In the wake of the technological revolution that began in the last decades of the 20th century, labour market demand for information-processing and other high-level cognitive and interpersonal skills is growing substantially.

This edition of the Reader’s Companion accompanies Skills Matter: Additional Results from the Survey of Adult Skills that reports the results from the 39 countries and regions that participated in the 3 rounds of data collection in the first cycle of PIAAC, with a particular focus on the 6 countries that participated in the third round of the study (Ecuador, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Peru and the United States). It describes the design and methodology of the survey and its relationship to other international assessments of young students and adults.

In the wake of the technological revolution that began in the last decades of the 20th century, labour market demand for information-processing and other high-level cognitive and interpersonal skills is growing substantially.

In the wake of the technological revolution that began in the last decades of the 20th century, labour-market demand for information-processing and other high-level cognitive and interpersonal skills have been growing substantially. Based on the results from the 39 countries and regions that participated in the 1st cycle of the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), it places special emphasis on the results from the 3rd round of this cycle, with 6 new countries collecting data in 2018-19. This report describes adults’ proficiency in information-processing skills and examines how proficiency is related to education, labour-market and social outcomes.

The OECD’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) represents a comprehensive international comparative assessment of the information processing skills of adults vital for the full participation in social and economic life in the 21st century. PIAAC is now in its second cycle and continues a series of international assessments of adult skills that began in the mid-1990s with the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS).

Computer-based administration of large-scale assessments makes it possible to collect a rich set of information on test takers, through analysis of the log files recording interactions between the computer interface and the server.

This reader’s companion for the Survey of Adult Skills explains what the survey measures and the methodology behind the measurements.