FWE Webinar | What is PIAAC and what can it tell us about the importance of skills?
FWE Webinar | What is PIAAC and what can it tell us about the importance of skills?
Date: September 21st, 2021 Time: 9:30 am – 11:00 am EST (UTC-4)
Topic: What is PIAAC and what can it tell us about the importance of skills?
Abstract: During the past 60 or so years we have seen a significant growth in the number of large-scale international assessments, including the development of PIAAC or the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies by the OECD. PIAAC represents the most recent and largest international survey of adult skills and along with other school-based studies provides a growing recognition of the importance of education and skills to social and economic development. Over the last several decades as globalization and technology have accelerated the economic dependencies among countries, PIAAC and other surveys have contributed not only to new technologies and methodologies but also to the range of information that policy makers and other key stakeholders have about the distribution of skills and their connections to both economic and non-economic life outcomes. This seminar will discuss what PIAAC measures in terms of the coverage of relevant constructs in both cognitive domains and in terms of background information. As a technology-based assessment, PIAAC also reflects the growing relevance and use of digital devices as they increasingly reflect the ways in which various groups of adults access, use and communicate information. Presenters will also discuss examples of how this information is being used to further understanding and improve policies in both developed and developing economies. Presentations will be followed by a discussion period among presenters and with those virtually attending the seminar. Structure:
- Build around PIAAC
- What it is, what it measures
- What results show both in terms of distributional characteristics and levels of inequality
- To what extent do these skills relate to both economic non-economic outcomes
- Related issues for discussion
- As PIAAC is developed and delivered on a digital device (Tablet) are digital skills now part of the construct or do they, as some suggest, contribute to construct irrelevant variance to the measurement
- Should we focus on training the current generation of prime working age adults and/or on those transitioning into adulthood?
- Will foundational skills like those assessed in PIAAC remain important in the future given the advances in AI and technology?
- What types of investments should we make to address current literacy levels in adults? Are they different for developed and developing countries?
Rebecca Maynard
FWE Representative: University Trustee Chair Professor of Education and Social Policy, Emeritus Graduate School of Education University of Pennsylvania
Rebecca Maynard is a leading expert in the design and conduct of randomized controlled trials in the areas of education and social policy. She has conducted influential methodological research, including co-developing PowerUP! to support efficient sample designs for causal inference studies, and she has been influential in advancing the application of research synthesis methods in education and social policy. She designed and directed the University’s Predoctoral Training Program in Interdisciplinary Methods for Field-based Education Research, which served more than 75 Ph.D. students from Arts and Sciences, Business, and Education between 2004 and 2016. From 2010 through 2012, she served as Commissioner of the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance at the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), where she oversaw the Institute’s evaluation initiatives, the What Works Clearinghouse, the Regional Education Laboratories, and the National Library of Education.
She is a Fellow of the American Education Research Association, an elected member of the Society for Research Synthesis Methodology, and recipient of the Peter H. Rossi Award for Contributions to the Theory and Practice of Program Evaluation (2009) and the Society for Research on Adolescence Social Policy Best Book Award for Kids Having Kids (1998). She also is past President of both the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) and the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness. Prior to joining the University of Pennsylvania faculty in 1993, she was Senior Vice President at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.
Irwin Kirsch
Director of the Center for Global Assessment at Educational Testing Service
Irwin S. Kirsch is the Director of the Center for Global Assessment at Educational Testing Service. He earned his Ph.D. in Educational Measurement, Reading/Literacy from the University of Delaware in 1982. Since joining ETS in 1984, he has directed a number of large-scale assessments in the area of literacy including the National Adult Literacy Survey, and the NAEP Young Adult Literacy Survey. He was also a key person in establishing the International Adult Literacy Surveys and has directed them for ETS since 1993. In 1987, he received the ETS Research Scientist Award for his work in the area of literacy and was named as an ETS Distinguished Presidential Appointee in 1999. Kirsch currently manages several large-scale surveys including the Adult Education Program Study with the U.S. Department of Education and the Literacy Assessment and Monitoring Program with the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Kirsch also chairs the Reading Expert Group for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and has been involved with several efforts aimed at defining and measuring information and communication technology (ICT) skills. In this area, he has directed an international panel for ETS that defined ICT literacy, has designed and conducted a feasibility study on ICT literacy for the OECD, and participates on an OECD advisory panel aimed at establishing a new survey of adult skills for the 21st century.
Madan Padaki
Managing Trustee and a co-founder of Head Held High Foundation
Madan Pataki, Madan Padaki, Managing Trustee of Head Held High Foundation.
Mr. Padaki is a social entrepreneur working at the intersection of transforming youth, enabling entrepreneurial journeys & empowering social changemakers. His vision is that every youth is an empowered youth, every empowered youth is an entrepreneur & job-creator and every entrepreneur is a social changemaker!
He is the Managing Trustee of Head Held High Foundation, a non-profit that aims to create abundance by transforming rural, low-educated youth into English-speaking, confident entrepreneurs and professionals. Head Held High Foundation has transformed over 20,000 youth across India. He is also the Founder & CEO of 1Bridge, a village commerce network that delivers digital financial services & aspirational products to our Today, 1Bridge is present in 60+ districts across South & East India and has over 6000+ rural entrepreneurs engaged in delivering services to rural consumers.
He is the Co-founder of Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME), a network that brings the ecosystem together to collaborate on igniting a mass entrepreneurship movement. He also serves as a Strategy Advisor to UNICEF India on youth empowerment. A serial entrepreneur, Madan was the co-founder of MeritTrac, India’s first skills assessment organisation that was acquired by Manipal Education.
Guido Schwerdt
Professor of Economics, University of Konstanz
Guido Schwerdt is Professor of Economics, in particular Public Economics, at the University of Konstanz. Before joining the faculty in Konstanz, he was Professor of Economics, in particular Applied Microeconomics, at the University of Siegen, researcher at the Ifo Institute for Economic Research in Munich and research fellow at the Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG) at Harvard University. He graduated in Economics at the University of Bonn and received his Ph.D. in Economics from the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence. He is also Research Professor at the Ifo Institute for Economic Research and fellow of the CESifo Research Network. His research interests include the Economics of Education, Labor Economics, and Public Economics.
William Thorn
Senior Analyst, OECD
Senior Analyst in the Skills Beyond School Division in the Directorate for Education and Skills of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
He joined the OECD in August 2007. He currently manages the OECD’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). Prior to joining the OECD, Mr Thorn held a wide range of senior positions in the Australian federal Departments of Education and Employment. This included the management of units responsible for research into education and the labour market, programme evaluation, statistical collections and analysis, tertiary education funding policy and the Commonwealth government’s role in the testing and monitoring of basic skills such as literacy and numeracy in Australian schools. [see 2014 presentation: https://slideplayer.com/slide/7566347/]
Alexandria Valerio
Resident Representative in the Dominican Republic, Latin America and Caribbean, World Bank.
A Mexican national, Alexandria Valerio holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Education and Economics from Columbia University and a master’s degree in Public Administration from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University.
Ms. Valerio has worked in the Africa, South Asia and Latin America regions of the World Bank and brings with her over 25 years of experience that includes managing complex operations and leading large-scale research programs. Before her current appointment, she was the Lead Education Specialist for the Europe and Central Asia region. Ms. Valerio’s experience includes work on education, social protection, and growth and competitiveness.