Computer-based assessment (CBA)

The computer-based assessment consists of the following parts, which are all automatically scored:

• Information communication technology (ICT) core: A set of easy basic computer tasks to assess basic functional computer skills necessary to take the main assessment on the computer. 
• Computer-based literacy/numeracy core: A set of short, easy literacy and numeracy tasks to gather information about basic literacy and numeracy cognitive skills of the participants. 
• Computer-based literacy items: The CBA literacy domain consists of 52 items based on the PIAAC definition of literacy. Of these 52 computer-based items, 30 come from IALS/ALL and will serve as linking items to equate results on PIAAC with results from IALS and ALL. The remaining 22 computer-based literacy items were newly created for PIAAC. [Less...]

Literacy items (both CBA and PBA) ask participants to answer questions about texts that are drawn from a broad range of real life settings, including occupational, personal (home and family, health and safety, consumer economics, leisure and recreation), community and citizenship, and education and training contexts. The text may be:

• Continuous texts (such as editorials, news stories, and brochures)
• Non-continuous text (such as job applications, payroll forms, tables, and drug labels)
• Texts containing images 
• Hypertext (computer-based assessment only)
• Text in interactive environments (e.g., message boards and chat rooms - computer-based assessment only)

 
The questions or tasks using these texts are meant to assess three specific cognitive processes:

• Access and identify
• Interpret and integrate
• Evaluate and reflect

Distribution of items by type of text

	Final item set		Framework goal
	Number	Percent	Percent
Print-based texts	30	52	70-80
Digital texts	28	48	20-35
Total	58	100	100
Note: Each category includes continuous, non-continuous and combined texts. Source: Literacy, Numeracy and Problem Solving in Technology-rich Environments: Framework for the OECD Survey of Adult Skills. Paris: OECD, 2012. Page 25.




Distribution of items by contexts

	Final item set		Framework goal
	Number	Percent	Percent
Work	10	17	15
Personal	29	50	40
Community	10	23	30
Education	6	10	15
Total	58	100	100
Source: Literacy, Numeracy and Problem Solving in Technology-rich Environments: Framework for the OECD Survey of Adult Skills. Paris: OECD, 2012. Page 25.




Distribution of items by task aspects

	Final item set		Framework goal
	Number	Percent	Percent
Access and identify	31	53	40
Integrate and interpret	18	31	45
Evaluate and reflect	9	16	15
Total	58	100	100
Source: Literacy, Numeracy and Problem Solving in Technology-rich Environments: Framework for the OECD Survey of Adult Skills. Paris: OECD, 2012. Page 25.




Distribution of items by mode of administration

	Final item set
	Number	Percent
Computer- and paper-based	18	31
Computer-based only	34	59
Paper-based only	6	10
Total	58	100

• Computer-based numeracy items:  The CBA numeracy domain consists of 52 items based on the PIAAC definition of numeracy. Of these 52 computer-based items, 30 come from IALS/ALL and will serve as linking items to equate results on PIAAC with results from IALS and ALL. The remaining 22 computer-based numeracy items were newly created for PIAAC. [More...]
• Problem solving in technology-rich environments (PS-TRE) items: The PS-TRE domain consists of 14 items based on the PIAAC problem solving framework. All of these items were newly created for PIAAC. [More...]