OECD is conducting a survey in over 40 countries as part of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). It measures the key cognitive and workplace skills needed for individuals to participate in society; it has helped countries better understand how education and training systems can enhance these skills. They are conducting the survey every 10 years; it has had two cycles so far. The results from the first round of the survey, covering 24 countries and economies, were reported in the OECD Skills Outlook 2013: First Results from the Survey of Adult Skills. Another nine countries and economies collected data during 2014-15. The results show that in almost all countries/economies, a sizeable proportion of adults – around one in four adults - has no or only limited experience with computers or lacks confidence in their ability to use computers. In addition, nearly one in two adults is proficient only at or below Level 1 (Table 2) in problem-solving in technology-rich environments. This adult can only use familiar applications to solve problems that involve few steps and explicit criteria, such as sorting e-mails into pre-existing folders.

According to the study results, proficiency in problem-solving in technology-rich environments peaks at around age 25. They report that on average, older adults (55‑65 year-olds) score significantly lower than 25-34 year-olds – around 30 points on average.

The results confirm the hypothesis, that adults with higher proficiency in problem-solving in technology-rich environments tend to have greater chances of employment and earn more than less-proficient peers - across the countries that participated in the Survey of Adult Skills, an adult who scores one standard deviation higher than another on the literacy scale (around 48 score points) is 0.8 percentage point more likely to be employed than unemployed; whilst an increase of one standard deviation in literacy proficiency is associated with a 6% increase in wages, on average across the 33 participating countries and economies.

Across EU countries, that participated in 2011 sample, 13% of the working-age population either lacked any computer experience or showed such low levels of abilities that they failed to take the problem-solving test.

Source: Elisabeth Tucker (n.d.). Overview of U.S. Results: Focus on Numeracy. Available at: https://slideplayer.com/slide/13109747/

On average, 43% across the smaller sample, excluding Spain, France, Cyprus and Italy (in the graph column „EU13“) – showed basic levels of proficiency.

Source: The Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC): Implications for education and training policies in Europe by European Commission (2013).

Among the younger generation of 16-24-year-olds, the share with very low problem-solving skills (below level 1 – 9%) or very little to no computer experience (4%) is much smaller than in the overall population. Somewhat unexpected, roughly the same share of young adults (around 30%) have only low levels of proficiency in problem-solving (level 1) similar to the overall working-age population.

Source: The Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC): Implications for education and training policies in Europe by European Commission (2013).

References

OECD (2016). Skills Matter: Further Results from the Survey of Adult Skills, OECD Skills Studies, OECD Publishing, Paris. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264258051-en

Reips, U.-D., & Buffardi, L. E. (2012). Studying Migrants with the Help of the Internet: Methods from Psychology. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 38(9), 1405–1424.