample of your target group members by asking the participants to perform each of the tested skills and having the data collectors observe and record whether it was performed correctly.

5) Count the number of participants that reached the minimum required result.

6) To calculate the indicator’s value, divide the number of surveyed participants who have the minimum required skills by the total number of tested participants. Multiply the number by 100 to gain the “success rate” in percentages. For example, 150 participants who passed the test divided by 200 participants who took the test multiplied by 100 equals a 75% success rate. 

For the last step, multiply this “success rate” by the total number of the target group members (e.g. 75% multiplied by 10,000 equals to 7,500 people who have the desired skills).

Disaggregate the results by gender and other important criteria, depending on your project’s context and focus.

1) Always conduct both a “pre-test” and “post-test” – otherwise you will not know the extent to which the respondents changed their skills.

2) Decide whether to measure the direct effect of a one-off activity (e.g. a demonstration) or the effect of a longer learning process (e.g. series of several trainings over a period of time).

3) If possible, conduct the “post-test” twice – once immediately after the “capacity building” activity is completed (showing you the immediate learning) and then 1-2 months later (showing you the skills which people actually remember and might use). However, the tests do not need to relate to a single activity only (e.g. training) – they can be provided during the baseline and endline surveys, assessing the overall change in the target population’s skills.