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Literacy, Numeracy and Problem Solving in Technology-Rich Environments - Framework for the OECD Survey of Adult Skills

• A basic level of literacy and numeracy is essential for full participation in modern societies. While very few people in most of the advanced countries could be regarded as illiterate or innumerate, recent studies have shown that there are, in fact, significant numbers of people with poor skills, and that low levels of skills are associated with lower wages and greater chances of unemployment and disengagement from the labour market.

Literacy for Life - Further Results from the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey

• The Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALL) study builds on the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS), the world’s first internationally comparative survey of adult skills undertaken in three rounds of data collection between 1994 and 1998. The foundation skills measured in the ALL survey include prose literacy, document literacy, numeracy,and problem solving. Additional skills assessed indirectly include familiarity with and use of information and communication technologies.This volume presents general findings for the complete group of eleven countries or regions that collected ALL data between 2002 and 2008 in two main waves of collection. Countries that participated in the first wave are: Bermuda, Canada, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, the United States and the Mexican State of Nuevo Leon. The countries that participated in the second wave are: Australia, Hungary, the Netherlands, and New Zealand.

Learning a Living - First Results of the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey

• The fundamental goal of the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALL) is to shed new light on the twin processes of skill gain and loss. This is achieved through measurement of prose and document literacy of adults for a second time in some countries. Further, the study has extended the range of skills measured by adding problem solving, numeracy and information and communication technology (ICT) skill. This allows one to examine the profiles of important foundation skills. Thus the study makes it possible, for the first time, to explore the interrelationships among skill domains as well as their links to major antecedents and outcomes, such as the quantity and quality of initial education and skill’s impact on employability, wages, and health.

Literacy in the Information Age - Final Report of the International Adult Literacy Survey

• The study offers an understanding of the nature and magnitude of literacy issues faced by countries and explores new insights into the factors that influence the development of adult skills in various settings – at home, at work and across countries. The 20 countries represented account for over 50 per cent of the world’s entire gross domestic product. As such, the literacy data can contribute importantly to an understanding of the demand and supply of skills in the global, knowledgebased economy. The results confirm the importance of skills for the effective functioning of labour markets and for the economic success and social advancement of both individuals and societies. They offer policy makers a useful tool for policy analysis and for crafting policies and programmes that can contribute to economic and social progress.

 Ageing and Skills: A Review and Analysis of Skill Gain and Skill Loss Over the Lifespan and Over Time
(EDU Working Paper No.72)

• The relationship between ageing and skills is becoming an important policy issue, not least in the context of population ageing. Data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) will potentially add considerably to the understanding of the relationship between ageing and foundation skills. In particular, the fact that data from the 1994-1998 International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) and the 2003-2007 Adult Literacy and Lifeskills Survey (ALL) will be linked with PIAAC offers a unique opportunity to examine trends over time at the cohort level for a wide range of countries. Specifically, repeated measures will enable an analysis of whether there is skill gain and skill loss over the lifespan of cohorts and overtime between cohorts. This is especially important because age-skill profiles observed on the basis of a single cross-section are difficult to interpret. With this as a backdrop, this paper has sought to provide an overview of what is known about age-skill profiles and to conduct an analysis that demonstrates how trend data based on repeated cross-sectional observations of direct measures of skill at the cohort level can be used to estimate skill gain and skill loss over the lifespan and over time.

An Analysis of Skill Mismatch Using Direct Measures of Skills
(EDU Working Paper No.63)

• The focus of this study is on the potential causes of skill mismatch, the extent of skill mismatch, the sociodemographic make-up of skill mismatch, and the consequences of skill mismatch in terms of earnings as well as employer sponsored adult education/training. A distinction is made between skill mismatch and education mismatch. The analysis is based on the 2003-2007 Adult Literacy and Lifeskills Survey (ALLS) – a dataset similar to the one that is forthcoming from the Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) in 2013. These studies contain direct measures of key foundation skills as well as measures of the use of certain generic skills at work which allow for a direct measure of skill mismatch. The analysis points to the complex ways in which mismatch is generated and the need for an accurate and up to date measure of mismatch, one that reflects the possibilities for skill gain and skill loss over the lifespan, and reflects differences in the quality of qualifications.

Access to Education Over the Working Life in Sweden: Priorities, Institutions and Efficiency
(EDU Working Paper No.62)

• To facilitate individuals to adjust their skills to changes in market demands, Sweden has a relatively generous policy to stimulate formal adult education at the compulsory, upper secondary and tertiary levels. This paper provides an overview of what research has reported to assess if and/or how it may be an efficient use of tax payers’ money. Some institutional factors are also briefly presented to discuss what is likely to be required for such a policy to exist in a particular country.

How Technology Changes Demands for Human Skills       
(EDU Working Paper No.45)

• This paper places the competencies to be measured by the OECD’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) in the context of the technological developments which are reshaping the nature of the workplace and work in the 21st century. The largest technological force currently shaping work is the computer. Computers are faster and less expensive than people in performing some workplace tasks and much weaker than people in performing other tasks. On the basis of an understanding of the kinds of work computers do well, it is possible to describe the work that will remain for people in the future, the skills that work requires and the way that computers can assist people in performing that work. The paper argues that a technology-rich workplace requires foundational skills including numeracy and literacy (both to be tested in PIAAC), advanced problem-solving skills or Expert Thinking (similar to the construct of Problem Solving in Technology-Rich Environments to be tested in PIAAC) and advanced communication skills or Complex Communication (not being tested in PIAAC).

PIAAC Problem Solving in Technology-rich Environments: A Conceptual Framework 
(EDU Working Paper No.36)

• The current paper provides an overview of the conceptual framework developed for the assessment of problem solving in technology-rich environments for the OECD’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). This covers the specific class of problems that people encounter when using information and communication technologies. These include problems where the existence of the problem is a consequence of the availability of new technologies, where the solution requires the use of computer-based applications or where the problem relates to the management or use of information technologies.

PIAAC Numeracy: A Conceptual Framework        
(EDU Working Paper No. 35)

• The current paper provides an overview of the conceptual framework for the assessment of numeracy developed for the OECD’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). This builds on the numeracy framework developed for the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALL). Numeracy is broadly defined and complemented with a definition of ‘numerate behaviour’. Four facets of numerate behaviour are identified and described to guide the development of assessment tasks.

PIAAC Literacy: A Conceptual Framework        
(EDU Working Paper No. 34)

• The current paper provides an overview of the conceptual framework guiding the development of the assessment of literacy in the OECD’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). It builds upon earlier conceptions of literacy from the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) in the 1990s and the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALL) in 2003 and 2006 to facilitate an appropriate assessment of the broad range of literacy skills required for the 21st century. The framework broadens the definition of literacy to make it relevant to the information age, in particular, by including the skills of reading in digital environments.

PIAAC Reading Components: A Conceptual Framework        
(EDU Working Paper No.33)

• The current paper provides a conceptual framework for the assessment of reading component skills in the OECD’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). The assessment of component skills is intended to provide a greater level of information about the skills of individuals with low levels of literacy proficiency than has been available from previous international assessments. The ‘component skills ’identified for the assessment are vocabulary knowledge, sentence processing and passage comprehension.

International Adult Literacy and Basic Skills Surveys in the OECD Region       
(EDU Working Paper No.26)

• Both within and beyond the OECD region, governments and other stakeholders are increasingly interested in the assessments of the skills of their adult populations in order to monitor how well prepared they are for the challenges of the knowledge based society. The current paper provides an overview of the two international assessments of adult literacy which have already taken place in the OECD region – the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) and the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALL) as well as of the forthcoming OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC).  The conceptual framework for the assessments is described with a focus on the links between the different assessments. In addition, the paper provides a survey of the outputs of IALS and ALL including a review of the major themes addressed in the literature which has used data from these surveys as well as a brief discussion of their policy impact.    

Final Report of the Development of an International Adult Learning Module: Recommendations on Methods, Concepts and Questions in International Adult Learning Surveys OECD Education Working Paper No. 21
(EDU Working Paper No.21)

• Policy interest in international surveys on Adult Learning (AL) has increased strongly. AL survey data are used as benchmarks for a country‘s educational system. However, results of key indicators like participation in learning activities often vary remarkably between different data sources. Stating that these differences are due to varying concepts and methods is not enough. The key question is: Which figures represent reality more appropriately? Therefore, evaluation of survey concepts and methods is crucial for international comparison of Adult Learning. This report provides guidelines on methodological and conceptual issues. Part one covers methodological aspects while part two deals with concepts, definitions and example questions. Recommendations are based on input from 14 countries.

 Contributions to the Second DeSeCo Symposium - Definition and Selection of Key Competencies

• What competencies are necessary for individuals to cope with important challenges in the different spheres of life, such as the economic sphere, the political sphere, and family life? Is it possible to identify a finite set of competencies necessary for an overall successful life and a well-functioning society? If so, what is the nature of these competencies? To what extent are key competencies similar across countries and sectors? What are the implications of the concept of key competence for learning and teaching throughout life? And what are the challenges for enhancing and assessing key competencies? These are some of the questions that have served to stimulate the research within the OECD project Definition and Selection of Competencies: Theoretical and Conceptual Foundations (DeSeCo) and the contributions and discussions at the second international DeSeCo Symposium.

Definition and Selection of Competencies: Theoretical and Conceptual Foundations (DeSeCo) - Background paper

• The complexity of the demands generated by an increasingly interdependent, changing and conflictual world places the objectives of education and the strategies to achieve education goals in center stage of the debate on broad educational reform. In line with a growing concern about the adequacy and quality of education and training and the actual return on public educational expenditure, there has been since the mid-1980s an increased policy interest in comparable outcome indicators in the education field. In fact, measuring the quality of education outcomes, estimating economic and social returns to learning, and identifying key determinants to educational success is an ongoing discussion topic that stimulates keen interest around the world.

Draft Strategy Paper: Policy Objectives, Strategic Options and Cost Implications

• There is consensus that competencies (understood as the combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes) are essential to success in a wide range of key outcomes for individuals, firms and society. This section briefly describes two reasons why adult competencies occupy an especially prominent position in today’s policy foreground: the skill-intensity bias in labour demand associated with new technologies and globalisation, and the effects of rapid population aging.

• PIAAC Background Questionnaire
• Background Questionnaire – Conceptual Framework