Research and Evaluation | Noteworthy Practices | Additional Links

The quality of adult education instruction is a critical factor in improving student outcomes in reading, mathematics and other key skill areas. The Office of Vocational and Adult Education is committed to investing in rigorous research about adult learning and helping adult educators learn about, understand, and put into practice the findings from scientifically-based research. Ultimately, continuous improvement in teaching hinges on the availability of high quality professional development opportunities linked to research.

Improving the quality of instruction in adult education programs involves continually strengthening the knowledge, skills, and abilities of instructors, administrators, and other adult education staff.

Research and Evaluation

• The Working Conditions of Adult Literacy Teachers: Preliminary Findings from the NCSALL Staff Development Study focuses on the environmental factors that can impinge on the ability of adult education practitioners to do their jobs well. Particular emphasis is placed on the source of these factors, their effects on teachers and programs, and their implications for adult learners and for the field as a whole.

• In Adult Basic Education and Professional Development: Strangers for Too Long, the principal investigators evaluated the extent to which adult education practitioners accessed and used research in their work. The findings led to an exploration of the broader topic of professional development and the obstacles practitioners face in taking part in it.

• Pathways to Change: A Summary of Findings from NCSALL’s Staff Development Study focuses primarily on individual factors that influenced how ABE teachers changed after participating in professional development activities. This article also presents the most important professional development, program, and system factors that explain teacher change.

• CASAS (the Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System) provides adult education and literacy programs with the resources and expertise to establish a research-based comprehensive performance accountability system, address core indicators of performance, integrate literacy and occupational skill instruction, and evaluate the effectiveness of adult education and literacy programs.

Noteworthy Practices

• Through SABES (The System for Adult Basic Education Support), the Massachusetts Department of Education has established and funded a voluntary licensure process for adult basic skills educators, based on rigorous professional standards.

• The Adult Training and Development Network’s Community, Education, Training, and Employment Division provides teacher training for all adult educators funded by the State Department of Education. Made possible through a contract with the Connecticut Department of Education.

• This Teacher Toolkit from Texas consists of resources for adult educators, particularly for those new to the field. It includes information such as adult learning styles, principles of adult learning, accountability, and current research on adult education.

• Focus on Basics is the quarterly publication of the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy. It presents best practices, current research on adult learning and literacy, and information on how research is used by adult basic education teachers, counselors, program administrators, and policy makers.

Additional Links

• The Professional Development Kit (PDK): Multimedia Resources for Adult Educators is a teacher-centered system that provides systematic and sustainable professional development opportunities to adult educators. It focuses on helping teachers develop critical reflection skills and instructional strategies to meet the diverse needs of their adult learning populations.

• NCSALL’s Teaching and Training Materials are designed for teachers and professional development staff. Part of NCSALL’s effort to link research and practice, they have been developed using findings emerging from NCSALL research.

• Building Professional Development Systems in Adult Basic Education provides an overview of the challenges facing state-level professional development systems. The authors derived a useful framework for analyzing professional development systems.

• NRS Online is the training site and reference source for the National Reporting System (NRS) for adult education. This site includes training courses designed for adult education program administrators. The courses explain NRS requirements and how to improve the quality of NRS data collection.

• The Professional Development for Adult Education Instructors: State Policy Update PDF (929 KB) provides background on professional development in adult education, summarizes the funding sources for professional development, and reviews data collected from the NIFL survey of state professional development systems.

• Professional Development Network for Adult Educators (Pro-Net 2000)
  This three-year contract between OVAE and the Pelavin Research Center of the American Institutes for Research, builds on the professional development activities supported by OVAE over the past 10 years. Pro-Net 2000 develops and disseminates products that are based on research and practice.

• The goal of the Practitioner Dissemination and Research Network (PDRN) effort was to create and support systematic partnerships between practitioners and researchers. Read their research reports and about the Connecting Practice, Policy, and Research (CPPR) initiative.

For Additional Information

Lynn Spencer
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20202-7240