The present historical moment may seem a particularly inopportune time to review Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam's latest exploration of civic decline in America. After all, the outpouring of volunteerism, solidarity, patriotism, and self-sacrifice displayed by Americans in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks appears to fly in the face of Putnam's central argument: that \"social capital\" -defined as \"social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them\" (p. 19)'has declined to dangerously low levels in America over the last three decades. However, Putnam is not fazed in the least by the recent effusion of solidarity. Quite the contrary, he sees in it the potential to \"reverse what has been a 30to 40-year steady decline in most measures of connectedness or community.\"' As an example of how the current \"war on terrorism\" could generate a durable civic renewal, Putnam points to the burst in civic practices that occurred during and after World War II, which he says \"permanently marked\" the generation that lived through it and had a \"terrific effect on American public life over the last half-century.\" 3 If Americans can follow this example and channel their current civic

Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community

Expert Panel Report 2: Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Asthma

To maintain their own health and the health of their families and communities, consumers rely heavily on the health information that is available to them. This information is at the core of the partnerships that patients and their families forge with today?s complex modern health systems. This information may be provided in a variety of forms ? ranging from a discussion between a patient and a health care provider to a health promotion advertisement, a consent form, or one of many other forms of health communication common in our society. Yet millions of Americans cannot understand or act upon this information. To address this problem, the field of health literacy brings together research and practice from diverse fields including education, health services, and social and cultural sciences, and the many organizations whose actions can improve or impede health literacy. Health Literacy: Prescription to End Confusion examines the body of knowledge that applies to the field of health literacy, and recommends actions to promote a health literate society. By examining the extent of limited health literacy and the ways to improve it, we can improve the health of individuals and populations.

Health literacy : a prescription to end confusion

Expert Panel Report 3: Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Asthma

As we enter the twenty-first century, the Internet is having a profound effect on the survey research industry, as it is on almost every area of human enterprise. The rapid development of surveys on the World Wide Web (WWW) is leading some to argue that soon Internet (and, in particular, Web) surveys will replace traditional methods of survey data collection. Others are urging caution or even voicing skepticism about the future role Web surveys will play. Clearly, we stand at the threshold of a new era for survey research, but how this will play out is not yet clear. Whatever one's views about the likely future for survey research, the current impact of the Web on survey data collection is worthy of serious research attention. Given the rapidly growing interest in Web surveys,' it is important to distinguish among different types of Web surveys. The rubric "Web survey" encompasses a wide variety of methods, with different purposes, populations, target audiences, etc. I present an overview of some of the key types of Web surveys currently being implemented and do so using the language of survey errors. In order to judge the quality of a particular survey (be it Web or any other type), one needs to do so within the context of its stated aims and the claims it makes. By offering a typology of Web survey designs, the intent of this article is to facilitate the task of evaluating and improving Web surveys. Web surveys represent a double-edged sword for the survey industry. On the one hand, the power of Web surveys is that they make survey data collection (as opposed to survey participation) available to the masses. Not only can researchers get access to undreamed of numbers of respondents at dramatically lower costs than traditional methods, but members of the general

Web surveys: a review of issues and approaches.

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Adult literacy in America : a first look at the results of the National Adult Literacy Survey

" The purpose of the Center shall be to collect, analyze, and disseminate statistics and other data related to education in the United States and in other nations. " — Section 406(b) of the General Education Provisions Act, as amended (20 U.S.C. 1221e-1).

Adult Literacy in America

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Literacy, profiles of America's young adults

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America's Perfect Storm: Three Forces Changing Our Nation's Future.

This paper offers a framework that has been used for both developing the tasks used to measure literacy and for understanding the meaning of what has been reported with respect to the comparative literacy proficiencies of adults in participating countries. The framework consists of six parts that represent a logical sequence of steps, from needing to define and represent a particular domain of interest, to identifying and operationalizing characteristics used to construct items, to providing an empirical basis for interpreting results. The various parts of the framework are seen as important in that they help to provide a deeper understanding of the construct of literacy and the various processes associated with it. A processing model is proposed and variables associated with performance on the literacy tasks are identified and verified through regression analyses. These variables are shown to account for between 79% and 89% of the variance in task difficulty. Collectively, these process variables provide a means for moving away from interpreting performance on large-scale surveys in terms of discrete tasks or a single number, toward identifying levels of performance that have generalizability across pools of tasks and toward what Messick (1989) has called a higher level of measurement.

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Irwin S. Kirsch

Papers

Adult literacy in America : a first look at the results of the National Adult Literacy Survey

Adult Literacy in America

Literacy, profiles of America's young adults

America's Perfect Storm: Three Forces Changing Our Nation's Future.

The international adult literacy survey (ials): understanding what was measured