Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Self-Assessed Literacy Index: Reliability And Validity, Kristen Olson, Jolene D. Smyth, Ying Wang, Jennie E. Pearson

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Literacy is associated with many outcomes of research interest as well as with respondents’ ability to even participate in surveys, yet very few surveys attempt to measure it because doing so is often complex, requiring extensive tests. The central goal of this paper is to develop a parsimonious measure of respondents’ reading ability that does not require a complex literacy test. We use data from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy to identify correlates of reading ability to form a literacy index. These correlates include self-assessments of one’s ability to understand, read and write English, and literacy practices at …