New research shows that adults with the lowest literacy and numeracy skills are likely to have experienced substantial disadvantage from early childhood. As the journeys of many adult learners attest, education can transform opportunity. What is more likely to motivate them to take up an educational offer is a life course transition or a new…

A British study examined whether people's literacy and numeracy skills get worse if they are out of paid employment. It was based on a sample of adults aged 37, who are part of the major cohort study, the National Child Development Study. Only those persons who left school at age 16 were included. Some of the findings were as follows: (1) when men…

Data were obtained from the National Child Development Study (NCDS), a large-scale longitudinal study in the United Kingdom following up a sample of people born in a single week in 1958 through to adult life, to demonstrate that poor numeracy skills have a major impact. At age 37, a 10 percent sample of 1,714 cohort members were interviewed and…

A representative sample of 1,650 members of the 1970 British Cohort Study were surveyed at the age of 21 (in 1992) to gather information on their education, training, and employment experiences after the age of 16 and their self-assessed literacy and numeracy. Respondents also completed a half-hour assessment of their literacy and numeracy skills.…

The factors influencing development of basic skills from birth to age 37 were examined by analyzing a sample of 1,700 people who were part of the National Child Development Study (NCDS), a longitudinal study in which data on more than 17,000 people who were born in Great Britain in a single week in 1958 were collected when they were 7, 11, 16, 23,…