Text box C (concluded)
The four domains: Prose and document literacy, numeracy and problem solving
It also implicates basic logical tools needed to provide effective solution strategies to the problems presented in everyday life. These include the ability to order, evaluate and prioritize a series of factors and to discriminate, plan, analyze and reason through a variety of choices in order to arrive at an effective solution to a given problem.
The conceptualization and definitions of the four domains as well as examples of actual test items used in the assessment are presented in Annex B. Readers requiring additional technical information on the psychometric aspects of the study are referred to Statistics Canada (2004).
Like the IALS before it, the 2003 IALSS conceptualizes proficiency along a continuum that denotes how well adults use information to function in society and the economy. The IALSS does not measure the absence of competencies rather it measures knowledge and skills in the four domains along a broad range of ability. Consequently, the results cannot be used to classify population groups as either “ literate” or “illiterate”.
Proficiency in each domain is measured on a continuous scale. Each scale starts at zero and increases to a theoretical maximum of 500 points. Scores along the scale denote the points at which a person with a given level of performance has an 80 percent probability of successfully completing a task at that level of difficulty (see Text Box D).
Useful summary statistics can be derived that describe the competencies of populations such as their overall average score. Populations with similar average scores, however, may have quite different numbers of low or high performing adults. Thus, one can also look at how the scores are distributed within populations by using percentile scores. Percentile scores are the scores below which a specified percentage of adults are found. Thus, for example, the 5th percentile score is the one below which we find 5 percent of adults in a particular population. Differences in percentile scores tell us something about the degree of equality in proficiency across populations.
The IALSS scores are also grouped into proficiency levels representing a set of tasks of increasing difficulty (see Table I.1). For the prose and document literacy domains as well as the numeracy domain, experts have defined five broad levels of difficulty, each corresponding to a similar range of scores. For the problem solving domain, experts have defined four broad levels of difficulty. In each domain, Level 1 denotes the lowest proficiency level and Level 4/5 the highest.
It is important, for analytical as well as operational reasons, to define a “desired level” of competence for coping with the increasing skill demands of the emerging knowledge and information economy. Level 3 performance is generally chosen as a benchmark because in developed countries, performance above Level 2 is generally associated with a number of positive outcomes. These include increased civic participation, increased economic success and independence, and enhanced opportunities for lifelong learning and personal literacy (Kirsch, I., et al., 1993; Murray, T.S. et al., 1997; Tuijnman, A., 2001). Whereas individuals at proficiency Levels 1 and 2 typically have not yet mastered the minimum foundation of literacy needed to attain higher levels of performance (Strucker, J., Yamamoto, K. 2005).