Setting out why we need self-assessment scales for inner or personal development, and pointing to how we can do that

1. Development
self-assessment
a vital enabler
Simon Grant, for Life Itself Research, 2023-07-07

2. Life-It-self-presentation
“We’re an open community dedicated to the art of wiser living and
social transformation. We favor approaches that prioritize inner
development and cultural change in a rigorous, practical way.”
— from https://lifeitself.org/, right now, emphasis added

3. 1. How do we as individuals recognise and assess our inner development?
2. How do we as a community recognise and assess the inner development of
individuals who are, or wish to be, taking part in our community?
3. How do we as individuals recognise and assess the capacity of a community
to support or contribute to our inner development?
If we can’t answer these, won’t inner development be haphazard?
● Have you ever felt something like a haphazard feeling around learning?
● Can we move together beyond the haphazard to the “rigorous”?
Some big questions for inner development and community

4. Some stimulating ideas to play with — maybe later!
● A human being is an entity that has the capacity to develop moral agency
○ thus, moral agency develops (though “how?” is a good question!)
● Moral agency is a contestable concept with different aspects
○ individual human responsibility
○ social / cultural / community
○ intra-individual? (parts work)
● Individual morality can be highly contextual
● Inner development is multidimensional

5. What are the dimensions of inner development?
Let’s have some audience participation here, please! In particular …
What matters to you, personally, about
● your own inner development?
● someone else’s inner development?
● the ability / capacity of community to support inner development?
Please follow up with me later if you have more ideas!

6. Dimensions from https://www.innerdevelopmentgoals.org/
1. Being — Relationship to Self
2. Thinking — Cognitive Skills
3. Relating — Caring for Others and the World
4. Collaborating — Social Skills
5. Acting — Driving Change
BUT — they have no assessment scales that I’ve seen

7. What is a scale? What does one look like?
To be effective for self-assessment, a scale must be expressed in a way that
individuals can identify with positions on the scale, thus
● without inherent value judgement
● clear and avoiding ambiguity as far as possible
● covering the whole range appropriate to the concerned individuals
A well-known example is the Common European Framework of Reference for
Languages:
https://www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-reference-languages
https://rm.coe.int/CoERMPublicCommonSearchServices/DisplayDCTMContent?documentId=090000168045bb52

8. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages

9. If you have a grid or scale like this you can…
● Self-assess where you are in the various dimensions
● Assess others in a recognisable / relatable way
● Make informed decisions on your own learning goals / objectives
● Find appropriate learning resources and opportunities
○ assuming they rate themselves appropriately (many do for CEFR)
● Find others at a similar level for peer learning etc.
● Clearly state competence requirements for e.g. a job / residency
○ and thus, easily recognise whether your competence will fulfill requirements
○ or maybe if you take a course …

10. If you don’t have a grid like this, then …
(go on, tell me!)
So you want one, for inner development, yes?

11. Here’s where you can help me – with information, leads
● Do you know of any such inner development scales?
● Do you know of anyone trying to develop them?
○ Are the folk at Inner Development Goals really not doing this?
■ because, as I said, I haven’t seen any evidence along those lines
○ How about anyone else?
● Who else would benefit from them?
○ which leads me to …

12. ● Could you (or anyone) spend around an hour or so with me elaborating a
scale for a dimension of inner development that actually matters to you?
○ It can be a really interesting challenge to do this well (see above, slide 8)
○ See more at https://wiki.simongrant.org/doku.php/ch:research_criteria
● This will help us develop a set of criteria for what we call ReGenMatch
○ Help people to find co-living hubs / projects / ecovillages that fit them well
○ Help those projects / places to find suitable participants / members / collaborators
○ Help people get together with others to initiate more of those
● Longer term, reaching out to the wider world I’ve been calling CHOICE
○ encompassing general recruitment and dating
○ but really, enabling people / projects / places to thrive (cf. collective ikigai)
Collaborate? You? Or do you know of anyone likely?

13. Thank you!
Find me at
● asimong@gmail.com
● my static web site
● my current personal wiki
● or many other places as “asimong”
p.s. I rate Personal Construct Theory (George Kelly, 1950s) including the Repertory grid technique
as highly aligned and as a valuable theoretical base.