[NLA] Practitioner-based research topics

[Nashansen@aol.com]

Andrea and others interested in research topic:

Just would like to add a couple additional comments to what you wrote in two 
different emails over the weekend.  

First of all the "two sides".  You listed them as (quote):
<< 1) what are the foundations of language, what are the 
foundations of reading/writing (what is to be learned, what is the 
structure), and 
2)  What does the learner bring to the task--what we know 
about the brain, how do learning differences interact with what is to be 
learned.  You can put on this side of the equation learner variables like 
culture and gender.>>

In working directly with adults with learning problems, I realize it is not a 
neat little package that is easily wrapped and delivered.  The adult brings 
much to the learning circumstance, in my view.  They bring their barriers.  
They bring their objectives.  They bring what they have already learned 
(foundations) and they bring the gaps in their foundations.  Within the past 
two weeks I had a learner ask himself, yet spoke it so I heard, "Where *was* 
I when I was a kid??  I shoulda learned this THEN!"

I was glad he didn't turn to me and ask ME why he didn't learn it then.  What 
should have I have told him?  How does an adult learn when a child didn't?  
Plain and simple.  Is it a different brain section reacting to the 
information drills? I could have told him it had to do with his personal 
drive to learn it now, but is there a "better answer"?

You wrote:  "Why bother".  My answer is:  Because sooner or later he *will* 
ask a direct question of me -- or of his tutor.  I agree that "knowing how 
learners learn puts a tool into the hands of teachers and administrators" 
because behind the scenes with this man is a volunteer tutor who is also 
working with him at a 2nd session each week.  I agree with that point, but 
you are wrong thinking the following.  I *do* "rely on (anyone else) to 
create programs".  In this agency we rely on and use national program 
materials which provide a base of instructional information, we use 
nationally designed assessment tools and add "the stuff" I know myself.  

The reason that I *do* want to know is exactly as you wrote:  "It is also 
useful to be able to sift the wheat from the chaff when you have to make 
teaching decision."  What *is* it that makes it possible for this man to 
learn what he didn't learn as a kid? Is my question.  

Is there documentation that research would reveal that would assist in the 
learning process?  Or is it so complex it cannot be explained without 
extensive study in a degree program format?  What is out there in the 
volunteer sector that has worked for others? is the plain and simple of it.


THE NEXT MORNING THE POST WAS FOLLOWED BY:
<< 1)  About your question on re NRS and its effects on student retention.
 
 First you would ask, "Are there effects on student retention of using the 
 NRS?"  The answer on the nla is "maybe," if I go by the posts.  You would 
 have to clarify this first--yes or no. if Yes, then you would go along to 
ask 
 the research question, which could be something like this:
 
 What are the effects on student retention of using the NRS?  You would then 
 have a subset of questions to focus the question.
 
 The difficulty of this question is in getting base line data against which 
 change could be measured.>>

All of the above is summarized well in your final sentence.  "The difficulty 
of this question is in getting baseline data" - that is exactly *it*.

The research question perhaps should start with:  Who?  Which literacy level 
students are even being tested?  Which adult learners are being expected to 
respond to the NRS base of questioning?  How many of the learners are and are 
not being standardized teseted?  In programs where it has been the new 
expectation, did it mean they no longer teach those adults and how many were 
there prior to that requirement?

"Maybe" retention already has been impacted is exactly the answer that I am 
getting from NLA posts.  But that's not good enough for me.  If I were to 
support a research project, it would have to document concrete data stating 
policies should be changed -- so that the federal authorization would include 
an alternative assessment tool to use with learners who cannot fill out a 
form without a cheat-sheet.  

I feel we need as literacy providers to allow adults to show their life 
skills and have a truer benchmark from which to begin.  That is not true of 
the standardized tests used to feed input into the NRS as far as I can tell 
from input given on-line here or off-line elsewhere.  Without researched data 
to prove "our case", we are left with the choice to use our own alternative 
testing all right.  And lose the funding we all so desperately need to 
sustain viable programs.  But we know where to start the learner.  So how 
important is $$?  Very.

What's the use of a research project if there is still only a "maybe" answer? 
 You wrote: "Quantitative documentation would be necessary."  If there *is* 
none, why put the work into it?  

Thanks for the excellent resource persons' names.  I will welcome their 
insights.  Hopefully they will put their "2 cents worth" here for all to read.

Nancy Hansen
Sioux Falls Area Literacy Council
Sioux Falls, SD
sfliteracy at mcleodusa.net

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