The Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) is a large international data set designed to assess the key skills adults need to successfully participate in the 21st century society and a global economy. PIAAC is led by the U.S. Department of Education in conjunction with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (http://piaacgateway.com/what-is-piaacupdated/). Among the most widely recognized outcomes of PIAAC are the composite scores assigned to adults participating in the survey to assess proficiency in three key areas thought to be important in an information-rich society – literacy, numeracy, and problem solving in technology-rich environments.

This presentation that is being proposed to the the CIT will provide an overview of the PIAAC dataset and examine the “literacy and numeracy practices and use of skills questions” on the Background Questionnaire in the PIAAC data set to learn more about how adults report using technology and problem-solving skills in the workplace and in their personal lives to inform future strategies to support student success. This presentation will focus on PIAAC’s adult population, aged 16-65, in the United States.
Several items from the PIAAC data set will be analyzed in the CIT presentation. Specifically:
• Thinking of “problem solving” tasks as what happens when you are faced with a new or difficult situation which requires you to think for a while about what to do next, how often, in your work, are you usually faced with relatively simple problems that a short time to find a good solution? How often are you confronted with more complex problems that take a longer time to find a good solution?
• How often did your last job require using skill or accuracy with your hands or fingers?
• In the workplace, what activities that you undertake include reading you might do on computer screens or other electronic displays.
• What activities that you undertake involve numbers, quantities, numerical information, statistics or mathematics.
• How often and to what extent do you use computers or internet as part of your job?
These items and others will be analyzed by age bands, ethnicity, gender, occupational status, and education level achieved. In addition, relationships between individual indicators and overall numeracy, literacy, problem-solving scores, as well as wage data will be shared. CIT participants will be encouraged to share reflections on the data and discuss successful strategies for helping students to develop 21st century skills.