Projects on Competencies in the OECD Context - Analysis - DeSeCo

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Definition and Selection of CompetenciesLiteracy scores for countries and subgroups were estimated usingitem response theory (see Empirical Considerations below). In additionto scores ranging from 0 to 500, the survey methodology allowed performanceto be characterized according to five levels, which rangefrom very basic skills to those that require high levels of inference andcomplex reasoning.Literacy Skills for a Knowledge Society is based primarily on the IALSdata collected in 12 countries. The report includes information aboutdistributions of literacy levels for different areas and within thoseareas, for people with different background characteristics, e.g., age,education, and gender; the economic benefits to individuals of literacyskills relative to the benefits of educational attainment and labor forceexperience; the relationship between literacy and characteristics suchas age (net of education) and parent education; literacy practices ofadults; and participation in adult education and training.Discussion and AnalysisSelectionUnlike the CCC project which conducted an exploratory study innew domains for national-level assessment, the IALS grew out of majorassessments of literacy conducted in two countries: Canada’s 1989 Surveyof Literacy Skills Used in Daily Activities and the United States’ 1990National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS). The conceptualization andmethodology for measuring literacy had been developed in the UnitedStates and used for the NALS. In addition, the Canadian survey hadalready successfully demonstrated that a literacy survey could be successfullyimplemented in two languages. From that point, the extensionof these surveys into the international arena reflected aconfluence of interest among a number of key actors.Reasons for interest in conducting an international assessment ofadult literacy varied from personal to political to scientific, dependingon the participating nation or the individual involved. For some, theprimary motivation was to investigate whether the NALS strategy forassessing literacy was feasible across languages and cultures, with newitems developed to reflect the range of reading material in differentcountries. The inclusion of a background questionnaire was also a keyfactor and generated interest among researchers and policymakers.24 ESSI OECD SFSO
Definition and Selection of CompetenciesThe background questionnaire allowed IALS to provide, for the firsttime, cross-national data on adult education and training and the relationof literacy skills to labor market outcomes, such as employmentearnings for workers in different occupations and industries.IALS was also attractive because it provided an opportunity to movethe assessment agenda beyond schools and schooling and beyond standardassessments of curricular-based skills. Its content represents activitiesfrom everyday life and is not organized around school subjects.Furthermore, IALS included the entire population, not just those inschools. This was particularly important for those interested in the skillsof the young population; previous measures of this group were limitedto those in school.Political support was generated because of the existing scientificbase for the study and the potential policy-relevance of the findings inthe context of issues such as unemployment and national competitivenessin the global economy. The pre-existence of a measurement instrumentalong with an established theoretical and conceptual framework(discussed below) created a notion of ease-of-implementation for IALSthat encouraged participation among countries. Although it was notthe driving force behind the study, political motivation in some quarterscame from a more basic interest in utilizing IALS simply to compareliteracy skills across the countries, what has been called “the horserace.” And for some, interest in literacy per se was secondary to thedesire for any comparable data on skills of the adult population, particularlyyoung adults out of school.Funding for the study, which came primarily from Canada, but alsofrom each of the participating countries, involved recognition on thepart of funding agencies that in spite of much rhetoric about the relationshipbetween worker skills and economic outcomes, there wasscant empirical evidence to support the claims. IALS was an opportunityto obtain this data and in the process advance other interests as well.IALS was initiated by the OECD and Statistics Canada, independently ofNetwork A and the CCC project.Definition and ConceptualizationThe definition of literacy adopted by IALS is “the ability to understandand employ printed information in daily activities at home, atSFSO OECD ESSI 25
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Projects on Competencies in the OECD Context - Analysis - DeSeCo

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