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

Footnotes

1. Bynner J & Parson, S. (2006) New Light on Literacy and Numeracy,NRDC, http://www.nrdc.org.uk/publications_details.asp?ID=78
2. Data were collected about children born in Northern Ireland, but these children were not subsequently followed up.
3. Cohort members interviewed during February/March 2004 were still age 33; cohort members interviewed after their birthday in April 2005 were age 35.
4. Source: Office for National Statistics; National Assembly for Wales; General Register Office for Scotland; http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/profiles/64.asp
5. NUTS level 3 area information supplied in excel datasets by UKBorders (http://edina.ac.uk/ukborders) and census output codes derived from address information supplied by cohort members during the interview in 2004 was used to do this. To maintain confidentiality of cohort members finer geographic coding was not used in this report. A list of the areas included within the Central Belt is supplied in a separate document. Our special thanks go to Gareth Hughes, a geographer at the Centre for Longitudinal Studies, who carried out this work.
6. As with all longitudinal data, not all participating cohort members had taken part in all previous BCS70 surveys. However, of the 9665 taking part in 2000, 92% had been present in the first survey back in 1970, meaning 8% joined in later on in either 1975 (age 5) or in 1980 (age 10).
7. Tom Sticht. ALL Wrong - Again! Can Adult Literacy Assessments Be Fixed? May 17, 2005. www.nald.ca/WHATNEW/hnews/2005/murray.htm and personal communication.
8. Ekinsmyth, C. and Bynner, J. (1994). The Basic Skills of Young Adults. London: The Basic Skills Agency. Bynner, J. and Parsons, S. (1997): It doesn't get any better. London: The Basic Skills Agency. Parsons, S. (2002). Do I want to improve my reading, writing or maths? London: The Basic Skills Agency.
9. The Big Plus campaign involved TV and radio advertising and was supported by learndirect Scotland. To date it has resulted in over 8,000 calls to the national helpline. www.thebigplus.com
10. In previous surveys cohort members who did not report difficulties to the first questions that was put to them were not asked any additional questions.
11. In line with previous sweeps, cohort members were first asked if they had a sight problem. The 3% of cohort members who reported they were blind or had a sight problem were not asked questions on reading or writing.
12. The increased level of reported skills difficulties in the 2004 survey is as a result of the change in question format. For further details see New Light report.
13. For the purposes of this report statistical significance is determined at the 5% level, that is the odds are 19:1 against the result having arisen by chance.
14. Report on the Scottish Adult Literacy and Numeracy Strategy 2004-2005, Communities Scotland.
15. Earlier assessments on 10% representative samples of the 1970 BCS70 cohort in 1991 and the 1958 NCDS in 1995 were funded by the Basic Skills Agency whose remit did not include Scotland.
16. Ekinsmyth, C. and Bynner, J. (1995). The Basic Skills of young adults. London: The Basic Skills Agency.
17. Williams, J., Clemens, S., Oleinikova, K. and Tarvin, K. (2003). The Skills for Life survey: A national needs and impact survey of literacy, numeracy and ICT skills. DfES Research Report 490. The baseline survey was devised by the Centre for the Development and Evaluation of Lifelong Learning ( CDELL) at the University of Nottingham, for the Department for Education and Skills. Special thanks are reserved for Peter Burke, John Gillespie and Bob Rainbow, consultants at CDELL., for their help and guidance in all stages of development.
18. For a comprehensive review of adult reading, writing and numeracy assessment instruments for use in a UK setting see Brooks, G., Heath, K. and Pollard, A. (2005). Assessing adult literacy and numeracy: a review of Research instruments. London: National Research and Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy.
19. Correlation coefficients measure the (linear) association between two scores. They range from -1.0 to +1.0, with a correlation coefficient of 0 signifying that there was no relationship between performance in one score and another. The closer the correlation coefficient is to -1 or +1, the stronger the relationship between the two scores. A positive correlation signifies that a high score in one test is associated with a high score in the other; a negative correlation signifies that a high score in one test is associated with a low score in the other. The correlation coefficient between performance in the literacy and numeracy assessment was 0.64 for all cohort members and 0.60 for cohort members living in Scotland. Within Scotland the correlation coefficient between performance in the literacy and numeracy assessments was 0.57 for those living in the Central Belt region, 0.63 for those living in other parts of Scotland. All correlation coefficients were highly significant (p<.001).
20. National Qualification Framework ( NQF) for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as used in the Skills for Life survey
21. Only some measures are used at age 16 as a combination of data collection difficulties at the time and the relatively small Scottish sample reduced numbers to unreliable levels.
22. It was not that the child did not have a stable father Figure. This was a separate answer category.
23. In the EPVT the interviewer says a word e.g. 'drum', 'insect', and the child has to point to the picture (from a possible four) that corresponds to this word. In the Copying Designs test the child has to copy eight different shapes, such as a square, circle, diamond. For further details on these assessments see documentation on the CLS website: http://www.cls.ioe.ac.uk/studies.asp?section=00010002000200090001
24. For further details on these assessments see documentation on the CLS website: http://www.cls.ioe.ac.uk/studies.asp?section=00010002000200080001
25. Schonell, F.J. and Schonell, F.E. (1950), A Graded Word Reading Test. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd; Schonell Graded Word Reading Test (1972 Revised Norms). Edinburgh. Oliver And Boyd. Also see the test booklet produced for the age 5 survey on the Centre for Longitudinal Studies website. http://www.cls.ioe.ac.uk/studies.asp?section=00010002000200090001
26. Reports about levels of literacy or numeracy often refer to functional literacy or numeracy as the borderline separating the ability to function in a complex society. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development defines functional literacy not as the ability to read and write but as "whether a person is able to understand and employ printed information in daily life, at home, at work and in the community".
27. Fawcett, A. and Nicolson, R. (1998). The Dyslexia Adult Screening Test ( DAST). London: The Psychological Corporation. For details on how cohort members were identified as being 'at risk' of dyslexia from the four individual assessments, refer to the New Light on Literacy and Numeracy report.
28. Small numbers did not permit analyses of men and women separately .
29. This was calculated in a 'positive' way. For example if a cohort member had spent 5 months of a year in full-time employment, 5 months unemployed and 2 months on a training course, their 'status' for that year would be 'full-time employed' not 'unemployed'.
30. A cohort member was defined as being part of a non-working household if they (or their live-in partner if they had one) were not in full-time or part-time employment at the time of interview.
31. For example, see Barron, S., Field, J. and Schuller, T. (Eds). (2000). Social Capital: A Critical Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
32. Bynner, J. and Parsons, S. (2003) in Ferri, E, Bynner, J. and Shepherd, P. (eds ) Changing Britain: Changing Lives. London : Institute of Education press
33. Rutter, M., Tizard, J. and Whitehouse, K. (1970). Education, Health and Behaviour. London: Longman.
34. Countdown East End pathfinder was based in Glasgow and involved family literacy learning using a community development approach to develop a programme for recruiting and supporting peer educators. The Challenge Dad Pathfinder initiative was based in Aberdeen. It looked to encourage male family members to participate in literacy learning for their own and their family's benefit. Both ran until 2006.