The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to determine if, and to what extent, correlations existed between self-esteem level, age, and grade level change of an adult male inmate enrolled in a Functional Literacy (FL) Program in the Southern Region of Arizona. Current research examined the relationships between self-esteem and age…

Low levels of health literacy have been linked statistically with decreased health and quality of life, increased mortality, and financial and economic impoverishment at the individual and community levels of analysis. The problem space for this dissertation research was comprised of the problem of low levels of health literacy, problems that are…

This dissertation describes the literate practices and layered technological strategies writers utilize in creating professional documents, particularly the literate activities, interaction with technologies and multimodal texts of senior writers in a workplace where many types of texts are produced and distributed as participants plan, manage,…

The purpose of this research was to develop an understanding of the shared lived experiences of women with ACEs who dropped out of high school, later returning to adult literacy programs to receive remedial education to prepare for and complete GED requirements, and explored the barriers they had to overcome to do so. The following research…

Despite its status as a wealthy, developed nation, the United States is plagued by widespread deficiencies in adult literacy. The problem is quite severe among individuals who were born in country, yet the situation for the nation's immigrant population is nothing short of alarming. Using the U.S. portion of the data set for the international…

Most adult literacy studies tend to focus on learner outcomes, and the few that do include tutors usually focus on their compassion as volunteers and/or assess the effectiveness of tutor training. Since community adult literacy programs are largely dependent on volunteer tutors to provide instruction, tutors come from various backgrounds and are…

Fanfiction is a valid form of literacy expression often overlooked in academic settings. This study used a mixed-methods approach to understand the facets of fanfiction reading and writing in adults. Survey data was first collected to understand who are the adults choosing to read and write fanfiction. Based on survey results, individual cases…

To investigate how readability affects the way adults who are learning to read evaluate health information, a mixed methods research study was designed based on a sociotechnical framework and using theories of everyday life information seeking. The study analyzed a corpus of consumer health information documents (N = 501) using the CohMetrix text…

The paucity of professional development opportunities in the adult basic education (ABE) teacher field is alarming, suggesting the need to explore the challenges that impede a stable professional development delivery among ABE teachers. Given that teacher professional development is repeatedly magnified in the K-12 educational sector, it is…

Formative assessment may assist teachers in identifying gaps in learning for individual students, thereby providing an avenue for teachers to adjust instruction accordingly. The problem addressed in this study is the insufficient achievement in literacy for English language learners. English language learners may have an even greater need for…

While adult literacy programs have historically been marginalized within the US educational system, there is growing interest in making these programs more academically effective. Because of this, the General Education Development (GED) exam was recently revised to be more rigorous, especially in its assessment of writing. Although these changes…

This dissertation focuses on adult emergent literacy learning of English, which is underexplored relative to children's literacy learning and fully literate L2 learners of English. Although research has pointed to the fact that "adults often arrive [to literacy programs] with prior experiences of authentic reading and writing" (Lytle,…

The primary purpose of this study was to determine if the health literacy level of older adults, age 65 and older, and the self-directed learning readiness score were correlated. After data cleaning, the number of cases was below the recommended rule of thumb. Deletion of cases indicated by the analyst of the self-directed learning readiness score…

This ethnographically informed study explored how 32 former participants in the Functional Adult Literacy (FAL) Program in rural Uganda used learning from the program in their daily lives, the perceived outcomes of applying the practices learned in the program, and the meanings that literacy held for participants. Learning domains included…

The 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey revealed that 90 million adults performed at the two lowest levels of literacy (U.S. Department of Education, 2003). As legislation advances the mandate for greater accountability in adult education programs, it is paramount that research is conducted that identifies programs that align with the federal…