Literature Index

In December 1995, the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) and Statistics Canada jointly published the results of the first International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS). For this survey, representative samples of adults aged 16 to 65 were interviewed and tested in their homes in Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. This report describes how the survey was conducted in each country and presents all available evidence on the extent of bias in each country's data. Potential sources of bias, including sampling error, non-sampling error, and the cultural appropriateness and construct validity of the assessment instruments, are discussed. The chapters are; (1) "Introduction" (Irwin S. Kirsch and T. Scott Murray); (2) "Sample Design" (Nancy Darcovich); (3) "Survey Response and Weighting" (Nancy Darcovich); (4) "Non-Response Bias" (Nancy Darcovich, Marilyn Binkley, Jon Cohen, Mats Myrberg, and Stefan Persson); (5) "Data Collection and Processing" (Nancy Darcovich and T. Scott Murray); (6) "Incentives and the Motivation To Perform Well" (Stan Jones); (7) "The Measurement of Adult Literacy" (Irwin S. Kirsch, Ann Jungeblut, and Peter B. Mosenthal); (8) "Validity Generalization of the Assessment across Countries" (Don Rock); (9) "An Analysis of Items with Different Parameters across Countries" (Marilyn R. Binkley and Jean R. Pignal); (10) "Scaling and Scale Linking" (Kentaro Yamamoto); (11) "Proficiency Estimation" (Kentaro Yamamoto and Irwin S. Kirsch); (12) "Plausibility of Proficiency Estimates" (Richard Shillington); and (13) "Nested-Factor Models for the Swedish IALS Data" (Bo Palaszewski). Fourteen appendixes contain supplemental information, some survey questionnaires, and additional documentation for various chapters.

"In 1982, I learned I was suffering from a rare and serious cancer. After surgery, I asked my doctor what the best technical literature on the cancer was. She told me, with a touch of diplomacy, that there was nothing really worth reading. I soon realized why she had offered that humane advice: my cancer is incurable, with a median mortality of eight months after discovery.<br><br>The problem may be briefly stated: What does "median mortality of eight months" signify in our vernacular? I suspect that most people, without training in statistics, would read such a statement as "I will probably be dead in eight months" - the very conclusion that must be avoided, since it isn't so."

It is shown how student participation in a real consulting project can be leveraged to achieve the dual goals of (i) developing statistical consulting skills in graduate students, and (ii) enhancing the instructional effectiveness of statistical methodology. Achieving these goals is the primary mission of the Statistical Consulting Collaboratory at the University of California, Riverside. The paper gives a detailed illustration of the how the goals were achieved by reporting on an interesting case study, with special emphasis given to describing the involvement of students and the alternative ways in which the project found its way into classrooms

In this article, we study the Monty Hall three doors problem. A fully general solution and several new approaches are presented, including a Bayesian analysis.