otu.lea Pedagogical online support Diagnostics for Adults with functional Illiteracy with vocational Content

• Duration: 2017 – 2020
• Project lead: Prof. Dr. Karsten D. Wolf

Head: Prof. Dr. Karsten D. Wolf

Foundation: Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)

Duration: 2017 – 2020

Around 7.5 million people in Germany are functionally illiterate and around 20 percent of 15-year-olds are at or below level 1 according to PISA. “otu.lea” is an online test environment for functionally illiterate people and teachers in literacy courses and is being developed as part of the lea. project (literacy development of the workforce).

The lea. research network consisted of five sub-projects, a network management and cooperation partners from the practical field. The project was carried out between 2008 and 2011. The lea. project developed a multidimensional and hierarchical competence model for adults with extremely low literacy and numeracy skills. Based on this, a support-diagnostic competence measurement procedure (lea.) was created and empirically validated. This can be used to determine which skills are already present (strengths orientation) and which skills still need to be developed or promoted. Individual support measures can also be derived. The diagnostic competence measurement procedure is implemented in the online test environment otu.lea.

Due to the target group, the developers of otu.lea are faced with particular challenges. It should be noted that functionally illiterate people tend to have a low level of ICT literacy. This means that they are less used to using computers and new technologies and require special support to ensure that they are not at a disadvantage in a computer-based test due to their low ICT literacy, even without outside help. Innovative multimedia item formats and support functions are therefore integrated into otu.lea. These include audio files, (work- and life-related) videos, animations and so-called cues, which, for example, facilitate orientation by animating a button. The use of these item formats and support functions is conceivable for any person with a tendency towards low ICT literacy.

Further information can be found here.