Skip to main content

Results, methodological aspects and advancements of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC)

Edited by Anja Perry, Débora B. Maehler, Beatrice Rammstedt
GESIS - Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences, Germany


This special issue focuses on PIAAC and its methodological advancements and challenges. It presents results of the PIAAC study regarding socio-economic differences such as education and gender. Furthermore, contributors discuss methodological aspects of PIAAC and the application of the PIAAC data for further research using the rich database that is currently available and their combination with related studies. Results of this research imply recommendations for policy actions in order to approach problems associated with skill inequality as well as further research avenues to gain an even deeper of understanding of these problems.

  2. By providing high-quality, internationally comparable data on the cognitive skills of working-age adults, the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) offers great potential for...

    Authors: Jan Paul Heisig
    Citation: Large-scale Assessments in Education 2018 6:9
    Content type: Research Published on:

  3. A potential problem of low-stakes large-scale assessments such as the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) is low test-taking engagement. The present study pursued two goals...

    Authors: Frank Goldhammer, Thomas Martens and Oliver Lüdtke
    Citation: Large-scale Assessments in Education 2017 5:18
    Content type: Research Published on:

  4. Data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) revealed that countries systematically differ in their respondents’ literacy, numeracy, and problem solving in technology-...

    Authors: Julia Gorges, Tobias Koch, Débora B. Maehler and Judith Offerhaus
    Citation: Large-scale Assessments in Education 2017 5:13
    Content type: Research Published on:

  5. Ample evidence indicates that a person’s human capital is important for success on the labor market in terms of both wages and employment prospects. However, unlike the efforts to identify the impact of school...

    Authors: Franziska Hampf, Simon Wiederhold and Ludger Woessmann
    Citation: Large-scale Assessments in Education 2017 5:12
    Content type: Research Published on:

  6. As the largest and most innovative international assessment of adults, PIAAC marks an inflection point in the evolution of large-scale comparative assessments. PIAAC grew from the foundation laid by surveys th...

    Authors: Irwin Kirsch and Mary Louise Lennon
    Citation: Large-scale Assessments in Education 2017 5:11
    Content type: Short report Published on:

  7. European countries, and especially Germany, are currently very much affected by human migration flows, with the result that the task of integration has become a challenge. Only very little empirical evidence o...

    Authors: Débora B. Maehler, Silke Martin and Beatrice Rammstedt
    Citation: Large-scale Assessments in Education 2017 5:9
    Content type: Research Published on:

  8. Educational qualifications and literacy skills are highly related. This is not surprising as it is one aim of educational systems to equip individuals with competencies necessary to take part in society. Becau...

    Authors: Natascha Massing and Silke L. Schneider
    Citation: Large-scale Assessments in Education 2017 5:6
    Content type: Research Published on:

  9. In Germany, the respondents who had participated in the 2012 survey of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) were re-approached for the panel study PIAAC-L. PIAAC-L aims ...

    Authors: Beatrice Rammstedt, Silke Martin, Anouk Zabal, Claus Carstensen and Jürgen Schupp
    Citation: Large-scale Assessments in Education 2017 5:4
    Content type: Research Published on:

  10. The present paper investigates the power of personality to predict important life outcomes in the context of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). On the most global lev...

    Authors: Beatrice Rammstedt, Daniel Danner and Clemens Lechner
    Citation: Large-scale Assessments in Education 2017 5:2
    Content type: Research Published on: