Working and Learning in a Changing World : Part VI: Literacy and numeracy skills - test design, implementation, scaling and statistical models for proficiency estimation

This report describes the skills tests conducted in the face-to-face (PAPI) interview of the IAB study "Working and Learning in a Changing World" (ALWA). These tests focused on measuring cognitive skills in two domains, prose literacy and numeracy. The major goal of the ALWA study, for which the pilot was conducted in 2006/07 and the main survey in 2007/08, was to provide a database for statistical analyses on the relationships among cognitive competencies, educational credentials, and employment and working lives in longitudinal perspective. In the skills tests measurement constructs and items from both the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS, 1994-1999) and the Adult Literacy and Life Skills survey (ALL, 2003-2008) were used. Scaling methods were modeled as well after those used for IALS and ALL (Yamamoto 1998, Yamamoto & Kirsch 1998). This report has two major goals. First, it describes the design and implementation of the skills tests in the ALWA study. Second, the scaling model used for describing the test results is explained, empirical results of scaling the ALWA skills data are presented, and practical advice how to work with the delivered data (in the form of plausible values and weights) is given to those users how are no specialists in handling IRT (Item Response Theory) models.