Technical Report And Data File User S Manual For The 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey

The National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) is a household survey conducted periodically by the Department of Education that evaluates the literacy skills of a sample of adults in the United Stages ages 16 and older. NAAL results are used to characterize adults' literacy skills and to inform policy and programmatic decisions. The Committee on Performance Levels for Adult Literacy was convened at the Department's request for assistance in determining a means for booking assessment results that would be useful and understandable for NAAL'S many varied audiences. Through a process detailed in the book, the committee determined that five performance level categories should be used to characterize adults' literacy skills: nonliterate in English, below basic literacy, basic literacy, intermediate literacy, and advanced literacy. This book documents the process the committee used to determine these performance categories, estimates the percentages of adults whose literacy skills fall into each category, recommends ways to communicate about adults' literacy skills based on NAAL, and makes suggestions for ways to improve future assessments of adult literacy.

A collaborative series with the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education highlighting leading-edge research across Teacher Education, International Education Reform and Language Education.

"This set of books represents a detailed compendium of authoritative, research-based entries that define the contemporary state of knowledge on technology"--Provided by publisher.

"This is a genuinely scholarly work ... It is based on [analysis of] the most up-to-date quantitative surveys that we have on adult literacy. These surveys are the gold standard in terms of documenting adult literacy in the United States ...The author analyzes these extensive surveys and puts them into a theoretical context in a way that has not been done before." – Rosemary J. Park, University of Minnesota "I don’t know of any book providing the same information. There is a shortage of literature in this area and the book is an excellent contribution." – Dolores Perin, Teachers College, Columbia University "The contribution of the theory is important – not only to adult literacy but to our understanding of the reading process at nearly every level ... Additionally, the application of multidimensional item response modeling to the new TTR theory offers a tantalizing view of how the predictive validity of a theory might be tested and used to provide practical results." – Larry Mikulecky, Indiana University Very often, individual differences in literacy performance are understood exclusively in terms of the characteristics of the reader. Drawing on a rich array of empirical research, the author presents a detailed and highly integrative new theory of functional literacy. The text-task-respondent (TTR) theory of functional literacy offers improved understanding of how successful performance on everyday literacy tasks involves a dynamic relationship among the text, the task, and the reader. This book will appeal primarily to assessment developers who wish to select tasks and texts of varying difficulty to yield more precise estimates of adult literacy; to researchers who study cognitive, linguistic, and discourse processes; and to teachers who want to find new ways to increase text comprehension among students, including English language learners and struggling readers. The text is appropriate for an advanced course in adult education, discourse analysis, educational measurement, educational psychology, literacy, or linguistics – or as a reference work for those interested in literacy.

Discusses current research on how children learn to read and outlines a seven-step teaching strategy for enhancing all aspects of reading comprehension.

Drawing on the work of internationally acclaimed experts in the field, Handbook of Item Response Theory, Volume 3: Applications presents applications of item response theory to practical testing problems. While item response theory may be known primarily for its advances in theoretical modeling of responses to test items, equal progress has been made in its providing innovative solutions to daily testing problems. This third volume in a three-volume set highlights the major applications. Specifically, this volume covers applications to test item calibration, item analysis, model fit checking, test-score interpretation, optimal test design, adaptive testing, standard setting, and forensic analyses of response data. It describes advances in testing in areas such as large-scale educational assessment, psychological testing, health measurement, and measurement of change. In addition, it extensively reviews computer programs available to run any of the models and applications in Volume One and Three. Features Includes contributions from internationally acclaimed experts with a history of advancing applications of item response theory Provides extensive cross-referencing and common notation across all chapters in this three-volume set Underscores the importance of treating each application in a statistically rigorous way Reviews major computer programs for item response theory analyses and applications. Wim J. van der Linden is a distinguished scientist and director of research and innovation at Pacific Metrics Corporation. Dr. van der Linden is also a professor emeritus of measurement and data analysis at the University of Twente. His research interests include test theory, adaptive testing, optimal test assembly, parameter linking, test equating, and response-time modeling as well as decision theory and its applications to problems of educational decision making.

The 1995 National Household Education Survey (NHES:95) was a random digit dial telephone survey of households developed by the National Center for Education Statistics. The NHES:95 included two topical survey components: the Adult Education component, which collected information about adults' participation in adult education, and the Early Childhood Program Participation (ECPP) component, which collected information about children's participation in nonparental child care and early childhood programs. This manual provides documentation and guidance for users of the public release data file for the ECPP component. Information about the purpose of the study, the data collection instruments, the sample design, and data collection and data processing procedures is provided. Some information about factors that should be kept in mind when using ECPP data is also provided. For the ECPP component, interviews were conducted with parents of 14,064 children, a figure that included 101 home schooled children. Four appendixes present screening and study questionnaires, information about the file layout, the Statistical Analysis System code for derived variables, and the ECPP codebook. (Contains 8 tables, 2 figures, and 23 references.) (SLD)