Description
Abstract: The 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy is a nationally representative assessment of English literacy among American adults age 16 and older. Sponsored by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), NAAL is the nation's most comprehensive measure of adult literacy since the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS). NAAL not only provides information on adults' literacy performance but also on related background characteristics that are of interest to researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and the general public.
In 2003, over 19,000 adults participated in the national and state-level assessments, representing the entire population of U.S. adults who are age 16 and older, most in their homes and some in prisons from the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Approximately 1,200 inmates of federal and state prisons were assessed in order to provide separate estimates of literacy for the incarcerated population.
NAAL includes a number of components that capture the breadth of adult literacy in the United States:
Background Questionnaire—helps identify the relationships between adult literacy and select demographic and background characteristics;
Prison Component—assesses the literacy skills of adults in federal and state prisons;
State Assessment of Adult Literacy (SAAL)—gives statewide estimates of literacy for states participating in the state-level assessment;
Health Literacy Component—introduces the first-ever national assessment of adults' ability to use their literacy skills in understanding health-related materials and forms;
Fluency Addition to NAAL (FAN)—measures basic reading skills by assessing adults' ability to decode, recognize words, and read with fluency; and
Adult Literacy Supplemental Assessment (ALSA)—provides information on the ability of the least-literate adults to identify letters and numbers and to comprehend simple prose and documents.
This U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics has released the household and prison public-use data files for the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy and the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey. The accompanying 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy Public-Use Data File User's Guide PDF File (1.7 MB) explains how the data was collected and how it can be analyzed and includes codebooks for the datasets as well as instructions for using AM Software to analyze the data.
Restricted use files are available with a complete set of the variables collected on the NAAL. Users must apply for an NCES license to access restricted data.
Methods: The data derive from one-on-one interviews with adults in homes and prisons across the United States. Household interviews were conducted in 2003 and prison interviews were conducted in 2004. The household sample was multi-stage and selected on the basis of Census-defined geographical areas, while the prison sample was institution-based. To keep participant burden to a minimum, NAAL administers only a fraction of the assessment items on each scale to each participant—too few items to produce accurate scale scores for each adult. To account for this, marginal maximum likelihood (MML) models are used to estimate proficiencies for the population and for groups within the population based upon responses to questions that were answered. The AM Software provides these estimates.
TechnicalInfo: The 2003 combined household-prison public use file Zip File (5.3 MB) includes background data and responses to test items that can be used to estimate proficiency on the prose, document, and quantitative scales using a marginal maximum likelihood model. There are 19,258 completed interviews in this file. An additional 456 adults could not be interviewed and tested because of language barriers or for cognitive reasons (such as Alzheimer's or dementia). These adults are not included in the data file. A separate 2003 public-use file Zip File (5.3 MB) permits estimates of proficiency on the health literacy scale. The 1992 combined household-prison public use file Zip File (8.5 MB) also includes background data as well as test items that can be used to estimate proficiency. Background variables that are the same in both years were given the same name. The NALS 1992 restricted-use file (RUF) with rescaled literacy scores for household and prison (found here) contains individual unit data including both responses to the background questionnaire and the cognitive assessment from the NALS data collection, completed in 1992. The file contains rescaled plausible values for literacy and some trend background questionnaire items, including key demographics and items that were exactly the same between NALS and PIAAC, to allow for trend analysis with the U.S. Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) data. The RUF with rescaled scores can be accessed through a restricted use license agreement with the National Center for Education Statistics.
TechnicalInfo: The AM Software must be downloaded in order to view the data set. This software includes procedures for marginal maximum likelihood (MML) estimation of literacy proficiencies.
Methods: The data derive from one-on-one interviews with adults in homes and prisons across the United States. Household interviews were conducted in 2003 and prison interviews were conducted in 2004. The household sample was multi-stage and selected on the basis of Census-defined geographical areas, while the prison sample was institution-based. To keep participant burden to a minimum, NAAL administers only a fraction of the assessment items on each scale to each participant—too few items to produce accurate scale scores for each adult. To account for this, marginal maximum likelihood (MML) models are used to estimate proficiencies for the population and for groups within the population based upon responses to questions that were answered. The AM Software provides these estimates.
TechnicalInfo: The 2003 combined household-prison public use file Zip File (5.3 MB) includes background data and responses to test items that can be used to estimate proficiency on the prose, document, and quantitative scales using a marginal maximum likelihood model. There are 19,258 completed interviews in this file. An additional 456 adults could not be interviewed and tested because of language barriers or for cognitive reasons (such as Alzheimer's or dementia). These adults are not included in the data file. A separate 2003 public-use file Zip File (5.3 MB) permits estimates of proficiency on the health literacy scale. The 1992 combined household-prison public use file Zip File (8.5 MB) also includes background data as well as test items that can be used to estimate proficiency. Background variables that are the same in both years were given the same name. The NALS 1992 restricted-use file (RUF) with rescaled literacy scores for household and prison (found here) contains individual unit data including both responses to the background questionnaire and the cognitive assessment from the NALS data collection, completed in 1992. The file contains rescaled plausible values for literacy and some trend background questionnaire items, including key demographics and items that were exactly the same between NALS and PIAAC, to allow for trend analysis with the U.S. Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) data. The RUF with rescaled scores can be accessed through a restricted use license agreement with the National Center for Education Statistics.
TechnicalInfo: The AM Software must be downloaded in order to view the data set. This software includes procedures for marginal maximum likelihood (MML) estimation of literacy proficiencies.