Designing effective adult literacy programs

Understanding the strategies of document literacy and their conditions of use.

“…Moreover, to the extent that these tasks do not involve esoteric knowledge (and hence are not all generate tasks), it is possible to estimate with reasonable accuracy the probability with which workers with known background characteristics are likely to perform these tasks as they make up a particular job domain. Equally as important, this then provides a basis for knowing how most effectively and efficiently to diagnose and remediate workers representing different levels of document reading-to-do proficency (Mosenthal and Kirsch, 1989a). In short, workers would be assigned to different instructional groups on the basis of estimated probabilities of performing job document reading-to-do tasks of varying difficulty.…”

Defining Prose Task Characteristics for Use in Computer-Adaptive Testing and Instruction

“…Although debate followed concerning the accuracy of the estimates used to define the extent of the literacy problem and the usefulness of a single cutpoint, critics pointed to the varying definitions of literacy employed, the different standards selected, and the differences among the tasks included in the surveys as explanations for the noncomparability of results. This, in turn, did not provide interpretable and comparable information for developing public policy (Mosenthal & Kirsch, 1989).…”

“…1Both items and tasks are said to be composed of (a) one or more material stimuli (e.g., a text, document, picture, or some combination of the three); (b) a question or directive applied to the material stimuli; (c) a general set of instructions for relating a question or directive to material stimuli; and (d) a set of scoring procedures and criteria for judging the adequacy of a learner's response (Bunderson et al, 1989;Mosenthal & Kirsch, 1989). Although the distinction between a test item and an instructional task is commonly made (cf.…”

“…The assumption here is that readers must master understanding of the processes and strategies of a subdomain (or level) before proceeding to the next (Mosenthal & Kirsch, 1989). In this regard, enough benchmark tasks have to be administered within a given subdomain to ensure that readers adequately master the range of processes and strategies (constructs) associated with this subdomain.…”

“…Nor is there any theoretical basis that can be used to determine the successive selection and integration of tasks to define and enhance individual readers' prose processing within their respective zones of proficiency. Moreover, without such constructs, there is no empirical basis for establishing individual reader profiles within and between different levels of proficiency (Bunderson et al, 1989;Mosenthal & Kirsch, 1989, 1991bNitko, 1989). Finally, without the empirical validation of such constructs, national and international policy based on the five adult-literacy surveys (as well as current and future international adult surveys) and comparisons of proficiencies between countries may be nothing more than descriptions with face validity but no construct validity.…”