Investigating the Predictive Relationship between Adult Reading Ability and Age, Ethnicity, Race, and Educational Attainment

The demand for literacy skills in today’s everchanging workforce is an issue that plagues our nation. With millions of Americans reading below basic levels of proficiency, adults are not equipped to meet the demands, and colleges and universities must identify ways to address the problem. The purpose of this correlational study was to determine if any predictive relationship exists between the predictor variables age, ethnicity, race and educational attainment and the criterion variable, adult literacy, as measured by the Pearson MyReadingLab Pre-Assessment. The participants used in this study were non-traditional students enrolled in the Associate of Science Business program (ASB) at a Midwestern private Christian university. A simultaneous multiple linear regression analysis of the criterion and predictor variables was conducted to determine correlation