Functional Literacy Tests: A Model of Question-Answering and an Analysis of Errors

THE MEDIA, STATE AND NATIONAL LEGISLATORS, educators, and others have all focused on the size or extent of the functional literacy problem. Very little attention has been given to those factors which might affect subjects' performance. The present study attempted to identify those performance related factors which were responsible for subjects' errors on one measure of functional literacy. The analysis of errors revealed that the majority of errors could be explained in terms of information processing failures. It is argued that the analysis has important implications for both the understanding of the functional literacy problem and for the selection of remedial strategies.