Also, an overarching frame of reference allows to make more explicit what is actually being measured and what is not and thus counters the risk of over-interpreting the data and of focusing exclusively on competencies for which reliable measures currently exist. It is important not to detract attention, and resources, for education and training from competencies and cognitive skills that are critical in professional and everyday life, but for which to date no adequate methodology for large-scale assessments exist.

For instance, the ALL consortium invested much in the construction of a framework for teamwork (Baker, Horvath, Campion, Offermann, and Salas, 1999) and the development and testing of internationally comparable measures. This effort resulted in the recognition that measuring teamwork reliably would imply observation of individuals interacting in teams, and thus calling for new assessment methodologies (see Murray, 2003, p. 148-149). Thus, the fact that to date, at the international level, it is not possible to provide reliable measures of teamwork does not mean that this key competence is not important in different contexts. In fact, there is a broad consensus on the importance of the ability to cooperate, or work together for common purposes, as many of today's demands cannot be met by one individual alone, but requires individuals to join and function in groups. DeSeCo underpins the importance of key competencies in this domain.

7.3 ALL provides relevant information for the category of using tools

DeSeCo's findings confirm that what IALS and ALL set out to measure - prose literacy, document literacy, numeracy, the analytic reasoning dimension of problem solving, teamwork, information and communication technology literacy and practical intelligence - and what was eventually reliably measured - reading literacy, numeracy, and analytical reasoning - capture critical aspects of key competencies. DeSeCo confirms their theoretical relevance to the category of "using tools interactively" and at the same time, places them in a larger context.

Reading literacy and numeracy can be understood as specificities of the key competence "the ability use language, symbols, and texts interactively" belonging to the category "using tools interactively". DeSeCo emphasizes the need to look beyond the technical skills