Getting the text from a drop-down box

Simply You can use jQuery instead of JavaScript

$("#yourdropdownid option:selected").text();

Try This.

This should return the text value of the selected value

var vSkill = document.getElementById('newSkill');

var vSkillText = vSkill.options[vSkill.selectedIndex].innerHTML;

alert(vSkillText);

Props: @Tanerax for reading the question, knowing what was asked and answering it before others figured it out.

Edit: DownModed, cause I actually read a question fully, and answered it, sad world it is.

document.getElementById('newSkill').options[document.getElementById('newSkill').selectedIndex].value

Should work

Based on your example HTML code, here's one way to get the displayed text of the currently selected option:

var skillsSelect = document.getElementById("newSkill");
var selectedText = skillsSelect.options[skillsSelect.selectedIndex].text;

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