Literacy and reading performance in the United States, from 1880 to the present
TL;DR: The authors reviewed literacy and reading achievement trends over the past century and place current debates in a historical perspective, and suggested that students' reading performance at a given age remained stable until the 1970s and much of it can be explained by the changing demographics of test-takers.
Abstract: THE AUTHORS review literacy and reading achievement trends over the past century and place current debates in a historical perspective. Although then-and-now studies are methodologically weak, they suggest that students' reading performance at a given age remained stable until the 1970s. The test score decline that then occurred was not as great as many educators think, and much of it can be explained by the changing demographics of test-takers. The decline pales when compared to the tremendous increase in the population's educational attainment over the past 40 years. However, the strategy of ever-increasing schooling to meet ever-increasing literacy demands may have run its course. High school dropout rates are increasing, and educational attainment has leveled off. Researchers have identified substantial mismatches between workers' skills and job demands, and between job and school literacy skills. In spite of their flaws, functional literacy tests suggest that 20 percent of the adult population, or 30 million people, have serious difficulties with common reading tasks. Upgrading literacy skills now requires new initiatives by coalitions of educators, community groups, employers, and government agencies.
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01 Jan 2004
TL;DR: 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.
Abstract: 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.
4,107 citations
876 citations
TL;DR: Elderly managed care enrollees may not have the literacy skills necessary to function adequately in the health care environment, and low health literacy may impair elderly patients' understanding of health messages and limit their ability to care for their medical problems.
Abstract: ContextElderly patients may have limited ability to read and
comprehend medical information pertinent to their health.ObjectiveTo determine the prevalence of low functional health
literacy among community-dwelling Medicare enrollees in a national
managed care organization.DesignCross-sectional survey.SettingFour Prudential HealthCare plans (Cleveland, Ohio;
Houston, Tex; south Florida; Tampa, Fla).ParticipantsA total of 3260 new Medicare enrollees aged 65 years
or older were interviewed in person between June and December 1997 (853
in Cleveland, 498 in Houston, 975 in south Florida, 934 in Tampa); 2956
spoke English and 304 spoke Spanish as their native language.Main Outcome MeasureFunctional health literacy as measured by the
Short Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults.ResultsOverall, 33.9% of English-speaking and 53.9% of
Spanish-speaking respondents had inadequate or marginal health
literacy. The prevalence of inadequate or marginal functional health
literacy among English speakers ranged from 26.8% to 44.0%. In
multivariate analysis, study location, race/language, age, years of
school completed, occupation, and cognitive impairment were
significantly associated with inadequate or marginal literacy. Reading
ability declined dramatically with age, even after adjusting for years
of school completed and cognitive impairment. The adjusted odds ratio
for having inadequate or marginal health literacy was 8.62 (95%
confidence interval, 5.55-13.38) for enrollees aged 85 years or older
compared with individuals aged 65 to 69 years.ConclusionsElderly managed care enrollees may not have the
literacy skills necessary to function adequately in the health care
environment. Low health literacy may impair elderly patients'
understanding of health messages and limit their ability to care for
their medical problems.
864 citations
TL;DR: Various bodies of evidence are concatenated to demonstrate that differences in general intelligence (g) may be that fundamental cause of health inequalities.
Abstract: Virtually all indicators of physical health and mental competence favor persons of higher socioeconomic status (SES). Conventional theories in the social sciences assume that the material disadvantages of lower SES are primarily responsible for these inequalities, either directly or by inducing psychosocial harm. These theories cannot explain, however, why the relation between SES and health outcomes (knowledge, behavior, morbidity, and mortality) is not only remarkably general across time, place, disease, and kind of health system but also so finely graded up the entire SES continuum. Epidemiologists have therefore posited, but not yet identified, a more general "fundamental cause" of health inequalities. This article concatenates various bodies of evidence to demonstrate that differences in general intelligence (g) may be that fundamental cause.
552 citations
Cites background from "Literacy and reading performance in..."
...…and policy makers have long considered the seemingly low levels of functional competence in large segments of the population a threat to social equality and national productivity as well as to the well-being and civic involvement of the individuals involved (Stedman & Kaestle, 1987; Sum, 1999)....
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TL;DR: In this article, Harman reviews current definitions of illiteracy and functional illiteracy, and discusses their relationship both to estimates of the scope of the problem and, by implication, to efforts toward its solution.
Abstract: Mr. Harman reviews current definitions of illiteracy and functional illiteracy and discusses their relationship both to estimates of the scope of the problem and, by implication, to efforts toward its solution. Applying functional standards according to the requisites of particular societies, it can be seen that even countries with high literacy rates, such as the United States, harbor large functionally illiterate populations. The author argues that adult basic education efforts here and abroad should be planned on a situation-specific basis, with goals, content, and evaluative components derived independently of the usual grade school equivalencies.
75 citations
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01 Jan 1985
66 citations
"Literacy and reading performance in..." refers background in this paper
...that virtually all of the test score decline was caused by instructional failure (Brimelow, 1983; Copperman, 1979; Ravitch, 1985)....
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TL;DR: Zajonc et al. as discussed by the authors found that only a negligible fraction of the decline in SAT scores can be explained by changes in family configuration, and that SAT scores showed little variation with birth order and family size.
Abstract: Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores of three cohorts were examined together with data on family configuration, collected in-an attempt to calculate the, contribution made to the score decline by family factors. The analysis shows-that only a negligible fraction of the decline in SAT scores can be explained by changes in family configuration. In general, SAT scores showed little variation with birth order and family size—much less than found in other data sets. The results are discussed in the light of surveys of younger populations, for which test scores parallel birth trends remarkably well. According to a recent count (Wharton, 1977), 79 hypotheses have been advanced to explain the alarming decline in Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores during the last decade. Some hypotheses lay the blame on parental neglect, others on the spread of drugs, growing anti-intellectualism, waning support for schools, inadequate teacher training, addiction to TV, and even food additives. Most of these conjectures, however, are nonfalsifiable. Among those that are testable is the hypothesis that at least some portion of the decline in SAT Scores can be attributed to the changing family configuration (Zajonc, 1976). This hypothesis is derived from the confluence model (Zajonc & Markus, 1975), which describes the influences of family factors on intellectual development. In particular, the model predicts a systematic decline of intellectual performance in relation to birth order. Because the average order of birth in the United States has been declining in parallel with the decline in SAT scores, a causal connection was suspected. This hypothesis of a causal connection between the changing SAT scores and birth order patterns was further reinforced by data on younger populations from Iowa and New York. Both states have programs, of extensive testing of the elementary school population. The results of these Iowa and New York programs are of particular interest because their recent surveys 662 • JULY 1980 • AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST Copyright 1980 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0003-066X/80/3507-0662$00.75' cover the local minimum in birth trends. Inasmuch as the U.S. birthrate increased steadily from the war years until the early sixties, the average order of birth of these cohorts must have undergone a corresponding decline. That is, from the late forties on, children born in the postwar era came from increasingly larger families and were correspondingly lower in order of birth on the average. A dramatic reversal of this trend occurred in 1962, and since that time there has been a steady increase in the average order of birth. Although'the SAT scores of individuals born in 1962 and thereafter will not be knbwn until 1980, their scores in elementary school are already available, at least in New York and Iowa. If intellectual performance scores are indeed associated with birth order, we would expect a reversal in the trend of these scores for children born after 1962. It was precisely this finding among the New York and Iowa children that strengthened the supposition about the relation between SAT scores and birth order (Zajonc, 1976, pp. 233-234). How much of the drop in the SAT scores could be attributed to the changing family patterns? A simple calculation can provide some hints. We first need some indication of how much of a difference in intellectual performance is associated with differences in birth order. Breland's (1974) research provides the best source for this purpose because his population is most similar to that taking SAT tests. Breland examined a large sample of high school students (nearly 800,000) who took the National Merit Scholarship Qualification The research reported in this article was supported by Grant BNS 77-13973 from the National Science Foundation. The authors wish to thank Lee Cronbach for suggesting the method of protecting the privacy of the respondents and candidates. Requests for reprints should be sent to R. B. Zajonc, Research Center for Group Dynamics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Vol. 35, No. 7, 662-668 Test (NMSQT), relating their scores to family factors. We have recalculated his data to establish the relation between birth order (averaged over all family sizes) and NMSQT scores. According to this calculation, the NMSQT scores for the first five birth orders are 105.46, 102.79, 101.86, 99.38, and 96.89. By a linear fit (r = .99), these average scores represent a decline of 2.16 points for each birth rank. For purposes of evaluating SAT scores (which have a mean of 500 and a standard deviation of 100), we can convert these scores and Breland's figures (which have a mean of 102.5 and a standard deviation of 21.249) into standard scores, (M — M)/SD. When Breland's data are converted into standard units and the linear relation between these units and birth order is calculated, NMSQT scores decline by .10205 standard units per birth rank. For purposes of illustration we have selected the period of 1965 to 1977, because during that period both SAT scores and the average order of birth in the United States showed steady monotonic trends. Between 1965 and 1977, there was a drop of 34,5 points in the average overall SAT score (averaged over the verbal and quantitative portions). This decline from an average of 483.5 to 449.0 represents .345 standard units. According to the U.S. census, during the same period there was a change in the average order of birth of about one half of a birth rank (from an average order of 2.3973 to 2.9448). Since each birth rank changes a standard intellectual score by .10205 units, we should expect a change of .10205 (2.9448 2.3973) = .055872 standard units in the average SAT score associated with changes in the average order of birth. This change amounts to no more than 5.6 SAT points. Therefore, if changes in birth order alone were responsible for the SAT decline, the national average today should be around 478 rather than 450. Clearly, then, only a fraction (16%) of the massive decline in SAT scores can be attributed to the changing family patterns. Beaton, Hilton, and Schrader (1977) compared the reading scores of high school seniors tested in 1960 and the scores of those tested in 1972 and found that a decline in these scores calculated on the basis of changes in birth order was only \"about one-fourth as large as the observed\" decrease. In comparing the SAT scores of college entrants in this manner, Beaton et al. found that the magnitude of the contribution of birth order effects was smaller yet; proportionately less of the drop in SAT scores could be attributed to birth order effects, which is in agreement with the above projection of 5.6 points out of a total decline of 34.5. What is surprising about these data is that predictions for the elementary school populations are borne out so accurately, both in respect to the precise timing of the change in intellectual scores and in respect to the direction of the changes. The decline in SAT scores, too, is beginning to show the predicted leveling off. It appears quite likely that their trend will reverse, just as the trend of the elementary school scores has, because the children who were in elementary school in the early seventies are now begining to take their SATs. The purpose of the present article is to examine in greater detail the role of family factors in the decline of SAT scores by sampling three cohorts of college entrance candidates. Method The research reported here was carried out in collaboration with the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB) and the Educational Testing Service (ETS). We received permission from the CEEB to collect family-configuration data from each of three recent SAT cohorts. The confidential nature of this information was thoroughly protected by a specially designed procedure. A random sample of 12,597 names from among the 1970-71, 1973-74, and 1976-77 SAT participants was selected by ETS research personnel. The parents or guardians of each student received by mail a questionnaire requesting the birth date and sex of the candidate and the birth dates of the student's siblings. The mail questionnaires sent from ETS were returned to ETS, where the responses were merged with the corresponding SAT scores and with data from the Student Descriptive Questionnaire (SDQ). The SDQ contains a variety of information about students' academic performance, their career aspirations, participation in school and community activities, and so forth. As the responses from the mail questionnaire were merged with SAT scores and SDQ data at the ETS, the students' names were removed. ETS then delivered to us a file contain1 The ETS part of the project was conducted by Rex Jackson and Sandy M. Campos, whose assistance is very much appreciated. AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST • JULY 1980 • 663 TABLE 1 v . , • SA T Scores and Birth Order of Cohorts in 1970-1971,1973-1974, and 1976-1977
63 citations