The Adult Literacy and Life Skills (ALL) Survey: Gender, Ethnicity and Literacy

1 - Introduction

The Adult Literacy and Life Skills (ALL) survey is an investigation of the distribution of certain skills among people aged 16 to 65. The skills tested are literacy (both prose literacy and document literacy), numeracy and problem-solving. Each of the skills is measured using English-language tests.  The survey is conducted across a number of countries, as well as providing information specific to New Zealand.

The ALL survey follows a similar survey conducted in 1996: the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS). Parts of the ALL survey are directly comparable to this earlier work. In particular, prose literacy and document literacy can be compared to provide a picture of some of the changes that have occurred over the previous decade.

For further information, please refer to The Adult Literacy and Life Skills (ALL) Survey: An Introduction. This publication is intended as a companion to any reporting on the ALL survey and contains general information on the nature of the ALL survey and its application, as well as definitions, and descriptions of the skill domains and levels. Further information can also be found in the glossary on page 40, including definitions of the skills tested by the ALL survey (prose literacy, document literacy, numeracy and problem-solving) and the ways in which these are measured (levels of proficiency).

The focus of this report is on the distribution of literacy skills in New Zealand according to gender and ethnicity. Where possible, this report compares these distributions with those from the 1996 IALS survey – that is, changes in prose and document literacy skills. This report also includes an analysis of literacy skills in New Zealand according to the language most frequently spoken in the home.  Two measures of distribution are used:

• the mean score on a 0-500 scale
• the proportions of people at each of five proficiency levels.

Over-sampling for the Māori and Pasifika populations was a key design feature of the ALL survey. This allows more detailed statistical analyses of these populations.

This report is the third in a series of four looking at the high-level results from the ALL survey. More in-depth analysis will be undertaken once this initial series has been completed.