The Literacy and Numeracy for Adults Assessment Tool was developed for the TEC by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER), who led a consortium involving NZCER, the Australian Council of Educational Research (ACER), and Fronde. The development process drew on the collective curriculum and assessment expertise of NZCER, ACER, and TEC, and the ICT expertise of Fronde.
The Literacy and Numeracy for Adults Assessment Tool is an online adaptive tool primarily designed to provide robust and reliable information on the reading, writing, numeracy and vocabulary skills of adults. This information informs the development of learning interventions that match learners’ needs and strengthen their literacy and numeracy skills. The Assessment Tool also allows learners to track their progress over time and enable educators and organisations to report on the progress made by groups or cohorts of learners. See https://assess.literacyandnumeracyforadults.com/
Since the release of the tool in 2010, NZCER has led several further developments. The Assessment Tool now offers the following options in addition to the default ‘adult’ reading and numeracy
assessments:
- Youth options for reading and numeracy
- Starting Points: Reading and Starting Points: Listening Vocabulary for learners working at foundational stages of reading or who are beginning learners of English
- Te Ata Hāpara, a reading option in English for Māori learners.
In summary, the Tool provides:
- reading, writing, numeracy, and vocabulary assessments linked to the Learning Progressions for Adult Literacy and Numeracy
- hundreds of assessment questions, using New Zealand contexts
- adaptive assessments (where the computer alters the difficulty of questions in response to the
- learner’s answer) and non-adaptive assessments (online and printed)
- reports for learners, educators, organisations and the TEC
- a reliable infrastructure built and tested to IT industry standards.
Access the tool here: https://assess.literacyandnumeracyforadults.com/