Posted on 03/13/2015 5:43:39 AM PDT by iowamark
Surprised? So were the researchers who tested and compared workers in 23 countries.
We hear about the superior tech savvy of people born after 1980 so often that we tend to assume it must be true. But is it?
Researchers at Princeton-based Educational Testing Service (ETS) expected it to be when they administered a test called the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). Sponsored by the OECD, the test was designed to measure the job skills of adults, aged 16 to 65, in 23 countries.
When the results were analyzed by age group and nationality, ETS got a shock. It turns out, says a new report, that Millennials in the U.S. fall short when it comes to the skills employers want most: literacy (including the ability to follow simple instructions), practical math, and — hold on to your hat — a category called “problem-solving in technology-rich environments.”
Not only do Gen Y Americans lag far behind their overseas peers by every measure, but they even score lower than other age groups of Americans.
Take literacy, for instance. American Millennials scored lower than their counterparts in every country that participated except Spain and Italy. (Japan is No. 1.) In numeracy, meaning the ability to apply basic math to everyday situations, Gen Yers in the U.S. ranked dead last.
Okay, but what about making smart use of technology, where Millennials are said to shine? Again, America scored at the bottom of the heap, in a four-way tie for last place with the Slovak Republic, Ireland, and Poland.
Even the best-educated Millennials stateside couldn’t compete with their counterparts in Japan, Finland, South Korea, Belgium, Sweden, or elsewhere. With a master’s degree, for example, Americans scored higher in numeracy than peers in just three countries: Ireland, Poland, and Spain. Altogether, the top U.S. Gen Yers, in the 90th percentile, “scored lower than their counterparts in 15 countries,” the report notes, “and only scored higher than their peers in Spain.”
“We really thought [U.S.] Millennials would do better than the general adult population, either compared to older coworkers in the U.S. or to the same age group in other countries,” says Madeline Goodman, an ETS researcher who worked on the study. “But they didn’t. In fact, their scores were abysmal.”
What does that mean for U.S. employers hiring people born since 1980? Goodman notes that hiring managers shouldn’t overestimate the practical value of a four-year degree. True, U.S. Millennials with college credentials did score higher on the PIAAC than Americans with only a high school diploma (albeit less well than college grads in most other countries).
“But a degree may not be enough,” Goodman says, to prove that someone is adept with basic English, can do what she calls “workaday math,” or has the ability to use technology in a job. Curious about how the PIAAC measures those skills, or how you’d score yourself? Check out a few sample math questions, or take the whole test.
The movie Idiocracy is not a fiction; it’s a documentary.
I don't think that is true. Job skill an work habits are not taught at hamburger and pizza joints. The real jobs went either to automation or to China.
I’m writing a small CGI app in C++; at its root, it HAS to be a CLI-based app; otherwise, you wouldn’t get any HTML output to the browser view-port.
I’ve also expressed interest in building a wirelessly-controlled industrial control system—using a PC/104-compliant x86 SoC as the base, so as to leverage my knowledge of PCs and combine it with the ability to process raw analogue/digital signals.
Also, I’m about to turn 19.
“People who pay for their own schooling or earn private scholarships are actually looking forward.”
I agree with you on importance of self-motivation.
However I wonder about the accuracy of this study. Wonder if it’s not designed to make the case that we need more H1-B visa’s and immigration. Because Americans are just to stupid to work.
We have lots of Millennials at work and they are doing just fine. More than OK.
But we have Common Core!! I’ll bet they would have scored well if they had been tested in Global Warming, Interracial Conflict, Gay Sensitivity, History of Black Servitude in the US, The Plight of the Polar Bear, Why Obama is America’s Greatest President, and Why Republicans are Racist.
Oh, that is far more difficult than the FCC test.
I disagree. Work habits are developed in low paying and low skill jobs. You learn to show up for work. On time. Do menial tasks over and over again for gas money and entertainment and you learn a little about discipline, hard work and economics.
Unfortunately the jobs I took when I was a teenager are all career choices for illegal aliens. Labor laws prohibit teenagers from taking any of the jobs that aren’t taken by illegal aliens.
So we have a generation of twenty something’s that have never learned how to work.
I have two nephews... the older one(24) can barely keep a job to support his wife and 3 kids. The younger one (20) cant get out from in front of the video games long enough to get a job. I blame the parents.
Oh. I say that while I am assigning reading and writing
When they discover they like Shakespeare and the dopiest jock writes a readable poem tgen they are on their way to it
Tech-savvy? No one made a big deal if we knew how to use a VCR.
Public schools, lol? Jokes on them.
We need GOOD trade schools. I taught a couple semesters at a trade school. It was a joke, their "lab" was laughable. I quit because I didn't want to be involved in it. They were more like a student and GI loan processing mill that offered some half-assed classes on the side.
They clearly know that public schools are not all alike.
One of my younger coworkers graduated from a Howard county HS and then got her college degree and she told me she learned calculus in HS.
But in Baltimore city HS they are lucky to master simple multiplication.
And again, it really depends on the parents as a group to demand good schools.
BTW : property taxes here are about 1% a year so for a typical house at $400 to $500 K the yearly tax is about $ 4 to 5 K
There are always exceptions to the majority. :-)
Good grief, we tied wif IRELAND! They are half in the bag all the time!
So many people got their impression of Sarah Palin from that SNL skit.. they totally refused to actually listen to Palin herself, and they get angry if you try and explain the Alaska/Russia connection to them.
It's a sad situation for America.
Later
Got us geezers beat there.
Perfect!
The idea of getting the teen whiz-kid down the street to fix your computer is TV/Movie crap. He would just look at you with a glazed expression and advise you to just buy another one.
There can be break troughs but in general I’m not encouraged.
I appreciate enrichment but I’m much more concerned about math, science, problem solving skills and critical thinking (literature can certainly help built that).
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