Author: Irwin S. Kirsch

Publisher:

Published: 1986

Total Pages: 412

ISBN-13:

This document provides the final report of a survey conducted by the 1985 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to assess the literary skills of America's young adults. Chapter I provides the rationale for conducting a study of literacy proficiencies of young adults aged 21 to 25. The purpose and conceptual framework of the research are set against a brief discussion of prior assessment efforts. Chapter II reviews the instrumentation and methodology (focusing on the assessment design), the data collection activities, the scoring and entry of data, and the scaling of the simulation tasks. Major sections of Chapter III deal with the dimensionality of literacy skills, scaling the adult literacy tasks, and describing and anchoring the literacy scales. Chapter IV profiles proficiencies for the total group of young adults assessed on each of three literacy scales. Chapter V compares young adults with in-school populations and describes performance at five levels of reading proficiency. Young adults are characterized in Chapter VI using three variables as a framework--race/ethnicity, parental education, and respondent's education. Chapter VII presents analyses investigating the relationship among demographic characteristics, educational variables, literacy practices and the four literacy outcome measures. The oral-language assessment is described in Chapter VIII. Appendices contain: (1) sampling, weighting, and sample error estimation; (2) scaling and scoring procedures; (3) data; (4) the background and attitude questionnaire; and (5) a list of consultants used to develop and review assessment and exercises. (LMO)