New Light on Adult Literacy and Numeracy in Scotland: Evidence from the 2004 survey of the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70)

Chapter 6 Post-16 education and learning experiences

From this point on we focus on differences across the performance levels in cohort members' experiences from age 16 up to age 34. We look at how men and women in Scotland in 2004 with the poorest skills compared, in many aspects of adult life, with men and women with more accomplished functional ²⁶ literacy or numeracy. We expand the analyses from what was included in New Light and take a more comprehensive look at differences between skills groups in the timing of relationships, parenthood, the move to independent living and experiences in the labour market. First up is education and qualifications. We then return to the issue of self awareness of difficulties and motivation to improve skills alongside learning difficulties, or more specifically, evidence of symptoms associated with dyslexia. We finally consider the relationship between poor literacy and numeracy and exclusion from digital media in the home.

Leaving full-time education and gaining qualifications

44% of men and 37% of women living in Scotland had left full-time education by the time they were 16, slightly lower than the comparable figures for men and women living in England (50% and 43% respectively). Figure 6.1 and 6.2 shows that this departure from education increased to more than 8 in 10 men with SCQF Access Level 2 or 3 literacy and 6 in 10 men with SCQF Access Level 2 or 3 numeracy. For women, more than 7 in 10 with SCQF Access Level 2 or 3 literacy had left full-time education by 16, and around 1 in 2 with SCQF Access Level 2 (54%) or 3 (47%) numeracy. Most likely to have spent time in post-16 education were women with SCQF Level 5 numeracy - just 20% left at age 16.

Figure 6.1 Percentage continuing in full-time education by grasp of literacy

a) men

b) women

Figure 6.2 Percentage continuing in full-time education by grasp of numeracy

a) men

b) women

As might be expected, there were considerable differences in highest achieved academic qualification between the literacy and numeracy skills groups. Figure 6.3 shows that, whereas more than one in three men and women with SCQF Level 5 literacy had a degree or higher, no men and just 1 in 25 women with SCQF Access Level 2 or 3 literacy held such qualifications. 4 in 10 men and more than 1 in 2 women with SCQF Level 5 numeracy held a degree or equivalent. At the other end of the academic scale, as many as 4 in 10 men and women with SCQF Access Level 2 or 3 literacy, and around 3 in 10 men and women with SCQF Access Level 2 numeracy had no academic qualifications at all. This compared with just 1 in 13 men and women with SCQF Level 5 literacy, and 1 in 20 men and 1 in 50 women with SCQF Level 5 numeracy.

Figure 6.3: Literacy, numeracy and highest qualification by age 34

Men and women living within the Central Belt appeared the most disadvantaged in terms of skills and qualifications. As many as 54% of men and women with SCQF Access Level 2 or 3 literacy living in the Central Belt have no qualifications at all compared with 31% of those with SCQF Access Level 2 or 3 skills living in other areas of Scotland. Smaller differences by location were apparent by numeracy skills groups: 32% of men and women with SCQF Access Level 2 numeracy in the Central Belt had no qualifications compared with 25% living elsewhere.

Relationship between assessed skills difficulties, an awareness of these difficulties and a wish to improve skills

So, men and women with the poorest skills were the first to leave full-time education, acquiring few qualifications at this time. We saw earlier that as many as half of those with the poorest grasp of skills in adult life had thought that they performed 'not so well' as others of their own age at reading and maths, but what about as adults? We look now at the relationship between assessed skills and a self awareness of these difficulties, as measured through the questions on skills difficulties, and also their alienation from computer use and access to the internet.

Literacy

In comparison with the overall 4% of cohort members in Scotland who reported difficulties with reading, Figure 6.4 shows that this increased more than fourfold to 18% of men and 16% of women with SCQF Access Level 2 or 3 literacy. The difficulties were most likely to be related to understanding paperwork and forms (15% men, 16% women). Similarly, whereas 18% of all cohort members reported some difficulty with writing, this increased to 38% of men and women assessed with SCQF Access Level 2 or 3 literacy. Most of the reported difficulties were associated with spelling - more than one in three (35% men, 31% women) reported spelling difficulties - but 15% of men with SCQF Access Level 2 or 3 literacy said they struggled with writing a thank-you letter, making their handwriting legible and how 'to put down in words' what they wanted to say.

Compared with men living within the Central Belt area, men and women assessed with SCQF Access Level 2 or 3 literacy in other areas of Scotland were far more likely to be aware of their reading and writing difficulties: 12% compared with 21% reported reading difficulties, 27% compared with 49% writing difficulties.

Figure 6.4: Literacy, awareness of reading and writing difficulties

In the original New Light report, men and women with SCQF Access Level 2 literacy were around nine times as likely as men and women with SCQF Level 5 skills to want to improve their reading skills and five times as likely to improve their writing skills. However, although men and women with the poorest grasp of literacy in Scotland were the most likely to want to improve their reading and writing skills, levels were much lower than we found across Great Britain overall. Figure 6.5 shows that just 6% of men and women with SCQF Access Level 2 or 3 literacy wanted to improve their reading and 8% of men and 15% of women their writing skills. Those living outside the Central Belt were three times more likely as those within to want to improve their reading skills (3% to 9%). Equally, more men and women with SCQF Access Level literacy within the Central belt wanted to improve their writing skills (14% to 9%) Importantly, no men with SCQF Access Level 2 or 3 literacy had been on a course to help improve their reading or writing skills. Comparable Figures for women were 3% (reading) and 6% (writing).

Figure 6.5: Literacy and wish to improve reading and writing skills

Reading practices

Reading practices comprise the application of reading and numerical skills in everyday life. We asked all men and women how often they read magazines, newspapers and books: every day, most days, once in a week, once in a month, less often than that or never. 59% of all men and 45% of all women read a magazine or newspaper everyday, with only small differences emerging across skills groups. Men and women with SCQF Access Level 2 or 3 literacy were the most likely to report that they never read a magazine or newspaper men and women with SCQF Level 5 skills the least likely to (11% to 3% men, 12% to 1% women). However, differences across literacy and skills groups in how often a book was read were very apparent. Book reading was less common than magazine or newspaper reading among 34 year-olds, with 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men picking up and reading a book every day. This fell to just 1 in 8 for women and 1 in 33 for men with SCQF Access Level 2 or 3 literacy. A huge 47% of men and women with SCQF Access Level 2 or 3 literacy never read a book compared with just 15% of men and 14% of women with SCQF Level 5 or higher literacy. However, on a more positive note it did mean that more than have of those with the poorest literacy did occasionally pick up a book.

Numeracy

For numeracy, Figure 6.6 shows that around one in six men (14%) and women (16%) with SCQF Access Level 2 numeracy reported having some difficulties with numbers and mathematical calculations, compared with just 1 in 50 (2%) of men and 1 in 33 (3%) of women with SCQF Level 5 numeracy. As expected, most of the difficulties were associated with multiplication and division, but unlike in the original report there were no substantial differences between the percentages of Scottish men and women with SCQF Access Level 2 numeracy who reported difficulties with multiplication and/or division (11% men, 13% women). Among those with SCQF Access Level 2 numeracy, men and women living outside the Central Belt were three times more likely to acknowledge their difficulties with numbers in comparison to men and women within the Central Belt (8% to 26%). Notably, around six to seven times as many men and women with SCQF Access Level 2or SCQF Access Level 3 numeracy wanted to improve their numerical skills in comparison with those with SCQF Level 5 skills. There were no big differences in desire to improve numbers skills by where cohort members lived and no men and women with SCQF Access Level 2 numeracy anywhere in Scotland had been on provision to help improve their grasp of numbers.

Figure 6.6: Numeracy, awareness of maths / numberwork difficulties, and wish to improve maths / numberwork skills

Symptoms associated with dyslexia

3% of cohort members in Scotland (5% men, 2% women) were identified as having a 'very high risk' of dyslexia from four exercises taken from The Dyslexia Adult Screening Test ( DAST) ²⁷. This is slightly lower than the 4% identified in New Light, which was in line with population estimates.

Relationship with literacy and numeracy

There were significant negative correlations between being 'at risk' of dyslexia and having a poor grasp of literacy (-.57 men, -.49 women) and/or numeracy (-.47 men, -.43 women), meaning that a high score in the literacy or numeracy assessment was associated with a low dyslexia 'risk' score. Figure 6.7 clearly shows the relationship between risk of dyslexia and grasp of literacy and numeracy. More specifically, it shows the percentage of men and women assessed with a risk of dyslexia (as determined by their performance in the four DAST assessments) by their grasp of literacy or numeracy and that the relationship was strongest between literacy and risk of dyslexia. Very few men and women with SCQF Access Level 2 literacy were assessed with 'no risk' of dyslexia. In fact, men with SCQF Access Level 2 literacy were eight times less likely to be assessed with having 'no risk' at all of dyslexia compared with men assessed with SCQF Level 5 literacy (7% to 56%), women with SCQF Access Level 2 literacy were five times less likely than women with SCQF Level 5 literacy (10% to 54%).

Taking this further, we look at the relationship between literacy and numeracy competence and the 'very high risk' of dyslexia group - those that we are most confident of having specific dyslexic learning needs. 28% of men and 21% of women with SCQF Access Level 2 or 3 literacy were assessed with a 'very high risk' of dyslexia, as were 21% of men with SCQF Access Level 2 numeracy. Among the men and women with SCQF Level 5 or higher literacy skills, no more than 1% were assessed with a 'very high risk' of dyslexia. Similarly, 1% of men with SCQF Level 5 numeracy were assessed with a 'very high risk' of dyslexia. No women with SCQF Level 4 or higher numeracy were assessed with a 'very high risk' of dyslexia, compared with 9% of women with SCQF Access level 2 numeracy.

Awareness of learning needs

Given the strong relationship between risk of dyslexia and literacy and numeracy, we looked further into the associated difficulties cohort members had identified by their risk of dyslexia ²⁸. Among the men and women with a 'very high risk' of dyslexia, 22% identified they had reading difficulties and a huge 63% writing difficulties. None had taken up provision for reading and writing, 13% reported wanting to improve their reading, 23% their writing. This compared with 8% who reporting difficulties with writing and no difficulties with reading among the majority of men and women assessed with 'no risk' of dyslexia. 3% of these men and women wanted to improve their writing skills, none their reading skills.

Figure 6.7 'risk' of dyslexia by cohort members grasp of literacy or numeracy a) Men

b) Women

Inclusion in the digital revolution?

Computer use and internet access have become almost an essential tool for modern living; to not have an email address is more and more excluding for men and women across all generations. Among our 34 year olds, men and women with poor literacy and numeracy were most likely to not have a computer at home. This 'digital divide' was most apparent across literacy groups, a reflection of the more disadvantaged socio-economic circumstances of the men and women with SCQF Access Level literacy that we discuss later. Figure 6.8 shows that 39% of men and 50% of women with SCQF Access Level 2 or 3 literacy did not have a computer in their home compared with just 16% of men and 18% of women with SCQF Level 5 or higher literacy. Similarly, 33% of men and women with a 'very high risk' of dyslexia did not have a computer in their home compared with just 16% of men and women with 'no risk' of dyslexia.

As we found among all BCS70 cohort members, around 1 in 4 households in Scotland (21% men, 27% women) did not have access to the internet. This increased to 50% for men and 79% for women with SCQF Access Level 2 or 3 literacy, and more than 1 in 3 men and women with SCQF Access Level 2 numeracy (38% men, 43% women) or SCQF Access Level 3 numeracy (37% men and women). Access to the internet was not notably lower in areas of Scotland outside of the Central Belt.

Figure 6.8 evidence of the Digital Divide in Scotland: % with no PC or Internet access at home by grasp of literacy

Summary of education and learning post-16

Just as we found for all cohort members, men and women in Scotland with the poorest grasp of literacy or numeracy were by far the most likely to have left full time education at the earliest opportunity with no qualifications. This combined educational disadvantage was most apparent among the poorly skilled living within the Central Belt region (1 in 2 with SCQF Access Level 2 or 3 literacy had no qualifications compared with around 1 in 3 living elsewhere in Scotland). On the other hand, those living outside the Central Belt were more likely to be aware of their limited grasp of literacy (21% compared with 12% in the Central Belt) or numeracy (49% compared with 27% in the Central Belt), though the motivation to improve poor skills in Scotland was far lower than we found for Great Britain as a whole.

A potential added disadvantage was that as many as 1 in 4 men and 1 in 5 women with the poorest literacy were also assessed with a very high risk of being dyslexic which has obvious implications for the progress of adults attending literacy and numeracy provision. The exclusion of adults with the lowest skills, particularly literacy, from the digital revolution that has taken place over the last decade is clear to see with far more being without a computer (44% compared with 17% SCQF Level 5 or higher skills) or access to the internet at home (64% compared with 18% SCQF Level 5 or higher skills). Inclusion of a digital element within literacy and numeracy learning may be another way to attract adults to come to provision.