Literacy, Occupational Status, and Job Performance

Literacy is Related to Occupational Status . Findings from the World War I data on "intelligence" to the 1993 data on "literacy" in the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) indicate that cognitive ability is related to the occupational status that adults achieve. Data from the Young Adult Literacy Survey of 1986 on the literacy skills of adults and the literacy skills of members of various occupational groups show that about 63 percent of whites, 39 percent of Hispanics but only 20 percent of blacks have literacy scores on prose, document, and quantitative literacy equal to or greater than the average score of Clerical workers. Black college graduates have average literacy scores below the average for Clerical workers. An implication of these findings is that if jobs are changing to demand even higher levels of literacy, as some have argued, then African-Americans may find it increasingly difficult to compete for and enter into higher-skilled, higher-paying occupations. There is clearly a need to better understand the implications of the findings from the various adult literacy surveys, the demands of workplaces for literacy skills, and the success of higher education in preparing all graduates to meet these demands.

Literacy is Related to Job Knowledge and Job Task Performance. Studies by the military relating reading ability to paper-and-pencil job knowledge tests and "hands-on" job-sample tests are summarized in Part II of the Compendium. Findings indicate that reading is related to higher levels of performance on these measures of job proficiency, though the correlations are not large. One study indicates that if workers both have higher reading skills and use them, they may increase their productivity on job sample tests by as much as 15 to 20 percent. No research outside the military services was found that explores relationships among literacy skills and various measures of job proficiency. The data reviewed in the Compendium are now almost a quarter century old.

Part III: Testing of Adult Literacy Development in Education Programs

Judging the effectiveness of educational programs designed to improve the literacy levels of adults is becoming increasingly important in the current accountability and assessment climate. Part III of the Compendium focuses on the assessment of literacy skill development in a wide variety of programs across the nation, including California's federally-funded 321 programs, community college-based programs in Illinois, programs in New York City and a variety of programs in correctional facilities, the Job Corps, job training centers, family literacy programs and others.

Pre- and Post -Test Scores and Gains in Adult Literacy Programs. Viewing across all the programs, the data indicate that adult literacy programs are uniformly successful in increasing adult literacy skills by 0.5 to 1.5 "years" in anywhere from 1 to over 200 hours of instruction. This observed gain is only minimally influenced by the entering level of adult's skills or the hours of instruction between pre- and post-tests.