Abstract: Informed observers generally agree that in addition to up‐to‐date technical knowledge, virtually every field of endeavor in the future will need workers who are proficient in a range of skills. Some of these twenty‐first century skills are time‐honored expected outcomes of higher education such as critical thinking, analytical reasoning, and clarity of thought and expression. Other outcomes have more recently ascended in importance, including curiosity, self‐regulation, conscientiousness, flexibility, and the ability to work effectively with people from diverse backgrounds. Some of these attributes have often been described as ineffable, “soft skills,” or, more recently, dispositional learning attributes.
This article introduces key properties of dispositional learning attributes, explains why high‐impact practices (HIPs) are especially well suited to fostering these outcomes, and puts forward electronic portfolios as an especially promising approach for documenting and deepening these attributes. NILOA's Occasional Paper #32 provides a more comprehensive presentation of these ideas (Kuh et al. 2018).