The author has been working in the literacy field with francophone adults in a minority setting and in a variety of capacities for twenty years, and considers himself a reflective and critical practitioner. He strives to understand the world of adult education and skills development based on his practical experiences and observations from the…

Because Literacy and Essential Skills are so important to economic development, it is vital to know the competencies needed by the educators who deliver Literacy and Essential Skills programming. Likewise, Literacy and Essential Skills are crucial for labour market attachment. Low-skilled work has been most affected by technological change. There…

This paper gathers descriptions on the use of the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) and essential skills cross Canada. IALS was developed as a population measure to lay out the distribution of skills and their relationship to other social and economic attributes. The information was taken from federal, provincial, and territorial…

By varying task conditions and constraints on subjects, this study attempted to extend and refine a developmental theory of partitioning as a foundational process undergirding children's construction of a rational number. Subjects were 31 preponderantly higher-grade pupils enrolled at an elementary school in Nova Scotia, Canada. Two tasks were…

The work of Gee and Purves helps provide a framework for understanding cultural contexts and contextual boundaries of literacy. Gee (1991) uses the term "discourse"--a socially accepted association among ways of using language that can identify one as a member of a social context--synonymously with cultural context. Purves' (1991) work…

Scores on mental ability and academic skills for 1958 and 1978 of representative sample of grade 4 and 7 classes in Saskatchewan were compared. The selected students were administered appropriate levels of the Otis-Lennon Mental Ability Tests, and the Canadian Tests of Basic skills in vocabulary, reading, language skills (spelling, capitalization,…

Commonwealth Ministries of Education were asked to report on how they are undertaking the improvement of the quality of basic education in their respective countries. The papers in this volume focus on: (1) Brunei Darussalam; (2) Canada; (3) Kenya; and (4) Uganda. Charts and statistical data support each country's report. (EH)

The present study, using a sample of 1,491 grade 10 students from a mid-western province in Canada, examined the validity evidence on the Canadian Tests of Basic Skills. Factor analysis of the 34 micro-skills (content by skill/process classification of items) of the four tests indicated that the Reading Comprehension, Written Expression, and Using…

A study was conducted to identify the literacy requirements of 10 college vocational training programs and their corresponding occupations. Following a review of 5 years of student records at an eastern Ontario community college, the 10 major vocational programs studied were categorized as follows: motor vehicle mechanic, engineering technician,…

This document consists of four papers presented during a symposium on work force issues moderated by Jan DeJong at the 1996 conference of the Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD). "Rethinking the Ties that Bind: An Exploratory Study of Employee Development in Utilities in Canada and the United States" (Michael Aherne, David…

Participants in a teacher workshop compared these two approaches to learning outcomes in adult numeracy: (1) teaching mathematical skills and (2) using and applying mathematics from real life. The first approach was illustrated by an Ontario, Canada, program based on traditional school math, whose outcomes are skill-based and are the following:…

Following a discussion of the basic skills required for an adaptable work force and how employers and workplace literacy providers determine which employees require basic skills training, this paper reviews three literacy instruments that can be used in workplace basic skills programs. A basic skills profile is drawn based on a review of the…