Having examined work in both of these fields, the ALL designers identified the need for two related strands of conceptual research and development.

One strand, known as the DeSeCo project, responded to the need to embed the ALL study skill measures within a broader conceptual framework. Such broad conceptual frameworks serve three important purposes:

• they identify the skill domains that should be considered for assessment,
• they identify the non-cognitive dimensions that are associated with competent performance, and
• they help to guard against the over-interpretation of what can be measured with current large scale assessment technology at the expense of what can not yet be measured.

The second strand of work attempted, through a process of formal analysis, to move towards measurement by combining notions of skill embodied in the literature on human intelligence with those derived from the workplace skill literature.

The next section of this report provides a summary of the DeSeCo project and its conclusions. This is followed by an overview of the work that was undertaken to define a more focussed overarching framework to guide the development of valid, reliable, comparable and interpretable measures.

Several general conclusions can be drawn from these two strands of work:

• The perspectives developed in DeSeCo and ALL complement rather than contradict each other
• The skills measured in the IALS study - prose literacy, document literacy and quantitative literacy - were identified as critical elements to be measured in both perspectives
• The ALL study should seek to extend measurement to additional skill domains where sufficient theory and approaches to measurement warranted.
• The instruments employed to assess skill should be sensitive to context and incorporate aspects of the psycho-social prerequisites of competence.