Average prose, document, and quantitative literacy scores of adults age 16 or older, by selected characteristics: 1992 and 2003

Adult Literacy

Table 18-1. Average prose, document, and quantitative literacy scores of adults age 16 or older, by selected characteristics: 1992 and 2003

	Prose		Document		Quantitative
Characteristic	1992	2003	1992	2003	1992	2003

Total	276	275	271	271	275	283
Sex
Male	276	272	274	269	283	286
Female	277	277	268	272	269	279

Race/ethnicity¹
White	287	288	281	282	288	297
Black	237	243	230	238	222	238
Hispanic	234	216	238	224	233	233
Asian/Pacific Islander	255	271	259	272	268	285

Age
16–18	270	267	270	268	264	267
19–24	280	276	282	277	277	279
25–39	288	283	286	282	286	292
40–49	293	282	284	277	292	289
50–64	269	278	258	270	272	289
65 or older	235	248	221	235	235	257

Language spoken before starting school²
English only	282	283	275	276	280	289
English and Spanish	255	262	253	259	247	261
English and other language	273	278	260	268	271	289
Spanish	205	188	216	199	212	211
Other language	239	249	241	257	246	270

Education
Still in high school	268	262	270	265	263	261
Less than/some high school	216	207	211	208	209	211
GED/high school equivalency	265	260	259	257	265	265
High school graduate	268	262	261	258	267	269
Vocational/trade/business school	278	268	273	267	280	279
Some college	292	287	288	280	295	294
Associate’s/2-year degree	306	298	301	291	305	305
College graduate	325	314	317	303	324	323
Graduate studies/degree	340	327	328	311	336	332

Employment status
Employed full time	290	285	286	281	292	296
Employed part time	285	281	279	277	281	287
Unemployed	263	269	261	265	261	270
Not in labor force	252	255	244	250	247	261

¹Race categories exclude persons of Hispanic ethnicity. In 1992, respondents were allowed to identify only one race; in 2003, respondents were allowed to identify multiple races. Included in the total but not shown separately are American Indians/Alaska Natives and respondents with more than one race.
²The “English and Spanish” category includes adults who spoke only English and Spanish as well as adults who spoke English, Spanish, and another language(s). The “Spanish” category includes adults who spoke only Spanish as well as adults who spoke Spanish and another non-English language(s). The “Other language” category includes only adults who spoke neither English nor Spanish.
NOTE: Adults are defined as people age 16 or older living in households or prisons. Prose literacy is the knowledge and skills needed to perform prose tasks (i.e., to search, comprehend, and use information from continuous texts, such as paragraphs from stories); document literacy is the knowledge and skills needed to perform document tasks (i.e., to search, comprehend, and use information from noncontinuous texts in various formats, such as bills or prescription labels); and quantitative literacy is the knowledge and skills required to perform quantitative tasks (i.e., to identify and perform computations, either alone or sequentially, using numbers embedded in printed materials). Results are reported in terms of average scores on a 0–500 scale. To compare results between 1992 and 2003, the 1992 results were rescaled using the criteria and methods established for the 2003 assessment.
SOURCE: Kutner, M., Greenberg, E., and Baer, J. (2005). A First Look at the Literacy of America’s Adults in the 21st Century (NCES 2006-470), figures 1, 4, 11, 14, 18, and table 7, data from U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) and 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS).

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