The Implementation of PIAAC Cycle 2: Challenges and Lessons Learnt |
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| Coordinator 1 | Ms Anouk Zabal (GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences) |
| Coordinator 2 | Ms Silke Martin (GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences) |
PIAAC, the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, is a multi-cycle international survey that aims at measuring key skills in the adult populations of the participating countries. PIAAC Cycle 2 is designed to obtain international comparable data of the highest quality possible, and to be comparable to the first cycle of PIAAC. Thirty-one countries participated in the second cycle of PIAAC and collected data within an elaborate quality assurance and control framework, adhering to gold standards in survey methodology.
The second cycle of PIAAC introduced innovative elements in various areas, such as in the instrumentation (e.g., the inclusion of social-emotional skills in the background questionnaire or the introduction of the new assessment domain adaptative problem solving in the cognitive assessment), the interview mode of the cognitive assessment (tablet-based), or survey operations (e.g., introduction of a dashboard as a tool to monitor fieldwork, adaptive survey design). The PIAAC survey had many implementational challenges stemming from its unique design and specifications, with the additional challenge of finding a balance between innovation and trend. Implementing PIAAC within the national settings often required new national solutions to meet international standards. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted on the data collection of both the field study, carried out in 2021, and the main survey, carried out in 2022/2023. Many countries faced difficulties during fieldwork, such as declining response rates, and had to rise to the challenge of adapting to changing situations and constraints. This session will focus on methodological issues and aims to contribute to extending the survey-methodological body of knowledge and offer insights pertinent to other international surveys and large-scale assessments.