This chapter describes international policy contexts of adult literacy and language assessment and the shift toward standardization through measurement tools. It considers the implications the quantification of learning outcomes has for pedagogy and practice and for the social inclusion of transnational migrants.

The field of educational testing has become increasingly important for providing different stakeholders and decision-makers with information. This paper discusses basic standards for methodological approaches used in measuring literacy skills among adults. The authors address the increasing interest in skills measurement, the discourses on how…

At their most basic level, digital badges are a new way to capture and communicate what an individual knows and can demonstrate. This report examines the nature, value, and potential impact of digital badges, an emerging electronic form of recognition of an individual's knowledge and skills. Badges can represent different levels of work and…

This paper argues for the utility of ANT as a philosophical and methodological approach to policy analysis. It introduces the key features of a recent educational policy reform initiative, Skills for Life and illustrates the argument by looking at three "moments" (in Callon's 1986 terminology) in the life of this initiative, applying the…

Both within and beyond the OECD region, governments and other stakeholders are increasingly interested in the assessments of the skills of their adult populations in order to monitor how well prepared they are for the challenges of the knowledge based society. The current paper provides an overview of the two international assessments of adult…

How can teachers be helped, at relatively little expense, to improve their professional practice? This problem was addressed in "Improving Formative Assessment in Vocational Education and Adult Literacy, Language and Numeracy Programmes"--the IFA project. Adopting a specific problem-based methodology as part of an action research…

This study examined the reliability and validity of administering Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) to adult basic education (ABE) students. Ninety ABE participants were administered DIBELS measures, the Woodcock-Johnson III Broad Reading (WJ III BR) measures, and four orthographic ability tests. Since ABE students are a…

This issue of "literacy.ca EXPRESS" focuses on poverty. The articles included in this issue are: (1) Poverty Overview; (2) Tony's Story; (3) LAN (Learner Advisory Network) Member's Story (Dianne Smith); (4) Linking Adult Literacy to Poverty Reduction; (5) MCL (Movement for Canadian Literacy) Update; (6) Highlights from the LAN; (7) Good…

This article presents the results of a qualitative study into how adult literacy learners perceive reading. Individual interviews and focus groups were used to ask 37 adult literacy learners at a London further education college what reading is. It follows a grounded theory approach to build a model, or narrative, of reading in the form of six…

"I am shortlisting a candidate with GCSE in English and another with Level 2 in Literacy; does it mean they have the same skill at the same level? Also what is Key Skills in Communication? I am confused!" There are many different qualifications available in the lifelong learning sector and it is not always easy to see how they relate to…

QEd is a five-issue series for the adult education community--literacy educators, paraprofessionals, program directors, and volunteers. QEd brings ideas and information from the expanding scientific research base on how adults learn to read. This first issue tells the story of how researchers are using the high quality, scientific standards that…

The purpose of the "State of the Literacy and Essential Skills Field" report is to provide an environmental scan showing the state of Literacy and Essential Skills (L/ES) across the country, from the perspective of the Canadian Literacy and Learning Network (CLLN) and its national network of partners, both within and outside the Literacy…

At a time when governments face the challenges of maintaining competitiveness in a global economy, it is necessary to have high-quality comparative information regarding the fundamental skills of the adult population. Such information can help governments to evaluate policies and design more effective interventions. This article describes a…

The 11th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM 2018) is held under the auspices of the International Educational Data Mining Society at the Templeton Landing in Buffalo, New York. This year's EDM conference was highly competitive, with 145 long and short paper submissions. Of these, 23 were accepted as full papers and 37…

In this article, the author describes how difficult it is to know how critically literate her students are in the adult senior high school in which she is a teacher-librarian. She assumes that many would have gaps in their learning, including gaps in information and critical literacy skills, and that they were likely to approach all online…