PUBLIC USE FILES

Public Use Files containing individual unit record data in SAS, SPSS, and Excel formats are available for downloading for each of the countries participating in the Survey of Adult Skills. These contain both responses to the background questionnaire and the cognitive assessment. Public Use Files for the nine Round-2 countries and revised Public Use Files for Round-1 countries with updated data were released on June 28, 2016. The updates to the Round-1 data files include the rescaling of the skills-use indices and the recalculation of the derived earning variables.

Public Use Files (PUF)


Public Use Files containing individual unit record data in SAS, SPSS, and Excel formats are available for downloading for each of the countries participating in the Survey of Adult Skills. These contain both responses to the background questionnaire and the cognitive assessment.

Public Use Files for the nine Round-2 countries and revised Public Use Files for Round-1 countries with updated data were released on June 28, 2016. The updates to the Round-1 data files include the rescaling of the skills-use indices and the recalculation of the derived earning variables.

Please note that because certain countries restrict access to data or make their data subject to prior authorization, some of the PUF will not contain all of the participating countries.

To view the Canadian public-use microdata file (PUMF) from PIAAC, please contact Statistics Canada by e-mail, phone, or mail:

E-mail
STATCAN.infostats-infostats.STATCAN@canada.ca

Phone
(toll-free) 1-800-263-1136
(international) 1-514-283-8300

Mail
Statistics Canada
150 Tunney’s Pasture Driveway
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0T6

Codebooks

The PIAAC survey collects data using complex sample and psychometric designs, making it necessary to use advanced statistical procedures to estimate sampling and measurements variances. The following tools have been designed to help SAS, Stata, or SPSS users to explore the data and compute statistics.

Please note that the terminology surrounding technical terms may vary from one country to another. For instance, OECD’s word “codebook” becomes Statistics Canada’s “data dictionary.” At times, PIAAC is referred to as ISA (International Survey of Adults).

  • View or download the International Codebook PUF (html/.xlsx)
  • Download the derived variables codebook (.xlsx)
  • View the Canadian Data Dictionary (PUMF) (PDF)


Tools

The PIAAC survey collects data using complex sample and psychometric designs, making it necessary to use advanced statistical procedures to estimate sampling and measurements variances. The following tools have been designed to help SAS, Stata, or SPSS users to explore the data and compute statistics.

  • International Database (IDB) Analyzer

    The IDB Analyzer facilitates the analysis of data from the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). It creates SPSS code that can be used with SPSS to conduct statistical analyses, taking into account the complex sample structure of the databases. The software allows you to combine data from different countries for cross-country analysis and to select specific subsets of variables. It provides several different procedures for analysis, such as the computation of means or percentages of any background variable of interest for a whole country or subgroup within a population.