Does research evidence affect policy and practice?

Hello Colleagues,

In the LINCS CoP English Language Acquisition group Paul Rogers has asked, "if there were evidence / research to prove that using smart phones etc. could enhance learning, then what? Would teachers and administrators change their policies?" This question deserves a discussion thread of its own, so here it is. Please join in.

I would like to unpack Paul's question with several related questions. I'll join in with some answers from my perspective, but first I want to hear from others, from you! Don't feel you have to answer all these questions, and especially not all of them in in one reply. You can reply separately about those that interest you.

1. Good research evidence in our field. Do we have some good research, and research evidence, that adult basic skills (including ESOL/ESL) teachers and administrators can use to improve practices and programs? If so, what are some good examples?

2. Research in our field compared with other fields. How does the research evidence in the adult basic skills (i.e. adult basic education or adult literacy) field compare with research evidence in K-12 education; higher education; and in other fields, for example in medicine, which our field has sometime been compared with?

3. Research that could influence decision-making. As a field, where do we have sufficient research evidence to make decisions about improving programs and practices? Where do we have some evidence? For which topics, questions, or program decision areas is there little or no evidence, and where research evidence is very much needed?

4. Under what circumstances do practitioners or policy makers use research evidence to make decisions? Where we do have adequate evidence, under what conditions or circumstances do teachers and administrators at the program/school and state levels use it in making decisions to implement new models and practices? When do policy makers at local, state and national levels use research evidence in making decisions?

5. Obstacles to using research evidence. Where teachers and administrators do not use existing research evidence, why not? Is it difficult to find relevant research evidence? Is it difficult to understand studies, to interpret their findings and recommendations when they are available? If so, what would make that easier? Do practitioners despair, even if when they know what research evidence suggests as good or best practices, that the funds and professional development support to help make that happen is lacking?

6. Overcoming the obstacles. What are good examples of how practitioners at local and state levels have been able to overcome these obstacles?

7. Other related questions. What questions would you like to add to this discussion?

David J. Rosen, Moderator

LINCS Program Management and Integrating Technology groups.

Comments

Hello Colleagues,

On July 11th I posted this question, "Does research evidence affect policy and practice?" I broke it down into the seven sub-questions below. So far, over 90 people have looked at the post, but no one has replied to any of the questions. I am not sure why. Perhaps the 90+ are all practitioners who, while they may be interested in the questions, don't feel they have enough experience with adult education research to answer most of them. If this describes you, then let's hear your answers to question 5. Perhaps some who looked at these questions thought, "great questions...I'll set this aside until I have time to give a thoughtful answer." If that's what you were thinking, how about now? But perhaps there are other reasons, so I'll add another question: "What are the obstacles for you in answering these questions?"

Thanks!

1. Good research evidence in our field. Do we have some good research, and research evidence, that adult basic skills (including ESOL/ESL) teachers and administrators can use to improve practices and programs? If so, what are some good examples?

2. Research in our field compared with other fields. How does the research evidence in the adult basic skills (i.e. adult basic education or adult literacy) field compare with research evidence in K-12 education; higher education; and in other fields, for example in medicine, which our field has sometime been compared with?

3. Research that could influence decision-making. As a field, where do we have sufficient research evidence to make decisions about improving programs and practices? Where do we have some evidence? For which topics, questions, or program decision areas is there little or no evidence, and where research evidence is very much needed?

4. Under what circumstances do practitioners or policy makers use research evidence to make decisions? Where we do have adequate evidence, under what conditions or circumstances do teachers and administrators at the program/school and state levels use it in making decisions to implement new models and practices? When do policy makers at local, state and national levels use research evidence in making decisions?

5. Obstacles to using research evidence. Where teachers and administrators do not use existing research evidence, why not? Is it difficult to find relevant research evidence? Is it difficult to understand studies, to interpret their findings and recommendations when they are available? If so, what would make that easier? Do practitioners despair, even if when they know what research evidence suggests as good or best practices, that the funds and professional development support to help make that happen is lacking?

6. Overcoming the obstacles. What are good examples of how practitioners at local and state levels have been able to overcome these obstacles?

7. Other related questions. What questions would you like to add to this discussion?

 

David J. Rosen, Moderator

LINCS CoP, Integratign Technology and Program Management groups

Some of my thoughts on David’s questions. I’d be happy to have folks refute or confirm what I’ve said and continue this discussion.

1. The two research based initiatives that come to  mind are STAR and ANI. But I’m not sure if the research they are based on is from K-12 or adult ed. I have a feeling it may be K-12. Other research, at least to the best of my knowledge, is scant. Most is done on K-12 and postsecondary.

2. Research in adult ed, at least according to some, is not up to the “gold standard”. We have anecdotal information and research that has been done but has often been pooh poohed because it wasn’t “rigorous” research. CSAL has been working to add to our research base but I’m not sure if their results have been released yet. The money seems to be available for studies done in K-12 and postsecondary but not so much in adult ed. Comparing research in medicine to research in adult ed makes me twitchy. Big pharma spends big bucks to fund medical research so of course those studies can measure up to the gold standard.

3. Again, STAR and ANI seem to be two research based initiatives that could make positive impacts on programs.  I think we have some evidence for the success of IETs and other type of career pathways programs. Not that I’m biased (OK, I am) but I think writing is an area in which we could use more research with adult learners.

5. One mind set that sometimes has to be overcome is “I’ve been doing it this way for 10 years and it works just fine.” I think PD is another issue. It’s one thing to tell teachers to use evidence based teaching but another to give them the support they need to do that. Many adult ed teachers are part time and often work another job so don’t have the time to read research reports and try to interpret them. Unless the research has been done with adult learners, some practitioners discount it as not being appropriate.

6. I think that states who implement things like STAR and ANI are making big steps to implementing research based practices in the classroom. These initiatives offer extended training with lots of opportunities to apply what is being learned to the classroom and ongoing support. Unfortunately, budget issues often put the kabosh on extended, embedded PD .

Thanks, Di for getting us started.

I believe that STAR research was based on both K-12 and Adult Basic Education research. This publication, Research-Based Principles for Adult Basic Education Reading Instruction, by John Kruidenier, Ed.D. and Produced by RMC Research Corporation, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, will give you a fuller answer for what research influenced the development of STAR.

The report describes it as follows:

Most of the principles derived from the ABE reading instruction research are "emerging principles" because they are based on a relatively small body of experimental research. There is much more research focusing on children, as demonstrated in the report of the National Reading Panel. The small size of the ABE reading instruction research base precludes establishing more than just a few principles based solidly on large numbers of research studies that have been replicated. Some of the topic areas reviewed contain no or very few research studies. This does not necessarily suggest that the quality of ABE reading instruction research is poorer than K-12 reading instruction research or other bodies of research, only that there is less of it.

Perhaps someone else could tell us about the research that has been used by the Adult Numeracy Initiative (ANI).

It would be great to hear from many others who have examples of how research evidence has affected practice or policy in their program, or in their state, or what are the obstacles and challenges in finding or using research for this kind of decision making.

David J. Rosen

 


 

Hi David,

Four years ago I was a new corrections educator, new the world of adult ed. I was just coming off an online MA TESOL program (APU) and was really in the midset for researching best practices, both for corrections and for adult ed. However, I found that much research was behind pay walls. I no longer had access to my university library, so I couldn't do research that way. I have gained access to my state's library, but the resources are still limited.

So as someone trying to find research, I could see abstracts but no articles. I finally gave up.

I have found bits and pieces here and there, and I still search, but there is a lot more blog-type and anecdotal writing than research that is accessible.

Thanks Michelle.

I have experienced the difficulty you describe, that the research findings that I am looking for are in an article in a prohibitively expensive journal, not accessible for free to those outside an academic community. Sometimes I have found that some of these journals are available online to me as a patron of my public library. That may not be true everywhere, however. Has anyone else experienced this challenge? If so, how have you overcome it?

A related question, has anyone found an up-to-date database of adult basic skills (including ESL/ESL} research articles? If not, what do you do? What are the go-to-databases or journals that you do use, or do you just use a web search engine like Google or Google Scholar? If so, do you find the research that answers your questions?

David J. Rosen

 

A few favorite resources that I use to access research articles at no cost are:

ERIC

Google Scholar

Research Gate

Also, if you live near a state university, sometimes it is possible to get a library card there. It may not grant you electronic access to journals, but you can read print editions and check out research reports.

For us, I'd say the research with the biggest impact on our programs is based on institutional data- enrollment trends, reasons students drop, teacher observations, MSGs, etc.  Basically, what we've found there (at least for our ELA learners) is that students who progress, on average, attend more hours of class, which is no shocker-so we mostly focus on how we can keep students engaged.  If there's big-scale research around best practices for that component, I'd love to read that!  

We're fortunate that we're able to send instructors to regional conferences for COABE, CAEPA, and TESOL- so we access current research that way.  COABE has a useful website for teachers with a section called research to practice- and we see links between good teaching and student engagement.  We don't have consistent access to publications- as another poster noted-the cost/relevance balance doesn't always work out.    

I've only been here for a couple of years, but in my time, our larger institution has also sponsored book clubs related to our field (education, leadership) but those seem to fizzle out after a few meetings.  They seem to do better at the director level in actually finishing books meant to guide reflective educational leadership.  They read Brené Brown this year.     

One of the other issues with research in education is just how difficult it is to isolate variables in order to identify effective practices. The best research on that point could probably be done in a corrections facility since the day-to-day environment is so consistent for all learners.  But even then- there's a slew of factors related to their prior individual experiences that impact students' learning.  And how generalizable is that population to other adult learners?  I'd say that generalizability piece is a challenge with any educational research.  What works in one context may not be that effective in another, so it's important to go back to that institutional data that can help you determine if the practice you implemented based on those articles you read are working for your program.

Thanks, Rachel.

There is research on adult basic skills learner retention (from the perspective of the program's goal to retain students), sometimes referred to as learner persistence (from the adult learner's point of view.) Both perspectives have a lot to offer practitioners.  For example, you might look at the NCSALL-sponsored studies on adult learner persistence at http://www.ncsall.net/index.php@id=80.html .

Anyone else have studies to recommend on adult learner retention or persistence?

David J. Rosen

 

Rachel mentioned COABE. That is probably where I find the majority of my research-related materials. I was lucky enough to attend COABE conference this year, and was thrilled to see that so many of the presentations were research-based. 

 

Rachael - 

I worry about the emphasis on randomized control studies and the mindset that study of useful instructional practices needs to align with RTC format in order to be considered "research".  Your observation about variables being an issue in educational research underlies my point of view here. I think empirical qualitative research (interviews and observations) combined with data about learner characteristics, enrollment, and persistence can support an interpretive approach to researching what works.  Research findings should certainly inform what teachers do, but teachers need to add their own knowledge about their students and available resources and constraints to make the findings relevant for their own classrooms.

The research in adult education was a widely publicized and researched in the 90s up until maybe 2008. When researching for my graduate studies, I was challenged in finding more recent research that supported different levels of adult education as it related to teaching, whether as volunteers, tutors, or classroom teachers.  However, when I began to look at other fields as it related to adults, literacy, and education, the amount of research was overwhelming.  I read another post about the NCSALL reports, which were quite helpful in gaining a solid foundation in the history and need for adult education research and what was researched at that time, and I agree that the reports in NCSALL are definitely relevant and provides a great backdrop to adult education. 

Additionally, i the research on K-12 and K-16 was also overwhelming.  What was also interesting was how material used in K-12 was equated with some practices on teaching adults.  Although an argument could be made to this effect, I think that research on how adult learn outweighs the K-12 materials used to teach the adult learner. 

As an instructional designer, adult education and adult education principles are discussed in the literature as well.  However, the discussions are primarily based on the idea that the learner has certain capabilities, such as a higher level of learning with the ability to interpret the learning. this can be challenging for the low-level learner or the learner whose primary language is not English. I also looked at research in the medical field and found some interesting and good research articles on literacy as it related to medicine and teaching using virtual intelligence.  I thought these were great, but again, the learning level was much higher.

I would suspect that the research on adult education as it relates to learning and understanding the adult learner remains stagnant, hence the continued fight for funding, services, and programs.

Thanks Corlis,

There are several researchers and practitioners in the Open Door Collective's Health and ABE, and Digital Inclusion, Issues groups who are interested in digital literacy skills for health-related purposes, including for example:  searching online for health information, digital health literacy, using online patient portals to communicate with one's physician or health care team, and possibly also in personal health data collection transmitted by patients to their health care team as part of a treatment process. As one of those ODC members who are interested in health-related digital literacy, I would appreciate looking at the research articles you mentioned on literacy related to medicine and teaching using virtual intelligence (Artificial intelligence? Virtual Reality? Something else?)

Thanks.

David J. Rosen

 

 

Thanks for sharing your experience and perspective, Corlis. You point out a particular need for research with low-level English learners as well as the need for more research on health literacy topics. I wanted to share some resources that may be of interest to you and other members related to these needs.

LANGUAGE LEARNERS with LIMITED OR INTERRUPTED FORMAL SCHOOLING (aka emergent readers)

Some members will be aware of the important research that has been conducted since 2006 by international scholars and practitioners through LESLLA (Literacy Education and Second Language Learning for Adults). The proceedings from LESLLA's annual meetings are archived on the site. LESLLA's focus is on adult learners who have no or limited formal schooling.

By the way, the next LESLLA conference takes place next month in Pittsburgh, PA, August 28-30, 2019. Members can check out the details about the upcoming conference in this announcement.

HEALTH LITERACY

I and others have mentioned the valuable work of NCSALL. I wanted to point out that health literacy was a major focus for the NSCALL researchers, and Dr. Rima Rudd from Harvard University oversaw the development of a number of reports and training materials for practitioners. Some members may be interested in checking out the following study circles.

Skills for Disease Prevention and Screening

Skills for Chronic Disease Management

Skills for Health Care Access and Navigation

This has been a valuable discussion thus far. I look forward to learning more!

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, English Language Acquisition and Teaching & Learning CoPs

Hello colleagues, Thanks for raising this important issue, Paul and David. Most of us in adult basic education realize that, unfortunately, there is little research in our field. Diana mentioned the research on adult reading being conducted by the researchers at Georgia State as one example of current research, which has been informative-- with more yet to come.

Some of us who have been around for awhile remember the valuable work of the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL). NCSALL conducted research and published many reports and other resources beginning in @ 1997 through 2008. This substantive work is archived online on the NCSALL site. Though some things are likely dated, much still has relevance today.

For instance, Rachel asked about research related to motivation and persistence, and this was one of the main areas of NCSALL research. There are several research reports as well as a study circle on the topic of persistence on the site.

The researchers published the Annual Review of Adult Learning and Literacy featuring research reports and reviews of research each year for seven years. These scholarly research articles are also all archived on the site.

NCSALL was unique in that there was a strong focus on bringing research and practice together to support the work being done daily by practitioners. Toward that end, they also published 34 volumes of Focus on Basics with articles that both summarized research for practitioners and highlighted the practical implications for adult literacy teachers and learners.

You can find all 34 volumes of Focus on Basics (FOB) online. You may want to check out some articles for personal enrichment; some would be useful to discuss during staff meetings. 

Here are a few articles from FOB that may pique your interest:

There's Reading ... And Then There's Reading by Victoria Purcell-Gates

Less Teaching and More Learning by Susan Gaer

Accommodating Math Students with Disabilities by Rochelle Kenyon

Beginning ESOL Learners' Advice to Their Teachers by MaryAnn Cunningham Florez (This article is one of my all time favorites!)

Powerful Motivation by Will Summers

More Curriculum Structure: A Response to "Turbulence" by John Strucker

The work of NCSALL is still valuable, and it attests to the importance of funding additional research. There are so many unanswered questions that research could help to answer about how to support adult learners most effectively. Conducting research is costly, but in my view it is essential. We can all advocate for more resources to support the research we need.

Looking forward to hearing other members' thoughts!

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, English Language Acquisition and Teaching and Learning CoPs

Hi Susan,

I certainly do remember NCSALL as I was part of the Practitioner Research and Dissemination Network for the state of Maine. NCSALL built a network of practitioners from several New England states and southern states. We got to meet many of the researchers for NCSALL and tried some of their suggestions as a practitioner research project in our classrooms. Many of the resources you shared are still valuable today. The Focus on Basics issues were wonderful and as your shared, can still be accessed today. Please take time to preview these resources as you won't be disappointed.

 

 

Thanks, David and others, for raising this important question.  A few comments: 

  •  In the area of work-related basic education (which includes workplace basic education for incumbent workers and job readiness education and career pathway education for new workers or job changers) there has been lots of information collected since at least the 1980s.  This information has helped define the basic skills needs of US adults overall, particular populations (e.g., incarcerated individuals, limited-English-speakers, et al), and particular industries and employers. Information (in the form of evaluations) was collected about various program models and components (e.g., how to build partnerships with industries, how to develop customized curricula and assessments, and , how to organize career pathway systems), and how to create workforce learning systems for states and communities.  This work was supported by federal (e.g., USDOE's National Workplace Literacy Program, National Institute for Literacy), state, labor, employer, and private foundation sources), and these models have been disseminated via professional development opportunities and various on-line resource centers (including earlier and current versions of LINCS and others like the late-great ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult Career and Vocational Ed at Ohio State University.  Various national policy advocacy organizations and networks promoted this work.  (Examples of this work can be viewed in the Open Door Collective's January 2019 "An Archive of Work-Related Basic Skills Resources" at http://www.opendoorcollective.org/workforce-basic-skills-resources.html . (This document will be updated in the coming month.)  
  • So it is fair to say that, at least in the "work-related" segment of the adult basic skills field, a good amount of research has been conducted.  While this research might not fully meet all of the requirements of "rigorous, evidence-based research," it nonetheless contains valuable tools and lessons that adult educators, policy makers, and other stakeholders (e.g., employers, labor unions, and organizations serving various segments of the workforce) can learn from and use. (Let's not "let the perfect be the enemy of the good.").  
  • The answer to the question of "Does our field use this research?" is "Yes and No."  Some states used the above evidence to create very good systems of workplace basic education and career pathway services for various populations of adult learners and industries.  In some cases, those systems have continued while others have faded.  These efforts require leadership, resources, and expertise from a number of stakeholders to respond to evolving opportunities and challenges.  This kind of dialogue is vital.                                                                          Paul Jurmo  (www.pauljurmo.info)

 

 

Thanks Susan and Pam for your thoughts about the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy. For some, including me, its valuable research in adult basic skills has been an inspiration for a new national effort to build an evidence-based system for adult basic skills education. Known as E-BAES, the first national open meeting of this effort, organized by the Open Door Collective, was held at the COABE Annual conference in New Orleans early this spring, with a room generously provided by COABE. A second national open meeting will be held at the ProLiteracy Conference in late September in San Diego, with a room generously provided by ProLiteracy. A third meeting may be held in October at the AAACE conference in St. Louis. An E-BAES Task Force has been formed, organized by the Open Door Collective, that is preparing a draft E-BAES framework to present  to the field for comments and questions at the ProLiteracy Conference. The Task Force and its sub- groups have begun meeting, and will be drafting the framework. For more information about this, contact the Task Force Co-chairs, Margaret Patterson <margaret@researchallies.org> or Eric Nesheim, <enesheim@mnliteracy.org> .

Pam, you may have seen the earlier post in this thread from Dianna Baycich in which she mentioned the Adult Numeracy Initiative (ANI) She wrote, "The two research based initiatives that come to mind are STAR and ANI. But I’m not sure if the research they are based on is from K-12 or adult ed. I have a feeling it may be K-12."  Do you know if ANI was was research-based and, if so, if any of the research was focused on adult numeracy?

Thanks,

David J. Rosen

 

According to the TERC website, "TERC partnered with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE) to implement a nationwide, revised version of a year-long adult numeracy professional development model for practitioners. This initiative builds on TERC’s TIAN project and the successful pilot of Adult Numeracy Instruction - PD created by the University of Tennessee, MPR Associates, Rutgers University, and TERC. To date, TERC’s Adult Numeracy Center staff has led ANI institutes in CT, IN, WI, and mentored a cadre of national trainers. Funder: OCTAE".

Additionally this website on OCTAE initiatives: https://lincs.ed.gov/state-resources/federal-initiatives links to a document that states that the "The Final Report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel", was used in determining its applicability to adult education.

I'm glad you asked about the research base of the ANI professional development program. ANI is certainly based on research with adult learners of math/numeracy, some of which I worked on myself. Relevant research was done with US ABE/HSE learners, with community college developmental math learners, and also with workers who are learning on the job. A larger body of research on adult numeracy has been done overseas, particularly in Europe and Australia, where such research work is way better supported with funding than in the US. Of course, research with middle school and high school students may be informative as well. ANI is well aligned with the findings of the body of adult numeracy research, both in how adults learn math and in how adult educators improve their underlying knowledge and instructional practice.

One good source for accessing adult numeracy research from the US and elsewhere is the Adults Learning Mathematics (ALM) group (www.alm-online.net). There is a journal: "Adults Learning Mathematics: An International Journal"  (I am currently a co-editor) and an annual conference with published Conference Proceedings. Both of these resources are freely available on the ALM website and are worth exploring. Brooke Istas and I just returned from the 2019 conference; in July 2020, the conference will be held in Vancouver, Canada.

Lynda Ginsburg (ginsburg@rutgers.edu or lynda.ginsburg@gmail.com)

Thank you, David, for passing along information about E-BAES. If anyone would like to be added to our registry to receive more information on E-BAES as it comes available, please go to https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ebs-for-abe. The Open Door Collective truly appreciates the hard work of the 30 E-BAES taskforce members on the framework this summer, and we look forward to sharing the results this fall. If anyone is planning to attend the ProLiteracy conference in San Diego, the E-BAES meeting will be September 26 at 11:15 AM in Ballroom B. All are welcome.

NCSALL did implement and disseminate research, but it also experimented with ways to help practitioners engage with research findings. The Practitioner Research and Dissemination Network that Pam mentioned was part of that effort. What we learned was that practitioners need training that builds their understanding of how to access, understand, and use research findings and tools to adapt research findings to their classroom teaching. NCSALL’s research reports, research reviews, training designs, and practitioner-friendly research materials are all up at ncsall.net.

The field needs at least one national research and development center that has enough funding to pursue research and scholarship on ABE, ESOL, ASE, and transition programs and populations. It must be connected to practitioners, and practitioners should participate in its research, scholarship, and dissemination.

Proving, with rigorous research, that our services have an impact on participants that is large enough to justify our funding, or an increase in our funding, is very difficult. A national R&D center could be a credible voice saying that our programs are designed based on the best available empirical evidence and the knowledge of experienced practitioners.

As David mentioned, ODC is trying to help the field come up with a proposal for a new national R&D center and a plan to get funding for it. I hope practitioners and state and national leaders support this effort.

 

David,

Thank you for these guiding questions. I will respond to question #1.  LINCS is my main go-to place to start looking for anything related to my work as a state specialist for adult ESOL in Florida. Below is a partial list of other sources where I have found research publications as well as articles that cite research findings that have been helpful in my work. I use them for my own growth in knowledge about what works best for adult English language learners, and to share with teachers in local programs.

- The American Institutes for Research (Heide Spruck Wrigley and Larry Condelli), in particular, these three studies: "What Works," "Sam and Pat," and "TELL" (Transitioning Adult English Language Learners).

- The Center for Applied Linguistics (Miriam Burt, Joy Kreeft Peyton, Sharon McKay, Kristen Schaetzel, and others). The Center for Applied Linguistics had a "Center for Adult English Language Acquisition" for a time that published briefs on adult ESL instruction and they can be found by an internet search.

- LESLLA (Literacy Education and Second Language Learning for Adults) has a large repository of research on emerging literacy ESL instruction for adults. The work of Patsy Egan and Edwidge Crevecoeur Bryant have been helpful to me in that particular area.

- Research publications by NCSALL (National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy of Harvard University) have been of great help to me. It is regretful that it was closed several years ago. Harvard has other centers that have done research on adult education, including the Center on the Developing Child, that published an article titled "Building Core Capabilities for Life: The Science Behind the Skills Adults Need to Succeed in Parenting and the Workplace." Another Harvard professor, Catherine Snow, referenced the differences in second language acquisition of children and adults, ("Looking Closely at Second Language Learning: An Interview with Shattuck Professor Catherine Snow). 

- Erik Jacobsen, Professor at Montclair State University in New Jersey, has research that I have found helpful. (https://www.montclair.edu/profilepages/view_profile.php?username=jacobsone). 

- The National Center for Educational Statistics (https://nces.ed.gov/search/?q=adult+education) has articles I have found useful in my work.

Finally, I have enjoyed reading many manuscripts and dissertations of doctoral students from all over. From time to time I do internet searches related to adult ESL and usually find something right away. Especially interesting are those written by students at Hamline University, Minnesota.

 

 

 

 

 

David, Phil and all: Years ago in this discussion group, called NIFL at the time, I was involved in a debate on whether an English Only method was better than a Bilingual method - for Beginning students. Because I was defending and explaining my use of bilingual instruction I decided to research the question on Google. I found nothing. The issue was hardly discussed or debated and it was "officially" assumed that the English Only method was not only the best but was the only method allowed in most adult beginning ESL classes. 

At the present time the question is nearly moot because classes for beginners have been cut and also many beginners have a wide variety of lessons and courses available online for free, which includes interactive blingual websites. But still I wonder if attention is paid to the question when research is conducted. At the same time I would ask what the reason for research would be. As an undergraduate Psychology major, it was always necessary to begin a research paper with: "Statement of the Problem", which I think is still good practice.

 

Hello Paul,

I am surprised that you found nothing in your Google search a few years ago about bilingual instruction. Perhaps things are different now. I just did a quick Google search using "adult bilingual approach" as the search term, and there are quite a few resources listed. (See below for just a few.) However, the most recent was 2013, and many of them are by the same (well-respected, but now retired) author, Dr. Elsa Auerbach. There may be little if any adult bilingual education research taking place now and, I have to say from my own experience, there are few publicly-funded adult bilingual programs. (I would love to learn that I am wrong about that!) In the K-12 arena, at least in Boston, Massachusetts, the needle appears to have moved toward more classes with a bilingual approach. I wonder if that's a trend that others here are seeing in K-12 where they live.

I believe that if there were some preliminary evidence that a bilingual adult English literacy program was successful with a well-defined first-language population, and defined level, it would be very helpful to have an experimental design study answer this question: "Under what circumstances, with what population(s), and at what level(s) does an adult bilingual approach demonstrate English language learning (and possibly also first language reading and writing) results that are equal to or better than results of an ESL approach?" Of course, as you and I have discussed, an adult bilingual approach is not always possible when English language classes are provided to participants from many different first language groups. Nevertheless, under some circumstances, often because reading and writing are taught in a language in which the learner is already a fluent speaker, a transitional bilingual approach or a fully bilingual approach could prove to be effective, possibly more effective than an English immersion approach, for some populations, under some circumstances. To my knowledge this question, however, has never been rigorously researched in the U.S. Depending on the answer, this could advance bilingual adult education policy. Of course, if solid experimental design research found that the outcomes were not as successful as an ESL approach, this might not help to advance adult bilingual policy.

For those who may not be familiar with experimental design research, it is rigorous research typically with a matched control group and experimental group. The experimental group receives the "treatment" being studied. In this case that would be a group receiving a bilingual approach. The research question might focus on how a bilingual approach compares with an ESL approach, or both bilingual and ESL approaches might be considered treatments, and a control group whose recipients receive no English language instruction might be needed. That description is probably an over-simplification. I should also say that because these studies are usually expensive, and because there are very few dollars available specifically for adult basics skills research, and because there are so many important competing questions that need to be answered, at present I don't foresee this study being a priority. That doesn't mean, incidentally that there has been much adult ESL experimental design research. To put a fine point on that, there is no category at all for adult education research in the U.S. Department of Education's What Works Clearinghouse. Early on there was an adult education topic category, but my understanding is that there were no experimental design studies in adult basic skills education (including ESL/ESOL) that met the What Works Clearinghouse criteria, and after a few years the category was removed.

Results of my Quick Google search on July 27, 2019 for "adult bilingual approach"

Meeting the challenge of adult education: A bilingual approach to literacy and career development

AG Huerta-Macias - Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 2003 - search.proquest.com

Huerta-Macias addresses the instructional needs of Latino adults who come to the
classroom with varying degrees of bilingualism and who seek to improve their language and
literacy in English and simultaneously develop occupational skills or general knowledge. He …

Toward a social-contextual approach to family literacy

ER Auerbach - Harvard Educational Review, 1989 - hepgjournals.org

… practices in the home, and, further, in the case of bilingual families, lack of underн … face
school with rigidity and approach literacy with fear?" (1986, p. 108) … work, and
bilingualism as relevant for their students. Students have developed …

[BOOK] Adult ESL/literacy from the community to the community: A guidebook for participatory literacy training

E Auerbach, B Barahona, J Midy, F Vaquerano… - 2013 - content.taylorfrancis.com

… Minority Language Affairs (OBEMLA) of the US Department of Education as the Bilingual
Community Literacy … We believe that the starting point for working with adult learners is respecting
their … This means breaking away from the traditional approach in which the teacher knows …

Adult English Language Learners with Limited Literacy.

M Bigelow, RL Schwarz - National Institute for Literacy, 2010 - ERIC

… The positive effects of language and literacy transfer are leveraged in instructional approaches
that include use … native language(s) are beneficial for second language literacy development and
that bilingual programs tend … Adult English Language Learners with Limited Literacy …

[PDF] The Freirean approach to adult literacy education

D Spener - REPORT NO PUB DATE CONTRACT, 1992 - Citeseer

… for them a priori and gives them the knowledge to solve those problems: 82 Approaches to Adult …
by Nina Wallerstein in her book Language and Culture in Conflict (1983); the approach taken
by … 1987) in work- ing with Hmong refugees in Canada; and a bilingual model devel …

·  [PDF] researchgate.net

“We thought they had forgotten us”: Research, policy, and practice in the education of Latino immigrant adults

MM Lukes - Journal of Latinos and Education, 2009 - Taylor & Francis

… Some misguided teachers who embrace the “more is better” approach go to such extremes … English
and the native language year after year with three goals: bilingualism/biliteracy, grade … to coming
to basic literacy in Spanish underscored the importance of a bilingual model this …

Reexamining English only in the ESL classroom

ER Auerbach - TESOL quarterly, 1993 - Wiley Online Library

… of students in adult ESL classes come from precisely the groups shown to benefit most from a
bilingual approach—subordinated mi … and to related (but perhaps less direct) research to ascertain
the effectiveness of native language and bilingual approaches to adult ESL …

[BOOK] Making Meaning, Making Change. Participatory Curriculum Development for Adult ESL Literacy. Language in Education: Theory & Practice 78.

ER Auerbach - 1992 - ERIC

… Our project was a collaboration between the Bilingual/ESL Graduate Studies Program at UMass
/Boston … As curriculum theorists point out, every approach to curriculum development reflects a
certain view of … Project by trying to get a sense of the range of approaches and models …

[BOOK] Bringing Literacy to Life. Issues and Options in Adult ESL Literacy.

HS Wrigley, GJA Guth - 1992 - ERIC

… Working Group Dr. Elsa Auerbach, Assistant Professor, Bilingual/ESL Graduate Program,
University of Massachusetts, Boston … for teaching literacy in the native language, such as whole
language approaches, the Language Experience Approach, and Freirean …

 

David J. Rosen

Thanks for this, David - Actually I think I did mention Elsa Auerbach's  research and maybe a few others. But at that time...10 years ago or more....there were no comparative studies. In other words - there was no "experiment' that compared two groups of equal populations at the same time. For example, you would have to create two groups of adults who are relatively equal or alike in many differnet attributes: age, sex, level of English knowledge, etc. Then group 1 would get, say, one month of EO (English Only) instruction on the aphabet, numbers, parts of the body, etc....and the other group would get bilingual instruction. At the end of one month you would then test them and do a statistical analysis of the results. Well, I found no research like this.

Basically, I am not a big fan of research. For one thing, the students' attitude toward the class and toward learning English is important. And there are other "intangibles" which cannot be tested. Plus the term "results" has to be defined.

To give an example, let us look at the Dual Immersion method of teaching English to elementary school children. I visited a school that taught with a DI model and learned that the program lasted from the first grade to the fifth. 90% of the children were from low-income Latino families. There were three tracks, EO, DI, and "regular" bilingual classes.

The test scores for the DI stdudents in all subjects were normal for three years, but in the in the 4th and 5th grades the scores for DI kids went up abruptly in all subjects. Actually the DI students' test scores were right behind the "best" school which was located in an affluent neighborhood. I was quite amazed and naturally thought how the Di model could be applied to adults. Unfortunately, due to politics, the school was closed down a few years after my visit. 

Anyway....at this point the discussion on bilingual vs EO methods for beginners is moot because apparently cutbacks have caused the elimination of classes for beginners, at least where I live. 

 

 

Hello Paul,

My quick Google search just now for an experimental design study in the U.S. comparing an adult bilingual with a monolingual or English only language acquisition approach still, sadly, produced no results. If there were such a study, and if it showed that under certain circumstances, with certain adult immigrant populations in the U.S., a bilingual approach had far better results, let's say in participants' listening, speaking, reading and writing skills, would that study have an impact on policy? It might. It would depend on many things, for example the quality of the study, whether there were other studies that had the same or similar findings, whether public policy makers were aware of the study, and perhaps most important, whether or not there was a pubic will to address the challenge of English language learning.

There have been times in the U.S. when the public will has been greater to address the need for adult basic skills, including English language learning. In the mid-1980's and 1990's, for example, there was a massive national public media campaign called "Project Literacy U.S." , the PLUS campaign. Major television, print news and film media companies were involved, and American awareness of our national adult low-literacy problem grew phenomenally. At the same time, there were national and state legislators who took leadership to respond to the challenge they had become aware of. As one of many people who had conversations with legislators, at the state and national level, my experience was that when there is a will to address a problem, policy makers will ask what the evidence is, from research, that the solutions proposed will be effective. Of course, they don't always use that research and, when they do, if there is new or other research that shows that the approach may not be effective, they may decide to use a different approach in their proposed legislation. I would not suggest that having solid research would guarantee good public policy, but I have seen in my own state and nationally, that under the right circumstances it can be helpful. I have also seen legislators, when they cannot get answers to basic questions such as: how great is the need, what percentage of the population in need are we addressing now with public funds, what evidence do we have about the effectiveness of the different approaches that are being used, and other questions like this, turn away from addressing the adult basic skills challenge to other challenges for which there is good research evidence on the problem and on promising solutions.

When the time comes when the public will, and the will of public policy makers, is again focused on adult basic skills, including increasing the English language skills of immigrants, advocates for helping adults who need these skills can benefit from evidence-based findings, from research, to present to policy makers who want to meet the challenge.

Is this the time? In a few parts of the country, at the city and state level, there have been significant budget increases in adult basic skills education. New York City, for example, and now very likely my Massachusetts, have recently seen budget increases or will soon see significant increases for the coming fiscal year. There may be other cities or states where this is also the case. From my own experience another key ingredient, at the state and city level, is whether or not the state or city is experiencing an increase or decrease in revenue. When there is an increase, if advocates are ready with data about the need in the state or city or town, are unified in what they are asking for, and have data to support the effectiveness of the solution they propose, among the many problems that legislators are faced with adult basic skills (including English language learning) can get attention. Even when the times may not look auspicious, they may change, and being ready with good research at your fingertips; a well-organized city, state or national adult basic skills advocacy effort; and a public media campaign will be useful.

David J. Rosen

In 1973, the first episode of School House Rock appeared during children's normal cartoon time. These 3 minute, animated, musical videos centered mostly on literacy nuggets. I bet that most people over 40 will immediately recognize their song explaining conjunctions and their function using a train yard to help kids make the connection (see what I did there?) 

At that time, very few people had access to the technology tools to express these creative educational pieces. Today, we have young learners and adults holding more technology power in their hands than Steven Spielberg had when making his first technology thriller. We also have an increasing number of youth and adults that feel bored, listless, and lacking any projects they can feel productive in. It seems to me that the time is ripe to utilize our learners and the technology available nationwide to create short (say 3-5 minutes), entertaining literacy lessons that engage people in song and playful learning. It would be ideal if educators were involved in these productions, but I know so very few educators with tons of surplus time on their hands. However, I think many educators could help learners come up with literacy fundamentals that a learner could really do a deep dive on and get creative juices going to produce some entertaining learning opportunities digitally. Learners could work alone or in teams and while they work to produce these short pieces, they start learning all about the production and performance trades and how there is so much more going on behind just the actors getting up and reciting some lines. 

This effort would not only increase our access to creative literacy learning opportunities, we would be helping our learners build technology skills that are directly applicable to the global environment that is continually exploring new ways to entertain the masses and produce more content for our voracious consumption. 

Heck, we could even just start with cherry picking the themes from School House Rock videos and seeing what our learners might do to modernize or localize those same songs into their community or life settings.

I know money always helps, but we have a massive educational workforce available in the form of our learners that we really are not utilizing as fully as we might. We all know how much more we learn about something when we need to try to teach it to others. Why deprive our learners of that same opportunity to dive into having fun with key concepts that will help them in life in many ways?

Thank you again, Paul, for raising these important questions. And thanks to you, David, for searching out these resources. Since I am aware that some of these resources are freely accessible, I wanted to provide the links for those who may be interested. The first two on the list below, by Auerbach and by Wrigley & Guth, were among the most influential in my own practice as a novice teacher. These works are still important to me.

Making Meaning, Making Change by Elsa Auerbach

Bringing Literacy to Life by Heide Wrigley and Gloria Guth 

Adult English Language Learners with Limited Literacy by Martha Bigelow and Robin Lovrien Schwarz

A shorter version of Spener's article on A Freirian Approach to Adult Literacy

Regarding the efficacy of bilingual education, the research evidence has been increasing. Kate Mencken, Professor of Linguistics at Queen's College of the City University of New York, has compiled an impressive list of research studies and thought pieces on the topic.

David mentioned the What Works Clearinghouse, and there was research conducted by Larry Condelli, Heide Spruck Wrigley, Kwang Yoon, Stephanie MCronen, and Mary Seburn and published in 2010. The “What Works” Study for Adult ESL Literacy Students showed that adult English learners achieved greater gains on standardized assessments when the teacher judiciously drew upon the primary language in class. Let me be clear that this was not bilingual instruction, but rather the teacher would encourage students to use bilingual dictionaries and help each other with translation and in other ways in class. At the American Institutes for Research (AIR) link above, you'll find some additional articles related to research in adult basic education.

Let's keep this valuable discussion going!

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, English Language Acquisition and Teaching & Learning CoPs

Thanks Phil. These are terrific examples of adult ESL/ESOL research. I appreciate seeing which studies experienced adult basic skills teachers and administrators like you have found valuable. I also appreciate -- as will the many hard-working graduate students who read your comments -- that you read doctoral students' manuscripts and dissertations!

I wonder if you can point to how any of the examples you have given might have affected your own practice, or the practice of adult basic skills (including ESL/ESOL) programs in Florida. As you know, I am interested in how research has actually affected policy and practice!

David J. Rosen

 

Several of the posts in this strand reminded me of an interesting article describing how research impacts teacher practice re technology integration in postsecondary settings.

Price, L., & Kirkwood, A. (2013). Using technology for teaching and learning in higher education: a critical review of the role of evidence in informing practice. Higher Education Research & Development, 0(0), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2013.841643

The study suggested that teachers might not view all research articles as equally relevant. They may rely more on each other or professional development presentations for information. Price and Kirkwood found that much available educational research is based on measuring exit behaviors and assessment results, but that instructors were more apt to change instructional practice in response to descriptive findings gleaned from qualitative studies.

Contact me if you'd like to see the article (& don't have access to research published in journals). I can email it to you. I don't think I can attach it here.

Jen

 

Hello Program Management Colleagues,

In Stepping Up, researchers Anne Roder and Mark Elliott, from the Economic Mobility Corporation* document that JVS Boston’s English for Advancement (EfA) program generated large earnings gains for participants during the two years after they enrolled.

*The Economic Mobility Corporation (Mobility) describes itself this way It  "identifies, develops, and evaluates programs and policies that enable disadvantaged individuals to acquire the education, skills, and networks needed to succeed in the labor market so that they can support themselves and their families."

Read the short version: Stepping Up: Interim Findings on JVS Boston’s English for Advancement Show Large Earnings Gains

Read the Summary and Conclusions from the report (below): https://economicmobilitycorp.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/SteppingUp.pdf

Note: RCT stands for Randomized Control Study.

Summary

English for Advancement (EfA), a program offered by Jewish Vocational Service (JVS) in Boston, provides adult English-language learners with employment-focused language instruction, career coaching, and job placement assistance to help them obtain employment or advance to a better job. EfA is part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Pathways to Economic Advancement project, which seeks to help limited English speakers enter the workforce and progress up the economic ladder by providing English instruction and workforce development services. The project, managed by Social Finance, uses an innovative “Pay for Success” funding model in which private sector investors provide upfront capital to scale promising programs, and the government pays back the investors only if the programs achieve predetermined outcomes. As the project’s independent evaluator, Economic Mobility Corporation (Mobility) is conducting a study of EfA that uses a randomized controlled trial design to assess program effectiveness—that is, study participants were randomly assigned to a treatment group that could receive EfA services or to a control group that could not, then their outcomes were compared. In this interim report on the EfA program Mobility presents findings on employment and earnings impacts based on state administrative data for a cohort of nearly 800 study participants who enrolled between September 2016 and December 2017, and whose two-year follow-up period ended by December 2019.

In this report, we document that:

EfA had a substantial, statistically significant impact on annual earnings in the second year after random assignment—an average difference of $2,621 (Figure 1). Total earnings impacts over the two years after random assignment averaged $3,505.

EfA group members were significantly more likely than control group members to be employed starting in the third quarter after random assignment.

The EfA group’s quarterly earnings grew throughout the second year after random assignment, and at a faster rate than control group members’ earnings (15 percent versus 5 percent, respectively).

As the first RCT study of the earnings impacts of a workforce development program for English-language learners, the EfA study findings are important for the adult education and workforce development fields. EfA has proven to be an effective way to integrate language instruction with career services to improve the earnings of English-language learners. Although EfA was implemented during a strong labor market, its design—with rolling enrollment, individualized career coaching, and siting within partner community organizations—and its particularly large earnings effects for unemployed workers make it an important option for states and cities to consider as they develop policies in response to high unemployment.

Conclusions

With English for Advancement (EfA), JVS has developed a low-cost and effective way to integrate language instruction with career services to improve the labor market outcomes of English-language learners. EfA increased the proportion of job seekers who obtained employment and had positive earnings impacts that grew over the eight quarters after study enrollment. The model is worthy of wider utilization since many who enroll in ESOL classes are motivated by a desire to improve their job prospects. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts also benefited from increased employment and earnings that translated into higher tax revenue and larger contributions to the unemployment insurance system.

JVS demonstrated significant impacts in the tightest labor market in a decade, during which unemployment rates dropped to historic lows, particularly in the Boston metropolitan area. Key findings regarding EfA’s impacts for the early cohort of study participants include:

EfA significantly increased annual earnings in the second year after study enroll-ment by $2,621—or 15 percent—relative to the control group, and by $3,505 over two years.

EfA significantly increased employment rates starting in the third quarter after study enrollment and continuing through the eighth quarter.

While quarterly employment rates remained steady for both groups during the second year after study enrollment, the EfA group’s earnings continued to grow, and at a faster rate than control group members’ earnings.

As noted in the introduction, there are no other RCT studies of the earnings impacts of integrated ESOL and employment services for English-language learners. Occupational skills training programs that have succeeded in RCT studies have demonstrated earnings gains of 26 to 35 percent relative to the control group in the second year after study enrollment.26 These programs were more intensive than EfA—requiring full-time attendance over several weeks—and often helped participants earn certifications needed to obtain well-paying jobs. EfA is less intensive in terms of class hours, and many EfA participants obtained jobs in food preparation, cleaning, and transportation—not unlike the limited English proficient population generally. However, the findings demonstrate that EfA increased the percentage of those who were employed at all and the consistency of employment over the year. The results suggest that JVS’s decades of experience in working with immigrant communities, developing and delivering innovative curricula, and cultivating deep and extensive relationships with employers were important to EfA’s success.

Other key observations regarding the findings for the early cohort of EfA participants include:

EfA’s design—with rolling enrollment, individualized career coaching, and siting within partner community organizations—lends itself to rapid expansion and is especially useful in communities with large immigrant populations.

While EfA’s overall earnings impacts are impressive, they could be considerably larger if future programming focused on the groups who benefitted the most, including unemployed individuals with some prior U.S. work experience and individuals with more than the lowest level of English-language proficiency. The evidence also suggests that EfA is particularly effective in communities outside the city center, where ESOL services are limited.

The study provides evidence to support the Pay for Success funding model as an effective strategy to finance and scale innovative approaches to government-funded services.

We cannot know what EfA’s impact will be for the cohort of study participants whose two-year follow-up period will be affected by the economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. JVS is working to reengage participants in remote ESOL classes and career coaching, providing an opportunity for them to build their skills until the hiring environment improves. We will publish a report on EfA’s two-year impacts for the full sample of study participants in late 2022. That report will explore differences in the employment and earnings outcomes of the pre- and post-pandemic cohorts as well as whether and how EfA’s impacts change from the pre- to post-COVID periods.

David J. Rosen, Moderator

LINCS Community Program Management group

Hello Colleagues,

This was a great discussion in the LINCS Program Management group in 2019, and it's time we returned to it in 2020. What studies have you seen (or learned about) in 2020 that could affect, or already have affected, policy and practice? I listed one of them, but there may be more. Please share what you are aware of. 

David J. Rosen, Moderator

LINCS Community Program Management group

 

Hello Colleagues,

With international adult basic skills researcher Dr. Thomas Sticht's permission, I am re-posting below his recent message to the AAACE-NLA (national literacy advocacy) group on December 1st because I think it provides a good summary of some important research in our field over the years on the issue of the challenges of adult learner program retention or persistence. Tom has agreed to reply to your questions or comments.

David J. Rosen, Moderator

LINCS Community Program Management group

=========

12/1/2020

The Persisting Problems of  Recruitment & Persistence in ABE/ESL Programs 

Tom Sticht, International Consultant in Adult Education (Ret.)                         

“It is a frequently noted fact that the major problem in adult basic education is to get people into the program and keep them there (Sticht, 1975, p. 168).” I wrote this in 1975, a decade after the start-up of Federal adult basic education (ABE) programs as part of the War on Poverty in 1965, a year before the passage of the Adult Education Act of 1966.                                                                                                                          

Nearly a quarter century later, Sticht, McDonald, & Erickson (1998) conducted research in a large community college district and found major problems of getting adults into ABE and English as a Second Language (ABE/ESL) programs (a recruitment problem) and keeping them attending long enough to complete the program (a persistence problem).

Now, close to another quarter century later, ProLiteracy has published two new Research Briefs concerned once again with the problems of recruitment (Clymer & Frey, 2020) and persistence (Pickard, 2020) in ABE/ESL programs.

The Recruitment Problem (Getting People Into the Program)

Clymer & Frey (2020) start their discussion by noting, “Learner recruitment has been a longstanding concern of adult basic education (ABE) programs. It involves identifying individuals who need and would benefit from the services that adult education provides. …Recruitment requires understanding the motivations that contribute to and the obstacles that prevent individuals from enrolling in programs. …Current participants can provide insight into ways to recruit others with similar backgrounds and ambitions.”

This approach of using current program participants to find out why many ABE/ESL qualified adults do not attend these programs was followed by Sticht, McDonald, & Erickson (1998) who engaged ABE/ESL adult learners as researchers to conduct interviews with adults they knew about why they did not participate in ABE/ESL. They found that barriers to participation could be categorized into situational, dispositional, and institutional barriers, using categories earlier coined by Cross (1981) in her studies of adult education.

In their discussion of recruitment barriers, Clymer & Frey (2020) also refer to “the three types of participation barriers identified by Cross (1981, p. 99): situ­ational (e.g., health conditions, transportation, childcare), dispositional (e.g., self-perceptions, attitudes), and institutional (e.g., program schedule, formats for instruction, etc.).” They go on to note that,  “Organi­zational knowledge specific to the community can inform program design and services to help manage these barriers and allow more interested learners to engage” and they discuss various approaches ABE/ESL programs may take to improve their recruitment of adult learners.

The Persistence Problem (Keeping People in the Program)

Pickard (2020) kicks off her discussion of persistence noting that,  “Learner persistence is a well-known concern for the adult basic education (ABE) field, and understand­ably so. Students may need many hours of instruc­tion to meet educational goals or accountability benchmarks, yet programs consistently report that many students leave without achieving either.”

In their research on ESL and persistence, Sticht, McDonald, & Erickson (1998) studied how many adult learners who started an 18 week program actually completed the program. They found that 75 percent completed six weeks of study, 50 percent completed 12 weeks, and 33 percent completed the full 18 week semester of classes. They went on to discuss the concept of “focus” and found that the more the focus of a class matched the focal reason adults had for attending a program, e.g., getting a job, helping with children’s school work, completing an educational certificate, the more likely the learners were to complete the full 18 week semester.  

In her review of persistence, Pickard (2020) suggests that, “there are two ways, broadly, that the field has viewed student persistence: …A control/prevent perspective sees low learner persistence as a problem that can be prevented by changing programs or learners. In contrast, an acknowledge/accommodate perspective suggests that low learner persistence will likely always be an issue, but may or may not need fixing, depending on the goals and circumstances of the individual learner. It also acknowledges that forces outside the control of either learners or programs often deter­mine whether learners persist.”

In Pickard’s categorization scheme for persistence, the finding by Sticht, McDonald, & Erickson (1998) that engaging learners in programs that better match the learner’s focal goal for attending falls within the control/prevent perspective on increasing persistence.

In her review, Pickard considers a number of actions programs might take to moderate persistence issues of both control/prevent and acknowledge/accommodate perspectives.

One approach programs have used to acknowledge and accommodate the problem of adults dropping out of programs and then returning later on has been to conduct what have been called “open entry/open exit” programs. This permits adults to enter and leave and reenter and leave, etc. as their circumstances dictate. But this acknowledge/accommodate approach to persistence issues may cause another problem, which Sticht, McDonald, & Erickson (1998) dubbed the “turbulence” problem caused by having students constantly entering and dropping out of one program. In their research, they found turbulence rates as high as 200 percent. They cite research showing that these sorts of comings and goings may have a detrimental effect on how well learners in the program achieve.

Taking cognizance of the many issues involved in enhancing persistence in ABE/ESL programs, Pickard (2020) concludes with this message: “Meaningfully supporting learners to persist is complex—any single strategy is unlikely to work by itself or be effective for all students. However, utilizing a range of strategies from both the control/ prevent and the acknowledge/accommodate ap­proaches to persistence can help programs develop effective responses for their local contexts.”

References

Clymer, C. & Frey, S. (2020, May). Student Recruitment: A Review of the Research. A ProLiteracy Research Brief. (Available online at: https://proliteracy.org/briefs#StudentRecruitment)

Cross. K. (1981).Adults as Learners: Increasing Participation and Facilitating Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Pickard, A. (2020, November). Perspectives On Persistence: A Review of the Research. A ProLiteracy Research Brief. (Available online at:      https://proliteracy.org/briefs#Persistence)

Sticht, Thomas G. Ed. Reading for Working: A Functional Literacy Anthology. Human Resources Research Organization, Alexandria, Va. 75 194p. (Available online at: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED102532)

Sticht, T., McDonald, B., & Erickson, P. (1998). Passports to paradise: The Struggle to Teach and to Learn on the Margins of Adult Education. (Available online at:  https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED418238)


 

Hello Program Management and research colleagues,

International researcherTom Sticht wrote, "In their discussion of recruitment barriers, Clymer & Frey (2020) also refer to 'the three types of participation barriers identified by Cross (1981, p. 99): situ­ational (e.g., health conditions, transportation, childcare), dispositional (e.g., self-perceptions, attitudes), and institutional (e.g., program schedule, formats for instruction, etc.).' They go on to note that,  'Organi­zational knowledge specific to the community can inform program design and services to help manage these barriers and allow more interested learners to engage' and they discuss various approaches ABE/ESL programs may take to improve their recruitment of adult learners."

I agree with Tom and the other researchers he cites that all three kinds of barriers need attention, but would like to call your attention now to a new model deserving of serious research for its potential to very positively affect adult learner education persistence (or program retention). It's a hybrid (online and in-person) model known as HyFlex or BlendFlex, in which in-person classes are available in real-time remotely and also are archived for viewing any time afterwards.

These have become popular in higher education, including in some community colleges. If a course or curriculum is based on a solid set of content standards, the theory goes, then it might not matter whether students participate through in-person classes or remotely, and it may not matter if they choose to attend remotely one day and in-person the next, or 100% remotely, or 80% remotely and 20% in-person, or in whatever combination works best for them. It might also not matter much whether they take a week - to many weeks -- off from in-person instruction but keep up in real time or asynchronously from anywhere in the world that they might have reliable Internet access. This could mean that students who could not persist because they needed to attend a week-long family funeral in their home country, or because for several weeks they needed to attend a sick family member at home, or because their boss changed their shift from day to evening (and their class is held in the evening) or for any other unanticipated interruption of in-person classes that causes students to drop out or stop out, that many students can now persist when they could not in the past. This could be an important solution to the institutional barriers to persistence of the past that Tom has chronicled in his post.

When there appears to be some evidence to teachers and program managers of increased persistence in HyFlex or BlendFlex classes,  then it may be time to do study the HyFlex and BlendFlex models. If research shows that removing or greatly reducing institutional barriers does significantly increase persistence -- and possibly then also learning outcomes, and learners' attainment of their education of goals -- this one innovation in adult foundational (basic) skills education could be one that program managers will want to replicate.

I would like to hear your thoughts about this. Is your program experimenting with, or fully implementing, a BlendFlex or HyFlex model? If so, how is it going? What are your questions or concerns about it, or what do you see as the opportunities of this model to increase student persistence?

David J. Rosen, Moderator

LINCS Community Program Management group

 

Without having ever heard those compound words before, that is what we are attempting to organize for our program.   A few students like "live online" classes.  A different few prefer textbooks and telephone tutoring.  Others like online curriculum that is self-paced. Still others are waiting for us to open up so they can "come to school like before." We're now recording lessons (not live ones yet), and building a YouTube channel slowly to offer asynchronous options along with the synchronous "live online" classes.  It is new for us and staff have to build their Camtasia and other video editing skills.  They're working out what might work as the engagement activities during asynchronous lessons.  Separately they're also testing out "micro-assignments" in hopes of re-engaging those who are overwhelmed by full-on participation, but seem to reply to emails with short writing prompts.  The research points out what all adult educators know from experience, "you just have to keep trying" because there are no panaceas for recruitment and retention.

Hi Julie,

Thanks for your response. Everything you are doing sounds great; I agree that there is value in experimenting -- and also tracking the results and reflecting on what has been learned from the experiment.

I would describe what you are doing as a rich set of options in virtual or remote learning, but from what you have described, not as a HyFlex or BlendFlex model. In both of these, as I understand them, there is one set of content standards -- to assure high quality -- and they are used in developing both in-person and synchronous and/or asynchronous online curriculum and instruction. The power of these models is that they address the institutional barriers to attendance and persistence and, in theory, using one of these two models means that almost no one has to drop out because of institutional barriers. Notice that I said "in theory." As far as I know, we don't yet have evidence that this model does increase persistence or retention, and although these are being developed in higher education and, I believe, also in secondary schools, as far as I know they are only being planned for adult foundational skills education programs now. (I hope to learn that I am wrong about that and that more adult foundational skills programs are trying these models. 

I would love to hear from those who may be experimenting with BlendFlex or HyFlex models, to know: what you are doing, with what level and kinds of students, what the opportunities and challenges may be, and what you are learning from trying to implement hyFlex or blendFlex models.

David J. Rosen, Moderator

LINCS Community Program Management group

 

Hello Program Management Colleagues,

There will be a Guest-hosted Discussion on Evidence-based Strategies for Addressing Learner Persistence in the LINCS Teaching and Learning group from Mon, 12/07/2020 - Wed, 12/09/2020  Here's a brief description: "Learner persistence is a common issue in adult basic education programs. Join Mary Edith Leichliter and colleagues to learn about and discuss some evidence-based tips for addressing persistence – including during the pandemic."

David J. Rosen, Moderator

:LINCS Community Program Management group