The Negotiation Skills Assessment: Developing and Validating an AI-powered Measure of Negotiation Proficiency

Abstract: This study introduces the Negotiation Skills Assessment (NSA), an innovative framework and tool that integrates traditional assessment techniques with AI-driven negotiation simulations to evaluate core negotiation skills. By leveraging advancements in AI, the NSA addresses persistent challenges in negotiation assessment, such as biases in self-reported evaluations and the overemphasis on objective outcomes. A pilot implementation revealed significant improvements in students’ negotiation skills following a three-day negotiation course, highlighting the effectiveness of the NSA. These findings demonstrate the potential of combining AI technologies with established evaluation methods to develop scalable, accurate, and engaging tools for assessing and enhancing negotiation abilities.

Keywords: negotiation; assessment; AI