This scoping review of research explores the use of educational technologies for adult literacy, specifically for those with low literacy skills. The sample explores research published since 2010 across four major databases, yielding 21 relevant peer-reviewed articles published through the end of 2020. Half of the final included studies were…

Access to lifelong learning opportunities has long been discussed in terms of the economic benefits conferred by access to and engagement in further education by members of the labor force, particularly within the global knowledge economy. However, equitable access to lifelong education opportunities, particularly for low-skilled adults in the…

This article explores cross-country patterns in how conditions relating to family background, education, and the labor market are related to literacy and numeracy skills. It seeks to assess whether these patterns are in agreement with models of skills formation as identified in the political economy literature. The novelty of this article resides…

Adult literacy learners are characterized by their diversity, both in terms of educational histories and cognitive skill sets. Accounting for the specific strengths and weaknesses of each learner is vital to the assessment of literacy gains and optimization of educational systems. We examined pre- and post-difference scores on a component reading…

During the early Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union used adult literacy education to wield influence in "Third World" countries. Frank C. Laubach, the "Apostle of Literacy," wrote prolifically about adult literacy and conducted and advised literacy campaigns in more than 100 countries, yet his work is understudied…

Background: Educational qualifications and literacy skills are highly related. This is not surprising as it is one aim of educational systems to equip individuals with competencies necessary to take part in society. Because of this relationship educational qualifications are often used as a proxy for "human capital". However, from a…

Mixed findings characterize the literature on skills and economic distributions within and across countries. The Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) offers new, internationally comparable data on literacy, numeracy, and digital problem-solving skills that can be combined with wage information. This paper…

Ample evidence indicates that a person's human capital is important for success on the labor market in terms of both wages and employment prospects. However, unlike the efforts to identify the impact of school attainment on labor-market outcomes, the literature on returns to cognitive skills has not yet provided convincing evidence that the…

This report investigates the prediction of labor force status using observed variables, such as gender, age, and immigrant status, and more importantly, measured skill variables, including literacy proficiency and a categorical rating of educational attainment based on the 1994 International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS), the 2003 Adult Literacy…

This article focuses on the quantitative phase of a multiphase mixed methods study investigating adults' and families' access to government food assistance. The research evaluates participants' comprehension of, and ability to, adequately complete authentic complex texts--national food assistance application documents. Summative usability testing…

As literacy grows in importance, policymakers' demands for programme quality grow, too. Evidence on the effectiveness of adult and family literacy programmes is limited at best: research gaps abound, and programme evaluations are more often than not based on flawed theories of programme impact. In the absence of robust evidence on the full range…

The authors examined the state of United States student academic readiness for higher education from a global perspective utilizing data from the Organization of Economic and Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which tests over a half a million 15 year old student's skills and knowledge.…

Health literacy has emerged as an important factor related to health in older persons. The reason for the link between health literacy and health outcomes is not clear. Possible explanations include common relations among income, education, access to health care, health-promotion behaviors, frequency of reading, and perceptual impairments. In this…

This article examines cross-country variations in adult skills inequality and asks why skills in Anglophone countries are so unequal. Drawing on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's recent Survey of Adult Skills and other surveys, it investigates the differences across countries and country groups in inequality in both…

The health literacy movement has been socially constructed over time. Unlike the consumer health information movement, which developed with broad public support, the health literacy movement has been fashioned primarily from the top down, initiated by policy makers and imposed on targeted populations. Interest in the health literacy movement has…