Section 9 of the Impact Survey asked participants to indicate whether they had achieved any of five specific results after receiving an Outstanding Student Award. This information detailed in Table XV provides insight into some of the “positive” effects of participants being recognized for their achievements.

TABLE XV

Results of Receiving Outstanding Student Recognition.

The result s of Table XV are quite interesting, especially in light of the previous identification of highest levels of achievement (See Table XIII). The former suggests that a core group of about 60 percent of participants only pursued formal education up to and through the GED level. However, Table XIV shows 72 percent of the participants indicating a sense of motivation to pursue additional education and 88 percent of individuals indicating that the experience had improved their self-confidence.

These levels provide the first evidence of a possible intangible result of ABLE programming, centering on the affective qualities of optimism and motivation. The data suggest that a major benefit of ABLE programming was enhancement of the perception of educational value and improvement of self-confidence.

The final section of the Impact Survey asked participants to rate their level of satisfaction with life on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being “there are major problems,” 5 being “things are excellent,” and 3 being “average.” They were instructed to leave questions blank if they did not apply to them. This provides a rather informal reflection of the degree to which individuals are satisfied with major elements of their life, and some insight into which problems, if any, are problematic.

Table XVI on the following page shows the mean score by each of the 12 life area.