Publication: Learners' Engagement in Adult Literacy Education, No. 28

• Beder, Hal
• Medina, Patsy
• Tomkins, Jessica
• Riccioni, Regina
• Deng, Weiling

This study is about engagement in adult literacy education.
Engagement is mental effort focused on learning. It is
important to understand how and why adult learners engage
in literacy instruction because engagement is a
precondition to learning progress. Researchers who study
engagement conceive of it in different ways. Some focus on
engagement as a cognitive, or mental, process closely
related to such factors as motivation and self-efficacy.
They seek to understand how the engagement process works
and how it is related to learning. Others are more
interested in how learning context shapes engagement--how
the educational environment affects how and whether
learners engage. Although both traditions are important,
this study focused on the second tradition--how learning
context shapes engagement. This was done for a very
practical reason; to a great extent adult educators control
the educational context. Thus, if they understand how the
educational context shapes engagement, they can influence
engagement in positive ways. This study was conducted at
the National Labsite for Adult Literacy Education, a
partnership between the National Center for the Study of
Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL) and the New Brunswick
Public Schools Adult Learning Center. The Center serves
about 3,800 learners a year with basic literacy and English
for speakers of other languages (ESOL) classes, preparation
for the tests of the General Educational Development (GED)
credential, and an adult high school that issues a school
district diploma. Over a period of five years (2000?2005),
we studied six classes: three basic literacy, two adult
high school, and one GED preparation. The methodology was
qualitative, with multiple data-collection methods,
including the use of video, traditional ethnographic
observation, and learner interviews. The teachers of the
classes studied participated in some of the data-analysis
sessions, and when they did, the session was recorded and
transcribed. The tracripts were then treated as an
additional data source. Multiple data sources enabled
researchers to triangulate in data analysis. The study
found that there were three contextual factors that shaped
engagement in the classes studied: the instructional
system, teachers' roles, and classroom norms. (Contains 1
table.)