ERIC Number: ED481828
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2003-Sep
Pages: 25
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Establishing an Evidence-Based Adult Education System. NCSALL Occasional Paper.
Comings, John P.; Beder, Hal; Bingman, Beth; Reder, Stephen; Smith, Cristine
To benefit from the support of public and private sector leaders and to ensure that all students receive effective services, the adult education system must identify program models that have empirical evidence to support claims of effectiveness. The U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences defines evidence-based education as "the integration of professional wisdom with the best available empirical evidence in making decisions about how to deliver instruction." An evidence-based adult education system would have the following components: (1) basic and applied research; (2) program model evaluation; and (3) practitioner knowledge. These three components would work together in a cycle that continually improves program models. The main steps in establishing an evidence-based adult education system are as follows: (1) define groups of students to focus on in the initial baseline program evaluations; (2) for each group of students, identify specific achievement outcomes and tools for measuring them; (3) choose a few groups to begin with first; (4) support a team to develop the baseline program models for each group; (5) engage research methodology experts to design an evaluation of the baseline program models; and (6) publish a detailed description of the baseline program models and the program model evaluation methodology. (Contains 28 references.) (MN)
Descriptors: Adult Basic Education, Adult Learning, Adult Literacy, Adult Students, Cooperative Planning, Definitions, Educational Planning, Educational Research, English (Second Language), Guidelines, Instructional Development, Instructional Systems, Literacy Education, Program Validation, Research Methodology, Research Needs, Research Utilization, Secondary Education, Student Needs, Theory Practice Relationship
For full text: http://ncsall.gse.harvard.edu/research/op_comings3.pdf.
Publication Type: Opinion Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: Policymakers
Language: English
Sponsor: Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED), Washington, DC.
Authoring Institution: National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy, Boston, MA.
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A