[NLA] Practitioner-based research topics--long

[AWilder106@aol.com]

Dear Nancy and interested others,

1)  On your point about your student asking, 
"Where was I when I was a kid?  I shoulda learned it then!"
you might have asked, "What do you think about why you didn't learn it then? 
Any ideas?"  Then go over parts of his answer to have him elaborate his 
reasoning.  Do it colloquially so you get an understanding of his reasoning 
and some of his life history, the clues might be there.  

Then ask other students, again, colloquially, about why they thought they 
"didn't learn it when they were a kid." 

You might find a pattern, you may already have noticed one from your other 
students.

Some patterns I have noticed from the literature and from asking people like 
Art:

1)  frequent moves
2)  emotional trauma/upset at the age when student stopped learning
3)  undiagnosed learning disability
4)  abusive teachers, abusive parents

As I recall, Art noticed a pattern and changed his admitting procedures.

When gathering data, you try to find out what is happening, however measured, 
and then see if there is a pattern, and you draw from that.  Then test out 
your conclusions with others, see what they come up with.

If your student asks you directly, you might say,"Gee, I don't know, you 
might know better than I do anyway, but here are somethings other students 
have said."  And you would list what your other students have said.  When you 
run these reasons by your student, see if any one of them rings a bell, you 
will know it if so, and then you follow up on that to see what further info 
you can get, ***from the student's point of view.***

Speaking very broadly about this kind of work: the student has the answers, 
you don't, but because you see many students, you can start to gather 
"answers" and see patterns from what they tell you.

Then you test this out with more students, and see what you come up with

2)  Now the NRS.

"Maybe" wouldn't be good enough for me, either.  Anecdotal info may be just 
that.

I know that student retention is a big adult lit issue, so I used the word 
"retention" to key into the literature on this subject.  "Literature" means 
studies all over the place, not books in a bookcase, unfortunately.  

You yourself posed the needed focusing questions in your post.

Any research project about the NRS would have to be designed to work with the 
lack of prior data--if it is prior, I don't know what you did before NRS.  
What did you do?

OK, let's say you and some hundred others did nothing.  You have to make a 
data set with the "nothing" AND with controls for other variables that have 
changed since the NRS system went into effect.  This could probably be done, 
it would require both quantitative and qualitative researchers along with 
teacher/administrators such as yourself. 
 
OR you might try to "sell" a pilot study to the folks (plus others) who 
mandate the NRS, and make your pilot data set consist of students who were 
not TABE tested. What you need is two data sets so could compare change.  You 
mention "an alternative assessment" and that could be the way to go.

I have looked over the TABE, and it is about language, not about a person's 
life experience.  

Your point about "life skills" is one I have heard discussed many times on 
the nla.  It is a huge topic, I believe. To go by the nla posts, teachers get 
very involved with this issue, but I am not sure about what part of "life 
skills" feeds into assessment issues, or what is really meant when people use 
the term "life skills."  Survival?  Survival given extraordinary effort?  I 
want to know how it segues into assessment.  Could you describe, from your 
experience, how life experience feeds into assessment, as you see it?  Or 
into program design?  What would be its uses?

People who provide money for programs want to know about "program 
effectiveness" outcomes.  Marsha Tait's experience would be useful here, I am 
guessing, since the consultants she hired were able to assess programs by 
using financial "return on investment" data. 

The use of "return on investment" data aggravates some, but it would make 
pocketbooks open, seems to me, and I can't imagine that it would bother 
students to think that x amount of effort results in xxxxx outcomes.

These are only very general statements in reply to your post.

Andrea







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