The issue of evaluation in adult literacy is addressed in this paper. It is assumed that evaluation is a necessary and vital function in an adult literacy program because it helps administrators understand their efforts, increases information available about a program's functioning, builds an image, and facilitates the discovery of information on unexpected program results. Three major topics are the focus of the discussion: (1) the perceived barriers to conducting evaluations of adult literacy programs, such as measurement or design problems, staff issues, relevance, and resource issues; (2) the range of evaluations of literacy programs that have been undertaken recently; and (3) recommendations for policies and practices that can be implemented to encourage the collection of useful and valid evaluation data, including disseminating information collected, requiring documentation of program results, encouraging volunteer literacy programs to collect data on program effectiveness, and clarifying incentives for conducting program evaluation. Contains 10 references. (Adjunct ERIC Clearinghouse on Literacy Education) (LB)