What is the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy NAAL

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What is the 2003 National Assessment of Adult
Literacy (NAAL)?

• Assessment of English-language literacy among
  adults (age 16 and older) living in the United
  States
• Focus on authentic, everyday tasks that are
  encountered regularly in the lives of adults in
  the United States.
• Given to a nationally representative sample of
  more than 19,000 people

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Definition of literacy

• Literacy is the ability to use printed and
  written information to function in society, to
  achieve ones goals, and to develop ones
  knowledge and potential
• Three literacy areas
• Prose
• Document
• Quantitative

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Prose literacy

• The knowledge and skills needed to perform prose
  tasks, i.e. to search, comprehend, and use
  continuous texts.
• Editorials, news stories, brochures, or
  instructional materials.

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Document literacy

• The knowledge and skills needed to perform
  document tasks, i.e. to search, comprehend, and
  use non-continuous texts in various formats.
• Job applications, payroll forms, schedules,
  maps, or drug or food labels.

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Quantitative literacy

• The knowledge and skills required to perform
  quantitative tasks, i.e. to identify and perform
  computations, either alone or sequentially
  using numbers embedded in printed materials.
• Balancing a checkbook, figuring out a tip,
  completing a form, or determining the amount of
  interest on a loan.

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Who was assessed

• Adults age 16 and older living primarily in
  households
• Nationally representative sample of over 19,000
  adults
• Prison sample of nearly 1,200 inmates
• State samples of adults from six participating
  states MA, OK, KY, MO, NY, MD (an additional
  5,560 adults).
• National results based on combined national,
  prison, and state samples.

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How NAAL is administered

• Conducted one-on-one, in the participants home
  or in the prison
• Each adult takes only a portion of the assessment
• Booklets include questions in all three types of
  literacy
• Questions are open-ended with most requiring
  short written responses
• Nearly half (45 percent) of the 2003 tasks were
  also used in 1992

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Stages of the assessment interview
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Core Screening Questions

• Questions asked in English or Spanish
• Seven easy questions
• Identified those who could not take rest of
  assessment

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Stages of the assessment interview
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Adult Literacy Supplement Assessment (ALSA)

• A special assessment intended to evaluate skills
  of low-literate adults
• Taken by adults who do not pass the core
  screening questions
• Materials are highly familiar and tangible (e.g.,
  cake mix box)
• The questions tap basic reading skills (e.g.,
  Please point to the word water)
• Directions and tasks orally administered in
  English or Spanish

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Accommodating adultswith special needs

• Receive additional time, within reason, to
  complete the assessment
• Allowed to use whatever aids they usually use to
  work with written materials (e.g., a magnifying
  glass)
• Those unable to write (e.g., because of severe
  arthritis) may dictate responses
• Assessment is administered one-on-one in the
  participants home

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Accommodating non-native speakers of English

• Background questionnaire is always administered
  orally in either English or Spanish
• New in 2003
• General instructions and specific questions for
  the core screening tasks can be given in either
  English or Spanish. The general instructions are
  given orally
• ALSA instructions, questions given orally in
  English or Spanish
• Participants with a native language other than
  English or Spanish may attempt the core screening
  tasksand take either ALSA or the main NAAL, if
  they are ableeven if they cannot complete the
  background questionnaire

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How NAAL is scored

• Trained staff seeks evidence that adults can use
  printed materials to accomplish everyday literacy
  tasks
• Writing errors are overlooked as long as the
  overall meaning is correct

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How results are reported

• Reported for adults overall and by
  race/ethnicity, Language spoken before starting
  school, Gender, Age, Educational attainment,
  Employment status
• Reported as
• Average Scores (0-500)
• Performance Levels

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2003 NAAL Performance Levels

• Below Basic, Basic, Intermediate, Proficient
• Below Basic is a default category
• Performance levels are specific to each type of
  literacy prose, document, and quantitative
• Comparisons of the two assessments was made
  possible by re-computing the 1992 scores using
  the 2003 analysis procedures and performance
  levels
• Nonliterate in English category is reported
  separately

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Performance Levels 1992 vs. 2003

• NCES used 5 performance levels to report the 1992
  results
• Level 1 (the lowest of 5 levels) included 21
  percent of American adults
• Some of these adults were successful at
  performing the relatively undemanding Level 1
  tasks others responded to few or none of the
  tasks
• Combining these groups in the same level blurred
  the distinction among adults at the lower end and
  led to confusion
• NCES commissioned the National Academy of
  Sciences to evaluate the 1992 levels
• The Academy evaluated the 1992 levels in an open,
  public, and scientific way and recommended new
  levels

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The Nonliterate in English category
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Original 1992 Literacy Levels
Percentage of Adults in Each 1992 Literacy Level
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Percentage of adults scoring at each performance
level based on reanalysis of the 1992 data
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2003 NAAL Report

• Overall literacy of population for prose,
  document and quantitative literacy
• Results by race/ethnicity, Language spoken before
  starting school, Gender, Age, Educational
  attainment, Employment status
• Changes in prose, document and quantitative
  literacy since the 1992 assessment
• Characteristics of adults with Below Basic
  literacy
• Sample tasks and percentage of adults who
  performed the tasks correctly

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NAAL Sample Questions

• Almost 100 different assessment tasks
• Percentage of adults who responded correctly on
  each question
• http//nces.ed.gov/naal/TestQuestions.asp

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• Thank you.
• http//nces.ed.gov/naal