CHAPTER VI:
OUTCOMES AND IMPLICATIONS

Learning for Life focuses on the lives of 70 adult learners who participated in ABLE programs between 1968 and 2000 and were recognized as Pennsylvania’s Outstanding Adult Students of the Year. By studying our most successful students, we ascertain benchmarks of attainable adult education outcomes experienced over time; outcomes such as adult learners’ educational, attitudinal and life style changes that produced lasting impacts upon participants, their families and their communities. In so doing, we put forward answers to the questions posed by Beder (1999, p.81):

• What is the meaning of impact from the perspective of successful learners?

• Are there important impacts of adult literacy that learners recognize in themselves, but are not amenable to quantitative measurement?

• How and to what extent do increased self-confidence and self-efficacy enable other positive changes in successful learners’ lives?

Learning for Life provides a forum for successful adult learners’ voices as they discuss their backgrounds, risk factors, motives fo r enrollment, ABLE program experiences and ongoing changes in their life styles. They describe challenges they faced in striving for advanced education and training. They discuss jobs they hold and plans they envision. They relate their children’s accomplishments and discuss the satisfaction they experience when reaching out to help others in their families, programs and communities. Each participant’s story is unique, significant and valuable. Taken as a whole, their comments compared, categorized and compiled provide the reader with an understanding as to “how” and “why” their lives changed and what role, if any, ABLE practitioners and programs played as catalysts.

Adult Literacy Outcomes

Adult literacy outcomes addressed participants’ backgrounds and risk factors, motives for ABLE enrollment, program experiences and critical issues. The following research que stions yielded the following answers:

Are there characteristics shared by study participants that make them receptive to success in ABLE classes?

• Eighty-five percent of participants suffered and survived disorienting dilemmas prior to program enrollment. Successful adult learners are survivors and despite initial lack of self-confidence, participants exhibited resolve and resilience.

• Participants who enrolled with specific goals in mind were most likely to succeed. While economic factors were prime incentives, only 20 percent of participants were directly motivated by the need to get a job or enter a training program. Other motives included: encouragement by family members or social agencies (20 percent); single mothers seeking to improve their children’s lives (20 percent) to set examples for others (10 percent); and for personal improvement or self-actualization (30 percent).

• Participants were supported by their religious faith and by strong family ties.