It is suggested that the proficiency guidelines of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) are ideally suited for organizing classroom instruction because they are experientially rather than theoretically based, progressive, and provide a means for defining what it means to "know" a language. This last issue is dicussed…

This study examines the activities which Head Start parents actually engaged in and the facts they learned at the 14th annual conference held in New Orleans in April, 1987 and the 15th annual conference held in Salt Lake City in May 1988. At the 14th annual conference, 70 parents voluntarily attended a workshop advertised in the conference…

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…

Adult learning theory and research on professional development provide a rich background context for examining school leader development for school improvement. The literature on adult learning theory identifies the following generalities about adults as learners: age reduces the speed of learning; adult learners bring life experiences to bear on…

This consultant's manual aims to assist those who conduct training and technical assistance sessions for early childhood programs and staff. Section 1 offers background theory about effective ways to teach or to guide adults through a learning experience. Section 2 introduces the assistance process as a cycle progressing from assessment through…

This issue contains interviews with adult educators on contemporary topics in the field. "Beyond the Adult Learner's Dependency" (Shannon Whelan) is an interview with Malcolm S. Knowles, who introduced the term andragogy, the notion that teaching adults is fundamentally different from teaching children. "Self-Directed Learning: The Role of the…

After decades of neglect, adult numeracy and mathematics education are coming to be recognised as worthy of serious research but the area is beset by conceptual difficulties. Adult numeracy and mathematics may at last be "on the educational research map", but where exactly are they on the map? This article explores the question of what…

The escalating success of personal coaching and the significant potential it holds as a vehicle for effective learning, appear to have had little impact within educational contexts to date. In response, this paper therefore presents an introduction to personal coaching practice and its outcomes and examines its processes through a discussion of…

If there is to be some claim of uniqueness as related to adult learning problems it must come from the development of general principles for guiding learning tactics in the classroom. We are a long way from being able to discern how to correlate student/client abilities with appropriate tactics. Considerable research is needed to harness the…

An analysis of the underlying concepts and unique contributions of learning contracts to higher education.

The results of this study suggest that the components of individual methods of adult education should be examined carefully to determine whether they are essential to adult learning, and in what form they should be provided if shown to be necessary. (Author)

Researchers disagree not only about the existence or magnitude of sex-related differences in spatial perception, but also about the determinants of such differences. Training in three distinct spatial tasks was provided in an attempt to destablize individual and sex-related differences, while exploring the relative contributions of biological and…

A bibliography has been compiled to provide as complete information as is feasible about research publications and by-products from the Human Resources Research Office (HumRRO). It includes abstracts for many items; key word out of context indexing; author indexes; and AD numbers, indicating items available to qualified users through the Defense…

Research in adult learning has probably progressed further and produced more definitive results than in any other area of adult education. E. L. Thorndike's study, "Adult Learning" and other studies have shown that--(1) adults can learn, and, given their own time, can learn as effectively in later maturity as in earlier adulthood, unless…