This packet contains three papers from the World Conference on Comparative Adult Education (CAE). The first consists of the opening ceremony remarks by Alexander N. Charters reminding participants of the work of previous conferences and urging worldwide learning. The second paper is a report of a meeting of the Committee for Study and Research in…

Three teams of teachers and administrators from three adult basic education programs in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia participated in a 2-year action research project that focused on developing approaches that local programs can use to document the outcomes of student participation in adult education programs. Facilitators helped the teams…

This report focuses on the research aspects of the Equipped for the Future (EFF) project that works toward system reform for adult literacy and lifelong learning. Section 1 describes the EFF process 1993-97, the impetus for EFF, and approaches to system reform. Section 2 explores the research processes EFF uses to build a framework that could…

A study explored the experiences of four adult students who served on the board of The Learning Center, a community-based literacy program. The adult education literature touched on the challenges, benefits, and limitations of participatory practices, but the three were seldom juxtaposed, raising the question of whether the limitations equaled or…

The perceived self-efficacy concept plays a significant role in predicting human performance in several areas of human effort, but self-efficacy theory has seldom been applied in the fields of adult literacy and English as a second language (ESL). This study designed a questionnaire for adult literacy and ESL learners to assess their self-efficacy…

Poor preparation of adult literacy educators is often blamed for the failure of adult literacy students. Four critical issues related to developing the adult literacy professional work force are as follows: how literacy is learned in adulthood; how practitioners learn and improve their practice; how new knowledge is generated in and for the field;…

Inquiry-based staff development is a promising direction for rethinking practice and research and for generating knowledge from a field-based perspective for adult literacy. Rethinking staff development entails investigating a number of current assumptions: the nature and function of literacy learning in adulthood; adult literacy practitioners as…

A great deal of attention has been focused on adult literacy by policy makers, employers, unions, and state and federal government. An increasing body of work is challenging conventional assumptions and values related to literacy. The National Literacy Act of 1991 has the potential to develop an essential long-term infrastructure. Some basic…

This publication presents a collection of materials on the German experience with literacy education. A timeline offers a brief account of adult literacy in the Federal Republic of Germany. "Literacy as a Problem in the Federal Republic of Germany" identifies the causes and impacts of "second-order illiteracy" (the loss of…

This monograph contains eleven exemplary articles that focus on topics related to competency-based adult education. Among the articles included are (1) Competency Based Education: Is It Applicable to Adult Education Programs?, by James E. Hertling; (2) What Adult Performance Level Is--and Is Not, by William G. Spady; (3) Competency Based…

A federally funded research and development center focused solely on adult learning, the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL) is a partnership of the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, World Education, Rutgers University, Portland State University in Oregon, and the Center for Literacy Studies at the…

This report presents findings from a review of international trends in adult literacy and numeracy to identify innovative programs of interest to Australia. Section 1 offers definitions of literacy. Section 2 outlines the international context. Section 3 has case studies of innovative approaches in four Organization for Economic Cooperation and…

Within the framework of the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS), a collaborative effort was made by a large number of industrialized countries to get insight into the level of literacy of their adult populations. In the Netherlands, older adults (918 out of 3,090 respondents) were over sampled to get insight into their specific literacy…

To assess the long-term impacts of adult literacy programs, the Center for Literacy Studies conducted the Longitudinal Study of Adult Literacy Participants in Tennessee from 1991-95. The study focused on changes in the lives of 450 participants in the domains of work, family, and community after they enrolled in literacy programs. Participants…

This annotated bibliography was developed for the Centre for Literacy of Quebec's 2000 Summer Literacy Institute, "Adult Literacy and Television: Has a Familiar Resource Been Overlooked?" and contains 49 citations of Canadian, British, and American research in the field of adult literacy and television from the 1960s to the year 2000. The…