Figure 7. Years of experience.*
| Years of Experience | Number of Respondents (N=388) |
Percentage of Respondents |
| Less than 1 | 23 | 6 |
| 1 - 2 | 24 | 6 |
| 3 - 4 | 52 | 13 |
| 5 - 6 | 49 | 13 |
| 7 - 8 | 29 | 7 |
| 9 - 10 | 43 | 11 |
| 11 - 15 | 73 | 19 |
| 16 - 20 | 54 | 14 |
| More than 20 | 41 | 11 |
*12 people skipped this question.
The respondents were well-educated, with over one-half (55 percent) holding a bachelor of education degree or diploma, 24 percent holding a master's degree, and 1 percent holding a doctoral degree. Only 4 percent of the respondents did not have a post secondary certificate, diploma, or degree. Slightly over one-half of the respondents (56 percent) had taken university or college credit courses that focused on assessment.
The respondents were provided with a list of topics related to assessment and asked to select the topics they wanted to learn. The aggregate results were compared with results based on years of experience in the field of adult literacy. At the aggregate level, the three most highly ranked topics were learning how to choose assessments, how to interpret assessments, and how to plan for instruction. A deeper analysis reveals a hierarchy of interests, related to years of experience (see Figure 8). Choosing an assessment tool and interpreting assessments were ranked as the top two choices by those with six years of experience or less. Those with seven to twenty years of experience indicated that planning for instruction was their top choice.5
5 For those with 7 to 8 years experience, choosing an assessment tool and planning for instruction both ranked as the number one choice.