[NLA] Are You Being Served?

[Thomas Sticht]

Lloyd David said: "It seems to me no thought is given to publicizing the
results of these studies even though many cost a great deal of money. I
think that there should be a marketing plan developed around every project
which in essence advertises the results so those in the field can
benefit."

Lloyd: It has been my experience every since 1976 when I directed the
Basic Skills Division of the National Institute for Education (the
predecessor to OERI and the new whatever it is now being called) that
after spending tens of millions of dollars on research, very little is
done to disseminate it. Mostly reports are placed into the ERIC system and
that’s about it. Also troubling is the fact that federal research monitors
who have oversight for millions of dollars of research may also fail to
read all the reports they get. But perhaps this is understandable when it
is recognized that one national research center alone may produce one or
two dozen or more of the types of reports you are talking about. And a
federal monitor may have three or more centers to monitor, and there is a
lot of other work to do when monitoring research besides reading the
reports. Teachers, administrators, etc., too, have a lot to do so they
have a great deal of difficulty reading all the reports researchers
produce each year.

Regarding your organization’s work with the NCSALL project, do you think
those in the field would benefit from reading the 700+ page report, and if
so in what ways? Can you provide a quick summary of some of the most
important results of the project that you think should be more widely
known? In what ways did the research improve your program? Did you recruit
better? Did you place people in programs more accurately? Did people learn
more? Did they learn knowledge that was more relevant to their goals? Did
people stay in the program longer (improved retention/greater
persistence)? Did more people get GEDs or high school diplomas if that was
the goal? Was the program made more cost-efficient – (that is one of the
NCSALL’s stated missions – to make adult education and literacy programs
more cost-efficient)?

Was there a comparison group that participated in some sort of special
project that was not the same as yours so that the project could control
for the so-called "Hawthorne" effect (that is, sometimes teachers and
others perform better in a project not because of the ideas and methods of
the project but simply because they are participating in something
special. So the researchers have to try to arrange their research to make
sure that it is the effects of their ideas and methods and not simply
special attention that leads to any observed results)?

Tom Sticht




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