Dr. Richard Gacka, a certified school psychologist, licensed private psychologist and director of the PDE Bureau of ABLE’s Northwest Professional Development Center, prepared the first draft of the Impact Survey. Dr. Royce reviewed and revised the draft to insure that the data requested indicated the participant’s status before enrolling, while attending, and after leaving an ABLE program. The Survey addressed eight areas of interest (See Appendix A-1):

• Educational status
• Family status
• Current activities
• Job history
• ABLE program information
• Financial status
• Personal history
• Personal well-being

Under educational status, participants were queried as to their level of education before, during, and after ABLE participation, any degrees or certificates earned, and any training or personal interest courses taken. Family questions addressed marital status, number of children and the extent of children’s education. In regard to program participation, sample members were asked to indicate their instructional group (ABE/GED/ESL/Basic Literacy/Family Literacy) at the time of entrance and exit from the program. They also had an opportunity to select impacts on their lives (i.e. scho larships, promotions, motivation to pursue additional education) that were a direct result of receiving the Success Stories Outstanding Student Award.

Data on employment and financial status before, during, and after program enrollment were determined by participants completing job histories and indicating alternate sources of income or assistance. They also checked off employer or self-provided benefits, listed the number of houses, cars, and computers they owned or leased, and rated their income group as homeless, poverty, low income, middle class, upper middle or wealthy.

The information collected about health status addressed physical and mental health problems, treatment for substance abuse, and severe accidents. The civic status area included questions as to whether participants had been arrested, received probation or jail time, filed for bankruptcy or had been sued. Participants were also asked to indicate whether they had obtained US citizenship, received a driver’s license, completed reading a book, voted in a state or national election, had an article published and/or addressed a state or national audience. Involvement in personal and community activities was cons idered indicative of both civic status and personal well-being.

The final question required participants to rate the following 12 areas of personal well-being on a Likert scale with 5 indicating “things being excellent” and 1 meaning “there are major problems:” 1) job; 2) marriage; 3) children; 4) home; 5) education; 6) physical health; 7) financial status; 8) parenting skills; 9) job skills; 10) self confidence; 11) overall happiness, and 12) expectations for the future.

The Quality of Life Inventory

The Quality of Life Inventory (1994) is a brief but comprehensive measure of life satisfaction written at a sixth grade reading level. The introduction to the QOLI manual explains life satisfaction “as the perceived gap between what a person wants and what he or she has. The smaller the perceived discrepancy between a person’s aspirations and achievements, the greater his or her life satisfaction will be (p.4).” This inventory was standardized on a population of 798 individuals with a slight overrepresentation of black and Hispanic participants. The QOLI sample age ranged from 17 to 80, with 65 percent female and 35 percent male. The average educational level of the QOLI sample was three to four years of post- high school education. Except for the educational aspect, the QOLI sample demographics were remarkably similar to Learning for Life participants whose ages ranged from 18 to 80, with 70 percent female and 30 percent male.