1. The participants in the program - paid staff, tutors, other volunteers, and learners should all be involved in the evaluation process.
  2. Programs, or learning communities, are interactive systems with many variables. A multi-faceted approach to evaluation is necessary to get the full picture.
  3. The beliefs that adult literacy volunteer programs should be learnercentred, offer free tuition, be accessible and be placed in the context of lifelong learning, provided a philosophical or conceptual base for the evaluation.

Design Methodology

After an extensive literature and ERIC search, literacy colleagues across Canada and in British Columbia were contacted in an attempt to assess the "state of the art" of evaluation in adult literacy programs. Some useful individual unpublished studies were read, and colleagues willingly shared their ideas as well as samples of evaluation questionnaires and other tools. Many practitioners are currently concerned with developing more appropriate assessment instruments to evaluate learner outcomes. This was not the major thrust of this project.

Our major concern was to evaluate the program. For the program as a whole there are two instruments: a Program Questionnaire and a Program Profile. The Program Questionnaire is the actual evaluation instrument. The Program Profile when completed provides descriptive and quantitative data.

The Program Profile is important because it gives a picture of the resources available for the program and provides background material to help explain the results of the Evaluation. It is also a cross-check on various administrative procedures such as essential record-keeping. It gives some idea of the program's performance and impact.

To construct the Program Questionnaire, the following procedures were followed. Various program components were identified. Then, clusters of conditions pertaining to each component were identified based on practice and the literature. A good practice statement was then written for each component and the supporting conditions listed underneath. The final instrument has seventeen good practice statements. (See below.) A rating scale (from 1 to 5) was then developed for each statement.