STEM educationU.S. adults fare poorly on international skill test

A just-completed international test of adults in math, reading, and problem-solving using technology offers a grim message to the United States. The test focused on skills deemed critical for global competitiveness and economic strength, and American adults scored below the international average.

The test, called the Survey of Adult Skills, is an international survey conducted as part of the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). It measured the key cognitive and workplace skills needed for individuals to participate in society and for economies to prosper.

It tested about 166,000 people ages 16 to 65 in thirty-three countries and subnational regions. The test was developed and released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which is made up of mostly industrialized member countries. The U.S. Education Department’s Center for Education Statistics participated.

The Business Insider reports that adults in Japan, Canada, Australia, Finland, and multiple other countries scored significantly higher than American adults in all three areas on the test. In addition to basic reading and math, respondents were tested on activities such as calculating mileage reimbursement due to a salesman, sorting e-mail, and comparing food expiration dates on grocery store tags.

The OECD analysts noted that Americans not only score poorly compared to many international competitors, but that the findings made clear just how large the gap is between American high- and low-skilled workers and how difficult it is for people to move ahead if their parents have not.

In both reading and math, for example, those with college educated parents did better than those whose parents did not complete high school.

The PIAAC study also found that, on average, it was easier to overcome this and other barriers to literacy overseas than in the United States.

Among the other findings:

• Larger proportions of adults in the United States than in other countries have poor literacy and numeracy skills, and the proportion of adults with poor skills in problem solving in technology-rich environments is slightly larger than the average, despite the relatively high educational attainment among adults in the United States
• Socio-economic economic background has a stronger impact on adult literacy skills in the United States than in other countries. Black and Hispanic adults are substantially over-represented in the low-skilled population.
• Literacy skills are linked not only to employment outcomes, but also to personal and social well-being. In the United States, the odds of being in poor health are four times greater for low-skilled adults than for those with the highest proficiency — double the average across participating countries.
• Japan, Finland, Canada, Netherlands, Australia, Sweden, Norway, Flanders-Belgium, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, and Korea all scored significantly higher than the United States in all three areas on the test.
• The average scores in literacy range from 250 in Italy to 296 in Japan. The U.S. average score was 270 (500 was the highest score in all three areas). Average scores in twelve countries were higher than the average U.S. score.
• The average scores in math range from 246 in Spain to 288 in Japan. The U.S. average score was 253, below eighteen other countries.
• The average scores on problem solving in technology-rich environments scale for adult ranged from 275 in Poland to 294 in Japan. The U.S. average score was 277, below fourteen other countries.

Simultaneous with the publication of the results from the Survey of Adult Skills, the OECD published a special report on the United States, titled Time for the U.S. to Reskill? What the Survey of Adult Skills Says, at the request of U.S. Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE) in the U.S. Department of Education.

The report describes the main findings of the Survey of Adult Skills for the United States and compares them with the results from a set of key comparison countries. The implications of the results — in terms of labor market outcomes, such as employment and wages, and social outcomes, such as health and citizenship, are considered. Potential explanations for the U.S. results are then assessed in relation to outcomes of basic schooling, age factors and educational attainment. Low-skilled adults are discussed in depth.