At their most basic level, digital badges are a new way to capture and communicate what an individual knows and can demonstrate. This report examines the nature, value, and potential impact of digital badges, an emerging electronic form of recognition of an individual's knowledge and skills. Badges can represent different levels of work and…

This study examined the reliability and validity of administering Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) to adult basic education (ABE) students. Ninety ABE participants were administered DIBELS measures, the Woodcock-Johnson III Broad Reading (WJ III BR) measures, and four orthographic ability tests. Since ABE students are a…

The 11th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM 2018) is held under the auspices of the International Educational Data Mining Society at the Templeton Landing in Buffalo, New York. This year's EDM conference was highly competitive, with 145 long and short paper submissions. Of these, 23 were accepted as full papers and 37…

Intended to help adult education teachers and administrators select the type of adult literacy program that works best for their students, this digest surveys nine different programs and discusses the assessment methods used for each program. The programs examined are: (1) Time to Read; (2) Center for Literacy program; (3) Federal Prison System…

In March 1988, the Institute for Literacy Studies at Lehman College, New York, initiated a short-term, participatory research project in alternative assessment. It consisted of two major components--a five-session seminar held for two hours on Wednesday afternoons in May and June and two rounds of interviews with Adult Learning Center (ALC)…

Dependence on standardized tests in adult literacy programs derives partly from their relative ease of adminstration and their appearance of providing valid and reliable quantitative data for program evaluation. Few adult educators are satisfied with the quality of the information, and most are extremely dissatisfied with the effects of such…

This issue contains five articles about assessment in adult literacy programs. The first article, "Living Literacy: Rethinking Adult Learner Assessment" (Susan L. Lytle), focuses on developing alternative forms of assessment such as literacy portfolios to identify changes in four dimensions of adult literacy over the course of literacy…

This guide is designed to introduce adult literacy educators to the concept of portfolio assessment and to provide some guidance about how to incorporate portfolio assessment into adult literacy education work. An introduction describes what a portfolio is and provides an overview of the four major areas of reflection and decision making that make…

The trait-state model, a framework for understanding adult literacy, draws heavily on the social psychological literature. Allport (1961) first proposed the notion of trait. The overriding characteristics of focus on trait is the individual's possession of language control. Cattell (1950, 1979) emphasized the notion of state in relation to trait…

The Adult Education and Family Literacy Act requires states to report learners' educational gains in terms of level descriptors defined by the National Reporting System (NRS). States may choose their assessment methods. Most use standardized testing. NRS level descriptors for English as a Second Language (ESL) define English language proficiency…

Adult literacy programs need reliable information about program quality and effectiveness for accountability, improvement of practice, and expansion of knowledge. Evaluation and assessment reflect fundamental beliefs about adult learners, concepts of literacy, and educational settings. Resources for planning program evaluations include surveys,…

This chapter seeks to provide the field of education for adult English speakers of other languages--at local, state, and national levels--with a timely overview of the state of assessment in adult English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) programs in the United States. It also seeks to provide a brief description of assessment reform…

Based on a graduate course, this manual was written to help instructors (professional or volunteer) understand and teach beginning adult learners and other adults with learning problems. The manual is organized into seven sections. The first two sections provide background information on the development of the manual and suggest ways that it can…

This document presents the Equipped for the Future Framework (EFF) content standards that were developed over a 6-year period by hundreds of adult education practitioners, experts, and others nationwide to create a working consensus on what adults need to know and be able to do in the 21st century. Chapter 1 defines adult literacy for the 21st…

The following papers are included: "Schoolhouse in the Factory: The Phenomenology of Literacy" (Berlin); "The Self-Directed Learning Projects of Employed, Married Mothers" (Boyce); "The Forever Plan: Adult Men Who Continue in Postsecondary Education Compared with Those Who Drop Out" (Brown); "Burnout and Associated Factors among…