PIAAC Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Find out what is PIAAC, how it is done and what are its goals.

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Overview

The Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) is a programme of assessment and analysis of adult skills. The major product of PIAAC is the Survey of Adult Skills, an international computer-based household survey of adults aged 16-65 years.

The 1^st Cycle of the Survey of Adult Skills was conducted over three separate rounds between 2011 and 2018 in 39 countries. During the 1^st Cycle, about 245 000 adults were interviewed, representing 1.15 billion people.

The 2^nd Cycle of the Survey of Adults Skills has been conducted in 31 countries and economies so far. A first round of data collection took place in 2022-2023 with results to be released on 10 December 2024.

The Survey consists of two components:

A background questionnaire administered as a Computer Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI). The questionnaire collects a range of information on the factors which influence the development and maintenance of skills, as well as information on outcomes which may be related to skills. The formers include education, adult training, socio-economic background, engagement with literacy, numeracy and technologies, and linguistic background. The latter include both economic outcomes, such as, employment status and earnings, and non-economic outcomes, such as health status, participation in volunteering activities, political efficacy and social trust.
A tablet-based direct assessment, covering three information-processing skills: literacy (reading and understanding written texts), numeracy (understanding and using mathematical and numerical information) and adaptive problem solving (capacity to achieve one’s goal in a dynamic situation where a solution is not immediately available).

The Survey of Adult Skills follows strict technical standards and guidelines, for instance concerning sampling and survey operations procedures, to ensure the international comparability of the collected data.

The Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) is designed:

to allow cross-cultural and international comparisons of results of skill-formation systems and their outcomes, and international benchmarking regarding adult skills;
for countries to be able to administer the survey in their national languages while still obtaining internationally comparable results; and,
as a survey that will be repeated over time to allow policy makers to monitor the development of key aspects of human capital in their countries.

The following countries participated in the 1^st Cycle of the Survey:

Round 1 (2011-2012): Australia, Austria, Belgium (Flanders), Canada, Cyprus¹, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russian Federation, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom (England and Northern Ireland), United States
Round 2 (2014-2015): Chile, Greece, Indonesia (Jakarta), Israel, Lithuania, New Zealand, Singapore, Slovenia, Türkiye
Round 3 (2017): Ecuador, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Peru, United States

The following countries are participating in the 2^nd Cycle of the Survey:

Round 1 (2022-2023): Austria, Belgium (Flanders), Canada, Chile, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom (England), United States.
Round 2: A new round of data collection during the Second Cycle is planned to be implemented in 2024-2029. More information is available in our brochure in English, French, or Spanish.

¹ Footnote by Türkiye: The information in this document with reference to “Cyprus” relates to the southern part of the Island. There is no single authority representing both Turkish and Greek Cypriot people on the Island. Türkiye recognises the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). Until a lasting and equitable solution is found within the context of the United Nations, Türkiye shall preserve its position concerning the “Cyprus issue”

Footnote by all the European Union Member States of the OECD and the European Union: The Republic of Cyprus is recognised by all members of the United Nations with the exception of Türkiye. The information in this document relates to the area under the effective control of the Government of the Republic of Cyprus.

The Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) assesses three information-processing skills: literacy, numeracy and problem solving. More specifically:

Literacy, assessed in both the 1^st and 2^nd Cycles, is defined as the ability to access, understand, evaluate and reflect on written texts in order to achieve one's goals, to develop one's knowledge and potential and to participate in society. In the 2^nd cycle, it also includes reading components as the ability to understand the meaning of simple sentences, and comprehension of short passages of text. See sample tasks for Literacy.
Numeracy, assessed in both the 1^st and 2^nd Cycles, is defined as the ability to access, use, and reason critically with mathematical content, information and ideas represented in multiple ways to engage in and manage the mathematical demands of a range of situations in adult life. In the 2^nd Cycle, it also includes a numeracy components assessment: the ability to understand basic notions of quantity and magnitude. See sample tasks for Numeracy.
Problem Solving in Technology-Rich Environments (PS-TRE), assessed only in the 1^st Cycle, refers to the ability to use technology to solve problems and accomplish complex tasks. It is not a measurement of “computer literacy”, but rather of the cognitive skills required in the information age – an age in which the accessibility of boundless information has made it essential for people to be able to decide what information they need, to evaluate it critically, and to use it to solve problems. In this survey, higher-order skills are identified along with basic proficiency. See sample tasks for PS-TRE.
Adaptive Problem Solving (APS), assessed only in the 2^nd Cycle, is defined as the ability to achieve one's goals in a dynamic situation, in which a method for solution is not immediately available. It requires engaging in cognitive and metacognitive processes to define the problem, search for information, and apply a solution in a variety of information environments and contexts. See sample tasks for APS (coming soon).

More information on what the 2^nd Cycle of the Survey of Adult Skills measure is available in The Assessment Frameworks for Cycle 2 of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies.

The PIAAC background questionnaire collects a range of information on the factors which influence the development and maintenance of skills, as well as information on outcomes which may be related to skills. The formers include education, adult training, socio-economic background, engagement with literacy, numeracy and technologies, and linguistic background. The latter include both economic outcomes, such as, employment status and earnings, and non-economic outcomes, such as health status, participation in volunteering activities, political efficacy and social trust.

The Background Questionnaire for the 2^nd Cycle of PIAAC is formed by the following sections:

A.    Personal characteristics
B.    Education and training
C.    Current status and work history
D.    Current work
E. Last job
F. Literacy, numeracy and ICT practices at work
G.    Literacy, numeracy and ICT practices in everyday life
H.    Working environment
I. Non-economic outcomes
J. Background information
K. Social and emotional skills

While the questionnaire used in the 2^nd Cycle is largely similar to the one used in the 1^st Cycle, a number of innovations and updates have been introduced and are worth mentioning:

Section K contains a set of questions to assess social and emotional skills, which was not present in the 1^st Cycle. Section K was not administered in three countries.
Section B on Education and Training has been revised to be aligned with new international standards. Furthermore, it now contains additional questions capturing the educational pathways followed by adults to obtain their highest educational qualifications
Sections F and G have been revised and updated to better reflect contemporary practices, especially regarding the use of new digital devices
Section H has also been revised and expanded, with the inclusion of an optional module that has been administered in 19 countries

The Background Questionnaires (html / PDF) are also available in several languages:

1^st Cycle Background Questionnaires
2^nd Cycle Background Questionnaires (coming soon)

Social and emotional skills are commonly identified as an element of the set of ‘key competencies’ required for success in the labour market and in life more generally and feature prominently in international and national frameworks setting out objectives for skills development and learning outcomes expected of education and training systems.

The assessment of social and emotional skills in the 2^nd Cycle of PIAAC is based on the Big Five Taxonomy. The Background Questionnaire contains items from the Big Five inventory–2 (BFI-2), covering five domains (Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Negative Emotionality, and Open-Mindedness). Twelve countries administered a larger set of questions in order to be able to assess different facets of these five domains.

Recent technological, demographic and economic transformations have dramatically changed the demand for skills. The need for routine cognitive skills is declining, while the demand for information-processing skills, interpersonal communication, self-management and the ability to learn is growing.

While the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) provides essential information to analyse the relationship between the measured skills and economic and social outcomes at the individual level, the design of effective policies requires a better assessment of employers’ skill requirements and how these are shaped as well as a deeper understanding of the mechanisms they employ to respond to skills mismatches and gaps. These mechanisms include on-the-job training, variable pay systems, performance appraisal, autonomous teams, job rotation schemes and worker replacement.

This information cannot be collected through a household survey, given that employers are the best suited to identify the skill gaps they face and describe the policies and strategies they put in place to address these skill gaps. Existing employer surveys in several countries confirm that meaningful information on skill gaps can be collected from employers.

Therefore the OECD developed a module of survey items on skills employers that includes: a set of core questions on skill gaps; a set of desirable items on training, HR practices, work organisation that would help gain insights from the core on skill gaps, which could be added based on each country’s specific interests; and a set of essential firm characteristics, which are likely to be included already in the employer survey hosting the skills module. This was an optional module offered in the 2^nd Cycle, either added to existing employer surveys or implemented as a stand-along survey tool.

The data from the Survey can help countries better understand how education and training systems can nurture skills. In particular, they:

Constitute a rich evidence base for policy-relevant analysis on:
- the average level of information processing skills in the adult population, as well as differences between subgroups
- factors associated with the acquisition, development, maintenance and loss of proficiency over time
- how skills are used and rewarded in the labour market
- educational and skills mismatch
- equity in educational and labour market outcomes
- life-long learning
- socio-emotional skills in the adult population.
Helps countries benchmark their progress over time, set national goals and measure progress towards those goals.

Data from the Survey of Adult Skills allows investigation of the links between key information-processing skills and a range of variables, constituting a rich evidence base for policy-relevant analysis. In particular, data from this Survey facilitate a better understanding of:

Performance of education and training systems
The extent and dimensions of illiteracy and poor literacy
Gaps between labour markets and education and training
Equity levels in access to education
Young people’s transition from education to work
Identification of at-risk populations
Links between key cognitive skills and variables such as demographics, educational background, health, etc.

The PIAAC target population consists of all non-institutionalised adults between the ages of 16 and 65 (inclusive) whose usual place of residency is in the country at the time of data collection. Adults are to be included regardless of citizenship, nationality or language.

The target population excludes adults in institutional collective dwelling units (or group quarters) such as prisons, hospitals and nursing homes, as well as adults residing in military barracks and military bases. However, full-time and part-time members of the military who do not reside in military barracks or military bases are included in the target population. Adults in other non-institutional collective dwelling units (or group quarters), such as workers’ quarters or halfway homes, are also included in the target population.

Age is defined as age at the time of the interview. For countries with registries (if exact date of birth is available), age at the midpoint of the data collection period is used to define the sampling frame of age eligible persons.

More information on the target population are available in the Technical Report of the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) (3rd Edition).

The sample size requirement varies between 4 000 and 5 000 completed cases, depending on the sample design, for the main language/s for the PIAAC target population. However, country-specific design choices, such as testing in more than one language, or the over-sampling of specific geographic regions or sub-populations ,affect the minimum required sample size for each country.

More information on the sample size and sampling approaches are available in the Technical Report of the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) (3rd Edition).

The 2nd Cycle of PIAAC continues to assess literacy and numeracy, so that countries can track how the skills of the adult population evolved. The assessment has been updated to better reflect tasks adults engage with in modern societies, and it now provides more accurate information on low performers, with the inclusion of numeracy components.

Important innovations have been introduced: a new assessment of Adaptive Problem Solving, a new module of the Background Questionnaire assessing the socio-emotional skills of respondents, and revised questions to collect richer information on education and training and on features of the working environment related to skills use and development, among others.

PIAAC is designed as 10-yearly-cycles. Results from 1^st Cycle of PIAAC were released in 2013 with the results from the 2^nd Cycle scheduled to be released in 2023. However, due to the disruption caused by COVID-19, the PIAAC Board of Participating Countries postponed the survey by a year. Therefore, results are scheduled to be released on 10 December 2024.

For queries or more information, please contact the PIAAC team at edu.piaac@oecd.org

Governance

PIAAC is governed by a board comprising representatives from the OECD countries participating in the study (plus the European Commission), known as the Board of Participating Countries (BPC). The BPC normally meets twice a year. The OECD provides secretariat services to the BPC.

The BPC works with the OECD Secretariat to steer the PIAAC project. Its role includes providing policy direction to the project, taking key decisions relating to the design and conduct of the project and ensuring compliance with the policy objectives and design parameters at key milestones during the implementation of the project.

The OECD Secretariat contracts many activities related to the design and implementation of the Survey to an international contractor. The OECD is responsible for managing the contract(s) with the contractor(s) and is the interface between the BPC and the contractor(s). Representatives of the contractor(s) normally attend meetings of the BPC.

Each participating country nominates a National Project Manager (NPM) who is the primary contact point for the contractor(s) in the day-to-day dealings with that country. The NPM is not part of the BPC. NPMs manage a national team which includes key staff responsible for sampling activities, data management, and IT infrastructures. NPMs liaise with the contractor(s) on all issues related to the implementation of PIAAC in their country.

PIAAC is financed exclusively through direct contributions from the participating countries and economies’ government authorities, typically education, skills and/or labour ministries.

Process

PIAAC uses a variety of item formats including numeric entry, hotspot, drag and drop, single selection multiple-choice, multiple selection multiple-choice, drop-down menu selection, and Likert-style questionnaire items. It also includes some innovative item types, such as simulations.

Items in the direct assessment are organised into units, related to a common stimulus or set of stimuli. Each direct assessment item has associated metadata mapping them to the assessment framework. A few PIAAC test items are released after every assessment, while most test items are kept confidential to measure trends over time. PIAAC released items and background questionnaires are publicly available on the PIAAC Website.

The contractors responsible for the implementation of PIAAC are responsible for all instruments. Participating PIAAC countries and economies are invited to submit questions that are then added to items developed by the OECD’s experts and contractors. The questions are reviewed by the international contractors and by participating countries, and are carefully checked for cultural bias. Only those questions that pass these checks are revised and used in PIAAC. Further, before the main test is conducted there is a trial test run in all participating countries and economies. If any test questions prove to be too easy or too difficult in certain countries and economies, for reasons not related to the overall level of proficiency of respondents (as demonstrated on the remaining questions), they are dropped from the main test in all countries and economies.

The PIAAC instruments are designed to provide an assessment of performance at the system (or country) level. It is not designed to produce scores for individual respondents, so it is not necessary for each respondent to receive the same set of test items. Thus, PIAAC adopts an efficient design in which the full set of test material, covering all aspects of the framework, is distributed over many testing forms. This procedure enables the OECD to obtain a much greater coverage of the content than if all respondents had completed the same version of the test.

Literacy and Numeracy follow a multi-stage adaptive design where high-performing respondents are more likely to be directed to more difficult questions (and low-achieving respondents to easier questions). This provided greater accuracy in measurement of both test scores and the relationship between test scores and other factors, such as socio-economic status. Adaptive problem solving followed a linear approach based on clusters.

Results

Results from the 1^st Cycle of PIAAC are publicly available through a set of deliverables available through the OECD PIAAC Website. Results from the 2^nd Cycle of PIAAC will be available on 10 December 2024.

The deliverables for each cycle are classified into two broad categories:

1. The “PIAAC data and methodology” section provides access to all data products and tools

Databases, Public Use File and Log files
Analytical tools:
- the PIAAC International Data Explorer and the International Database (IDB) Analyser
- tools for the analysis of PIAAC data with dedicated statistical software (SAS, Stata, R)

2. The "Publications" section provides access to all reports

International reports
Readers' Companion
Technical Reports
Thematic reports
Working papers

A fully documented dataset with scaled microdata and paradata for internal analysis at the OECD
A Public-Use international dataset
Data analyses training, including through a web-based data analyser for less sophisticated users
A fully documented Technical Report
Data analysis manual
A final international report produced by the OECD and support for the preparation of national reports + thematic reports

The value of cross-country comparisons is at the heart of large-scale international surveys such as PIAAC. PIAAC follows several standards and procedures concerned with ensuring fair and valid comparisons of PIAAC results across countries. These include the consistent implementation of PIAAC and the use of representative samples in each participating country and economy. Much effort also goes into ensuring that the questions used in PIAAC maintain their measurement properties in each of the many language versions. The steps to ensure that the resulting measures are equivalent include:

Qualitative reviews of all test and questionnaire items, at different stages of their development, by national and international experts in the respective domains. The ratings and comments submitted by national experts determine the revision of items and coding guides for the main study, and guide the final selection of questions.
Prescribed procedures for translation and adaptation. These include the preparation of an English source version, of detailed translation and adaptation guidelines, the requirement of a double-translation design (two independent translations are reconciled by a third person), and a final quality control of the resulting translation (“verification”), performed by the international PIAAC consortium. Countries sharing a test language are encouraged to develop a common version that is then adapted to national contexts.
Systematic analysis of measurement equivalence of items, through statistical indicators of scale consistency and model fit. The comparability of scale values is supported by many items whose model parameters are constrained to the same international values and that therefore serve as “anchors” for the reporting scale.

Detailed information about these procedures are available in the Technical Report of the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) (3rd Edition).

There were several events where the PIAAC results were discussed.

Conferences

International PIAAC Research Conference 2022: "Skills for Future", organised by Gesis - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences. 24–25 March 2022, Mannheim, Germany
6th PIAAC International Conference - Rome, Italy, 28-29 January 2020
5th PIAAC International Conference - Bratislava, Slovak Republic, 27-29 November 2018
4th PIAAC International Conference - Singapore, 21-23 November 2017
3rd PIAAC International Conference - Madrid, 6-8 November 2016
2nd PIAAC International Conference - Haarlem, The Netherlands, 22-24 November 2015
1st PIAAC International Conference - Washington, D.C., United States, 13–15 November 2013

Research Conferences and Seminars

PIAAC Seminar: 'Enriching PIAAC: Longitudinal follow-ups and linkage with other data', OECD Headquarters, Paris, France, 21 October 2022

Large-scale assessments like PIAAC are normally conducted as cross-sectional surveys: they offer a snapshot of the distribution of proficiency of the population at one point in time. They are therefore precious tools to understand how different countries compare to each other, but they are less well suited for investigating the dynamics of skills formation and how individual trajectories are shaped by skills. To answer these questions, a longitudinal dimension is often necessary. This longitudinal dimension can be obtained in two ways: (1) by conducting follow-up studies, where participating adults are re-interviewed and, possibly, their skills are re-assessed, or (2) by linking cross-sectional survey data to administrative records (for example, social security or school archives), or to other surveys containing a more complete history of education or labour market outcomes. These two strategies are not mutually exclusive. Some countries have enriched their data from the 1st cycle of PIAAC in either or both ways. Others have linked other datasets to PIAAC using Education and Skills Online. The purpose of this workshop is to review these different experiences, illustrate the potential they offer for research and policy evaluation, and reflect on how these initiatives can involve a wider number of countries. (Agenda; Presentations)

PIAAC Methodological Seminar: 'The use of test scores in secondary analysis', OECD, Boulogne-Billancourt, France, 14 June 2019

The increasing availability of microdata from large-scale assessments of students and adults have spurred a great deal of research in labour economics and economics of education. Test scores from these assessments are often seen as better and more precise proxies of cognitive skills or human capital than years of schooling. Researchers using these data are however often unaware of how assessments are designed, and of how test scores are estimated on the basis of the answers provided by respondents sitting an assessment. Large-scale assessments are primarily designed to describe the distribution of proficiency in the population of interest, and are not intended to provide unbiased measures of the individual proficiency of any single respondent. This has important implications for their use in secondary, individual-level analysis. The purpose of this Seminar is to raise awareness about the methodology used to estimate test scores in large-scale assessments and to stimulate a reflection on how methodological choices made at the production stage affect the use of data in secondary analysis. The Seminar intends to bring together users and producers of this type of data, in order to stimulate an inter-disciplinary dialogue and reflect on how the production and the dissemination of the data could be improved in order to better serve the multiplicity of demands that these data are called to satisfy. (Agenda; Concept Note; List of speakers; Presentations)

OECD Methodological conference: 'Cross-country comparability of questionnaire scales', OECD Headquarters, Paris, France, 8-9 November 2018

This conference aimed at exploring novel approaches in measurement equivalence research and at highlighting promising areas to advance the field of invariance testing. It also aimed at delineating recommendations and guidelines for dealing with the issue of measurement equivalence, both in the preparation of public-use datasets and in the analytical work based on the data collected in these surveys. The target audience for this conference included researchers and analysts working with international datasets as well as the key suppliers in the industry of international large-scale surveys (Agenda; Meeting report).

OECD-GESIS Seminar: 'Translating and Adapting Instruments in Large-Scale Assessments', OECD Headquarters, Paris, France, 7-8 June 2018

The aim of the methodological seminars is to encourage discussion and cross-fertilisation of ideas between the range of actors and communities involved in the design, management and analysis of large-scale assessments. The topic of translation and adaptation of instruments has been chosen for 2018 as it is a key to achieving the goals of cross-linguistic and cross-cultural comparability in international studies. (Agenda; List of speakers; Presentations; Meeting report).

OECD Seminar: 'Managing the Quality of Data Collection in Large Scale Assessments', OECD Headquarters, Paris, France, 11-12 May 2017

The purpose of this seminar was to convene a group of experts in the area of large-scale surveys and assessments to discuss the management of the quality of data collection and the detection, mitigation and treatment of errors arising in the course of data collection (Agenda; Speakers; Presentations)

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