Executive Summary

As the national emphasis on adult learner performance accountability shifts from basic skills gained in the classroom to literacy functions exhibited in daily life, we need to establish meaningful benchmarks by which to measure participants’ growth. What better yardstick to use than the life experiences of successful ABLE participants? Learning for Life provides this perspective by studying the life experiences and attitudes of 70 adult learners who partic ipated in ABLE programs between 1968 and 2000 and were recognized as Pennsylvania’s Outstanding Adult Students of the Year.

By studying this population, we can illuminate outcomes experienced by successful adult learners over time; outcomes such as attitudinal and life style changes that produced lasting impacts upon participants, their families and their communities. We can inform practitioners of program strategies, instructional methods and mentoring styles that appear effective. We can apprise stakeholders of appropriate standards and time intervals for measuring participant success. We can identify roadblocks that even the most successful participants have difficulty in surmounting. Furthermore, we can offer models of excellence for adult learners to relate to and emulate.

Research Instruments

Learning for Life employs four distinct research instruments. A Review of Success Stories Booklets dating from 1978 to the present imparts information about sample members’ motives for participation, educational levels at program entrance and sponsors’ descriptions of their nominees’ attitudes and accomplishments. Informal Interviews supply participants’ answers to broad open-ended questions that address life changes and attitude transformations without specifically focusing on ABLE participation, advanced education, employment, family and/or community activities. Thus, any comments offered on these specific subjects are a matter of participants’ choice rather than researchers’ direction.

The Impact Survey reveals participants’ demographics, family status, current activities, employment and benefits, financial and economic factors, educational attainment, major life occurrences, results of exemplary student recognition and personal well being. The Quality of Life Inventory (QOLI), a brief but comprehensive standardized test, measures respondents’ level of satisfaction with their lives.

Data Analyses

The use of multiple instruments allowed researchers to gather data that could be analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively and measured against a standardized instrument. The structure devised for reporting the qualitative findings was arrived at by the “grounded study” approach of identifying and classifying themes, topics and subtopics that emerged from the Informal Interviews. The Statview software program was used to complete the Impact Survey’s statistical analyses. Much of the data available from the Impact Survey was descriptive rather than quantitative and there was considerable variability in data reporting due to participants’ failure to make entries in all applicable areas. A thorough review of data available from the Informal Interviews and Success Stories Booklets succeeded in filling in sufficient past and present data to provide descriptive information about the study sample and quantitative statistics in limited areas. These findings were then compared to participants’ scores on the standardized QOLI and found to correlate.