Chart 1. Household penetration of various ICTs, Canada, 1990 to 2003
Sources: Internet use data (1997-2003): Statistics Canada, Household Internet Use Survey, CANSIM Table 358-0003;
all other ICT data (1990-1996): Statistics Canada, Household Facilities and Equipment, Cat. No. 64-202-XPB (discontinued); all other ICT data (1997-2003): Statistics Canada, Survey of Household Spending, CANSIM Table 203-0020.
Notes:
Data for computer access in 1997 and 1998 have been adjusted to conform to the revised estimation method implemented by the Survey of Household Spending beginning with 1999 data. For this reason, the 1997 and 1998 data do not match Statistics Canada’s originally-released data. Furthermore, 1997 and 1998 data for computer communications include banking by telephone, business use of the Internet and wide area network, whereas 1999 data refer strictly to the use of the Internet. Personal computer data for 1990-1996 exclude video game systems or computers used solely for business use. In 1998, 1999, and every second year thereafter starting with 2001, personal computer statistics include the territories. For the other years, Canada-level statistics include the 10 provinces only. 1996 cellular telephone data exclude cellular phones provided by employers. The 2003 computer and Internet access rates reported elsewhere in this report are taken from the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALL), and differ from the estimates provided here by the Survey of Household Spending (SHS) and the Household Internet Use Survey (HIUS). The SHS and HIUS figures measure household penetration, while the ALL figures measure individual use and include laptop computers brought home from work (for ICT penetration and growth over a longer time period, see Sciadas (2002)).
The primary data source for this paper is the 2003 Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALL), an international project coordinated by Statistics Canada and the Educational Testing Service (ETS) in collaboration with the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) of the United States Department of Education, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). The participating countries included Canada, Bermuda, Italy, Norway, Switzerland and the United States. The target population was individuals aged 16 to 65 years. ALL was built on the literacy assessment model developed for the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS), first conducted in 1994.4 The primary objective of the 2003 ALL survey was to measure literacy across several domains (prose and document literacy, numeracy and problem-solving), but it also included for the first time an ICT module in recognition of the important role of ICTs in the knowledge society (Kirsch and Lennon 2005). The ICT module captured basic information about the respondents’ ICT connectivity, but also asked respondents about their purposes of ICT use, and perceptions and attitudes toward ICTs. In addition to profiling respondents’ use of ICTs, this study examines the relationship between ICT use and literacy skills, both of which are measured in this unique survey source.
Internationally, the survey source is named the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALL), while the Canadian component is termed the International Adult Literacy and Skills Survey (IALSS). For the sake of clarity, and because of the use of international data, this paper will only use the international name (ALL) when referring to the source.
Other sources used in this study include the following Statistics Canada surveys: General Social Survey, Cycle 14: Access to and use of Information Communication Technology, Household Internet Use Survey, the Survey of Household Spending, and its predecessor, the Household Facilities and Equipment Survey. This study also includes information taken from an international comparative report on ICT and literacy skills based on the ALL survey (see Veenhof, Clermont and Sciadas 2005), as well as a report focusing on Canadian results (see Statistics Canada and Human Resources and Skills Development Canada 2005).
4 . For more information on the 1994 International Adult Literacy Survey, see Jones, Kirsch, Murray and Tuijnman (1995).