7 - Glossary

ALL – the Adult Literacy and Life Skills survey, which was conducted by 12 countries between 2003 and 2008/09 (note that at the beginning of 2008 three of these countries had still to complete their participation in ALL).

Decile – for the purposes of this document, a decile is one of ten sub-populations of approximately equal size into which a population can be divided. For example, the lowest income decile is the tenth of the population with the lowest income.  Income decile boundaries relate to the total population, though income distributions differ for men and women, for those working and those not working, and for other population groups. 

Document literacy – deals with discontinuous text, such as graphs, charts and tables.

IALS – the International Adult Literacy Survey, which was conducted by 23 countries/regions between 1994 and 1998.

Higher literacy or numeracy - levels 3, 4 or 5.

Levels - prose literacy, document literacy and numeracy are assigned five cognitive levels.

• Level 1 - Read simple documents, accomplish literal information matching with no distracting information, and perform simple one-step calculations.
• Level 2 - Search a document and filter out some simple distracting information, make low-leve inferences, and execute one-or two-step calculations and estimations.
• Level 3 - Perform more complex information filtering, sometimes requiring inferences, and manipulate mathematical symbols, perhaps in several stages.
• Level 4 - Integrate information from a long passage, perform more complex inferences and complete multiple-step calculations requiring some reasoning.
• Level 5 - Make high-level inferences or syntheses, use specialised knowledge, filter out multiple distractors, and understand and use abstract mathematical ideas with justification. 

Problem-solving has been assigned four cognitive levels. For a description of typical tasks for the problem-solving domain (and a fuller description of prose and document literacy along with numeracy), see pages 17 and 18 of Learning a Living: First Results of the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey.

Low literacy or numeracy - levels 1 or 2.

Mean – in general, the mean of a set of scores is the sum of the scores divided by the number of scores.

Numeracy – addresses mathematical and numerical information.

Problem-solving – involves analytical thinking, reasoning and logic.

Prose literacy – is concerned with continuous text, of the type found in books and newspaper articles.

Up-skilling – undertaking further education and training.

• Formal – participation in any course that is part of a programme of study leading toward a certificate, degree or diploma.
• Non-formal – participation in any course that is not part of a programme of study leading toward a certificate, degree or diploma.
• Self-directed or none – either no participation in any up-skilling activities or participation in up-skilling activities such as guided tours, trade fairs, learning from instructional media, etc.
  

Very high literacy or numeracy - level 4 or 5.

Very low literacy or numeracy - level 1.