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Adult Literacy and Lifeskills Survey (ALL)


1. Overview

ADULT LITERACY AND LIFESKILLS SURVEY:
ALL collected:
  • Background assessments
  • Literacy assessments in prose literacy, document literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving domains

The Adult Literacy and Lifeskills Survey (ALL) is an international comparative study designed to provide participating countries, including the United States, with information about the skills of their adult populations ages 16 to 65. The development and management of the study were coordinated by Statistics Canada and the Educational Testing Service (ETS) in collaboration with the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) of the U.S. Department of Education; the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); the Regional Office of Education for Latin America and the Caribbean (OREALC); and the Institute for Statistics (UIS) of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

ALL measured the literacy and numeracy skills of a nationally representative sample from each participating country. On a pilot basis, ALL also measured adults’ problem–solving skills and gathered information on their familiarity with information and communication technology (ICT). ALL builds on the foundation of earlier studies of adult literacy. Chief among these earlier studies is the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS), which was conducted in three phases (1994, 1996, and 1998) in 20 nations, including the United States. The following six countries participated in ALL: Italy, Norway, Switzerland, Bermuda, Canada, and the United States.

The Adult Literacy and Lifeskills Survey (ALL) is an international comparative study designed to provide participating countries, including the United States, with information about the skills of their adult populations ages 16 to 65. The development and management of the study were coordinated by Statistics Canada and the Educational Testing Service (ETS) in collaboration with the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) of the U.S. Department of Education; the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); the Regional Office of Education for Latin America and the Caribbean (OREALC); and the Institute for Statistics (UIS) of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

ALL measured the literacy and numeracy skills of a nationally representative sample from each participating country. On a pilot basis, ALL also measured adults’ problem-solving skills and gathered information on their familiarity with information and communication technology (ICT). ALL builds on the foundation of earlier studies of adult literacy. Chief among these earlier studies is the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS), which was conducted in three phases (1994, 1996, and 1998) in 20 nations, including the United States. The following six countries participated in ALL: Italy, Norway, Switzerland, Bermuda, Canada, and the United States.

Purpose

To (1) profile and compare the literacy skills in adult populations; (2) profile and compare the level and distribution of directly assessed numeracy skills among adult populations in participating countries; (3) profile and compare the level and distribution of problem–solving skills among the adult populations of the countries surveyed; and (4) collect comparable data on participation in formal adult education.

Components

Each ALL country was given a set of model administration manuals and survey instruments as well as guidelines for adapting and translating the survey instruments. ALL instruments consisted of three parts: (1) a background questionnaire, which collected demographic information about respondents; (2) a set of core literacy tasks, which screened out respondents with very limited literacy skills; and (3) a main booklet of literacy tasks, used to calibrate literacy levels.

Background Questionnaire. The background questionnaire collected general participant information (such as sex, age, race/ethnicity, education level, and labor force status) and posed more targeted questions related to literacy practices, familiarity with ICT, education coursetaking, and health.

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Literacy Assessment.
Core literacy tasks. The core literacy tasks were presented to respondents once they had completed the background questionnaire. The booklet for the core literacy tasks contained six simple tasks. Only those who answered at least two of the core tasks correctly were given the full assessment.

Main literacy tasks. The main literacy tasks for the ALL psychometric assessment consisted of tasks in prose literacy, document literacy, numeracy, and problem–solving domains. The assessment included four 30–minute blocks of literacy items (i.e., prose and document literacy), two 30–minute blocks of numeracy items, and two 30–minute blocks of problem–solving items. A four-domain

ALL assessment was implemented in Bermuda, Canada, Italy, Norway, and the French– and German-language regions of Switzerland. The United States and the Italian–language region of Switzerland carried out a three–domain ALL assessment that excluded the problem–solving domain. The blocks of assessment items were organized into 28 task booklets in the case of the four–domain assessment and into 18 task booklets for the three–domain assessment. The assessment blocks were distributed to the task booklets according to a balanced incomplete block (BIB) design whereby each task booklet contained two blocks of items.

Periodicity

ALL was conducted between the fall of 2003 and early spring 2004. In the United States, data collection for the main study took place between January and June 2003.

Data Availability

Information on public-use data files from the ALL can be found by visiting https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/all/data.asp. Information on ALL restricted-use data files is available at https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/licenses.asp.

 

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