Interpersonal skills are traits of self and social awareness that a person relies on while communicating with other people in social settings; involving one ability to interact and build relationships with others in social situations. They incorporate both one innate personality traits awareness and how one is aware of how their innate personality influences their behaviours and attitudes to interact with others effectively and considerably.

Thus, to ensure adult learners are able to adapt to the changing economy, it is crucial that they are equipped with interpersonal skills through education and training. Yet there is no common framework for interpersonal skills development in adult education. The language and definitions used to describe these skills often varies, with references to employability, soft, vital, and transferable skills, among others. This results in a lack of clear understanding of what skills adult learners need to succeed in the labour market and poses challenges to measure progress on the development of interpersonal skills in adult education.

With this challenge in mind, this assessment tool aims to allow adult educators to assess their interpersonal skills before taking a part in our training course looking at how the development of interpersonal skills can be integrated in their overall adult education, and thus, be able to consider the learning needs and characteristics of adult learners as well as the social barriers and the cultural differences which often affect the teaching and training process when an adult educator is working with a diverse group of adult learners.