This is the second in a series of podcasts, developed by the Office of Literacy and Essential Skills (OLES) in Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC), outlining research on numeracy that is part of the Essential Skills Research Project undertaken to improve the current measurement framework for those skills.

One of the numeracy research objectives was to obtain a literature review of five internationally recognized assessment frameworks that measure numeracy, explains Katherine Clarke-Nolan, a policy analyst with OLES.

The five chosen for the literature review were the OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, commonly known as PIAAC; the Adult Literacy and Lifeskills Survey, also known as ALLS; the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA); the Adult Numeracy Core Curriculum; and the New Zealand Tertiary Education Commission Learning Progressions for Adult Numeracy and Assessment Tools.

They were selected because of their recognition by the international community of numeracy researchers, and the comprehensiveness of their conceptual and measurement aspect.