PIAAC-L

Project description

PIAAC-L further pursues PIAAC in Germany. The project is conducted by a consortium consisting of the Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences (GESIS), the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) at the German Institute for Economic Research, DIW Berlin, and the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LifBi) in Bamberg. Test takers from PIAAC in Germany are re-interviewed three more times, respectively subjected to alternative competence measures. Moreover, PIAAC-L targets an assessment of family members or partners. PIAAC-L encompasses three assessment cycles, i.e. one each in 2014, 2015, and 2016, focusing on different priorities.

Objectives

Generally speaking, PIAAC-L is one of the first internationally comparable longitudinal studies of adult competencies and their relevance in the life-course. PIAAC-L aims to deliver answers to the following questions: How do individual competencies affect the employment history of people in Germany? How are individual skills linked to professional mobility? How are competencies distributed among family members or partners? What does this mean for social progress in our society?
Being part of the project the TBA Centre supports GESIS in adapting, implementing and supporting the computer-based test instruments in the second PIAAC-L wave in 2015.

Technical implementation

The TBA Centre has modified the delivery system -  a virtual machine (VM) - used in PIAAC. By adapting the internal workflow, certain parts of the test are no longer retrieved and altogether, tests can be accessed more flexibly than in PIAAC.
At the same time, it is important to retain the functionality of remaining components in the delivery system, to guarantee for comparability with PIAAC. As was the case in PIAAC, TBA members of staff are responsible for scripting in PIAAC-L. Scripting commands enable data transfer from the VM to the computer. During the field trial phase of the second wave in PIAAC-L, the TBA team offers technical support.
Furthermore, staff members from the TBA Centre are ready to assist GESIS and TNS Infratest on site during the interviewer training sessions.

Project Details