Adult skills need estimates for literacy, numeracy, information communication and technology and ESOL across England

England

2003 ward, Local Authority District (LAD), Learning Skills Council (LSC), Government Office Region, National

2002/03

2002/03

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Department for Education and Skills (DfES): Read Write Plus Skills for Life

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Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF)

http://www.dfes.gov.uk/readwriteplus_skillsforlifesurve
y/

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The SfL Survey was in two parts. The first was based around a 20-minute background interview and two skills assessments one for literacy and one for numeracy. On this basis respondents were assigned to one of 5 skill levels for both literacy and numeracy (Entry level 1 or below, Entry level 2, Entry level 3, Level 1, and Level 2 and above). The survey was clustered by wards within Government Office Regions and there were 8,730 interviews with adults in households aged 16-65, representing a 59% response rate of selected households. Non-response weights have been calculated for region, age and sex.

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A fully Bayesian approach was adopted partly because this involves modelling the full distribution of point estimates, and not just the estimates themselves. In other words, a concern with reliability is integral to the method and expressed in terms of what Bayesian statisticians called 'credible intervals'. These are similar to the confidence intervals of classical statistics. Therefore, 2.5% and 97.5% credible intervals were generated to accompany all local area estimates of the rates and numbers of people in the various literacy, numeracy and ICT skills levels.

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