Due to the paucity of research on struggling adult readers, researchers rely on child-based reading constructs and measures when investigating the reading skills of adults struggling with reading. The purpose of the two studies in this investigation was to evaluate the appropriateness of using child-based reading constructs and assessments with adults reading between the third- and fifth-grade levels. The first study examined whether measurement constructs behind reading-related tests for struggling adult readers are similar to what is known about measurement constructs for children. The sample included 371 adults, including 218 native English speakers and 153 English speakers of other languages. Using measures of skills and subskills, confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to test three theoretical measurement models of reading: an achievement model of reading skills, a core deficit model of reading subskills, and an integrated model containing achievement and deficit variables. Although the findings present the best measurement models, the contribution of this study is the description of difficulties encountered when applying child-based assumptions to developing measurement models for struggling adult readers. The second study examined the usefulness of the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP) Elision and Blending Words subtests (Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1999) with struggling adult readers. The sample included 254 adults, including 207 native English speakers and 47 native Spanish speakers. Overall performance, subtest reliability, and subtest validity were evaluated for the participants. Analyses included comparisons of struggling adult readers to the CTOPP norm group as well as comparisons within the struggling adult readers by demographic characteristics of age, gender, special-education status, and native language. Compared to the norm group, struggling adult readers exhibited lower overall performance as well as lower subtest reliability and validity. Regardless of demographic grouping, subtest validity was low for struggling adult readers. Overall performance and subtest reliability differed for struggling adult readers depending on demographic grouping, particularly age and native language. This study raises concerns about the appropriateness of administering and interpreting Elision and Blending Words subtests with struggling adult readers. In conclusion, both studies caution the use of child-based reading constructs and assessments with struggling adult readers.

This study was conducted to develop a standardized agricultural literacy assessment using the National Agricultural Literacy Outcomes (NALOs) as benchmarks. The need for such an assessment was born out of previous research, which found that despite numerous programs dedicated to improving agricultural literacy, many students and adults remain at low or very low levels of literacy. Low literacy levels lead to negative associations with the production and processing of food, clothing, and shelter, as well as misinformed public perceptions and policies. Agricultural literacy researchers recognized that the development of a standardized assessment for post-12th grade, or equivalent, could unify both research and program development efforts. The assessment was developed by forming two groups of experts. Teaching experts and agricultural content experts worked together in an iterative process. They crafted 45 questions using research methods and models. The 45 items were placed in an online survey to be tested for validity by a participant group. During the Fall 2018 semester, 515 Utah State University students between the ages of 18-23 years old participated in the online assessment. The participant data assisted in determining which questions were valid and reliable for determining agricultural literacy, as aligned to the NALO standards. Additional demographic information was also collected from participants. The demographic items asked students to self-report their level of exposure to agriculture and their self-perceived level of agricultural literacy. The study concluded that two separate 15-item Judd-Murray Agricultural Literacy Instruments (JMALI) were valid and reliable for determining agricultural proficiency levels based on the NALOs. Participant scores were reported as a single proficiency stage: exposure, factual literacy, or applicable proficiency. The study also determined that students who had a “great deal” or higher level of exposure to agriculture also had a strong, positive correlation with a “good” or higher level of agricultural literacy. Findings show participants who reported a “good” level of agricultural literacy shared a positive correlation with either performing at a factual literacy (middle) or applicable proficiency (highest) level on the assessment. The results suggest JMALI instruments have the potential to assist in improving current agricultural education endeavors by providing a critical tool for determining the agricultural literacy proficiency stages of adult populations.

This cross-sectional study extended Snyder's Hope Theory (1991) by analyzing the difference in trait hope levels, pathway thinking, and agency thinking of pre-literate (no prior access to literacy) and non-literate (access to literacy, but little or no prior literacy education) Haitian adults. The data were derived from archival records of 135 students enrolled in Haitian-Kreyol adult literacy classes in Petit-Goave, Haiti. Mann-Whitney U results indicated that there were no significant differences in trait hope, pathway thinking, or agency thinking between the pre-literate and non-literate Haitian adults. Both groups reported average trait hope, average pathway thinking, and low agency thinking. Potential implications for adult literacy program and curriculum developers, evaluators, and teachers are discussed.

O estudo chama a atenção para o fenômeno do analfabetismo na população jovem e adulta da Guiné-Bissau, buscando compreender por que a alfabetização de jovens e adultos ainda não figura entre as prioridades da política educacional desse país africano, identificando as possibilidades de transformação dessa realidade e os fatores que interferem no processo educacional. Tendo por base a prática pedagógica de Paulo Freire, que considera o desenvolvimento do indivíduo como resultado do processo histórico, o estudo enfatiza que aspectos relativos à diversidade cultural, marcadamente as variedades linguísticas e religiosas presentes na Guiné-Bissau, devem ser considerados. A diversidade cultural, as cosmologias próprias vinculadas a diferentes idiomas e religiosidades compõem uma “África Profunda”, conforme a obra do filósofo argentino Rodolfo Kusch. Foi realizado levantamento bibliográfico e documental sobre a Alfabetização de Jovens e Adultos na Guiné-Bissau, sendo localizadas algumas dissertações de mestrado e teses de doutorado na perspectiva do estudo da questão. A pesquisa está estruturada também em torno dos referenciais da pesquisa qualitativa em Educação, e, a partir dessa concepção, foi feita a interpretação dos dados obtidos por meio das entrevistas junto aos facilitadores, técnicos e à diretora de Alfabetização de Adultos do Ministério da Educação da Guiné-Bissau, bem como a estudantes jovens e adultos que frequentam turmas de alfabetização em nove comunidades visitadas durante o trabalho de campo, desenvolvidos de maio de 2017 a fevereiro de 2018 O método de alfabetização ALPHA TV é desenvolvido nas comunidades visitadas, sendo utilizado pela maioria dos facilitadores. A observação participante contribuiu para a organização e construção de diários de campo, nos quais se descrevem os espaços e processos educativos que aí ocorrem. Foi realizado também um mapeamento das experiências públicas e privadas de alfabetização de jovens e adultos na Guiné-Bissau, descrevendo as condições sociais e políticas, e o sistema educacional vigente no país. O estudo conclui que o estado guineense precisa implementar um sistema educacional para a alfabetização de jovens e adultos, enquanto política pública destinada a todo o seu território. Para isso, precisa contar com a participação da sociedade e valorizar ou considerar a sua variedade linguística e religiosa, a fim de promover o desenvolvimento social do país. / The study draws attention to the phenomenon of illiteracy in the young and adult population of Guinea-Bissau, trying to understand why the literacy of young people and adults is not yet among the priorities of the educational policy of this African country, identifying the possibilities of transformation of this reality and factors that interfere with the educational process. Based on the pedagogical practice of Paulo Freire, who considers the development of the individual as a result of the historical process, the study emphasizes that aspects related to cultural diversity, markedly the linguistic and religious varieties present in Guinea-Bissau, should be considered. Cultural diversity, its own cosmologies linked to different languages and religiosities make up a "Deep Africa", according to the work of the Argentine philosopher Rodolfo Kusch. A bibliographical and documentary survey was carried out on the Literacy of Youths and Adults in Guinea-Bissau, where some master's dissertations and doctoral theses were located in view of the study of the issue The research is also structured around the qualitative research in Education, and from this conception, the data obtained through the interviews with the facilitators, technicians and the Director of Adult Literacy of the Ministry of Education of the Guinea- Bissau, as well as young students and adults attending literacy classes in nine communities visited during field work, from May 2017 to February 2018. The ALPHA TV literacy method is developed in the communities visited and is used most of the facilitators. Participant observation contributed to the organization and construction of field diaries, in which the educational spaces and processes that occur there are described. A mapping of public and private experiences of youth and adult literacy in Guinea-Bissau was also carried out, describing the social and political conditions and the educational system in force in the country. The study concludes that the Guinean state needs to implement an educational system for youth and adult literacy as a public policy aimed at its entire territory. To do this, it needs to count on the participation of society and value or consider its linguistic and religious variety, in order to promote the social development of the country.

Brokering Changes refers to the ways in which teachers broker their compliance with a new literacy knowledge base for adults. This thesis reports a study of twenty-three members of a cohort of adult literacy teachers working in regional, rural and remote communities throughout Central Queensland from 1996 to 2001. It details the performance and recognition work that these teachers did as they negotiated their way through a large curriculum reform as literacy was redefined from something that was negotiated as useful for the learner to something that is named and mandated by the state. The theoretical framework engages with interrelated notions of power, discourse and identity with supporting conceptualisations of ideology, work and pedagogy in the production and exercise of disciplinary power as understood through the thinking of Michel Foucault (1984). The methodological approach deploys James Gee’s (1991, 1992, 1993, 1996a, 1996b, 1997, 1999) particular socio-cultural theory of D/discourse. Spoken, written and observed data are analysed using Gee’s (1993, 1999) interrelated linguistic system’s analysis method. The major finding is that these teachers actively broker the effects of these changes through their professional practices. This study is an important contribution to the literature concerning the professional lives of teachers of adults in an era of fast capital and performance-based government. Significantly, the research provides important insights into the problems faced by teachers who are confronted with the implementation of major curriculum reforms while living far removed from the networks and activities of the system in which they worked.

This thesis considers how statistics about adult literacy have produced a new transnational norm of what it means to “be literate” and asks what has been produced by demarcating a calculable threshold of capable literate conduct. Analyzing literacy as a form of conduct enables investigation of the political dimensions of governmental interest in literate conduct and consideration of what subjects, relationships and forms of power are produced by various problematizations. Genealogical analysis of the currently dominant governing rationality, what is termed the psychometrological regime, revealed that Level Three of the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) has been constructed as a threshold between people who can act as autonomous, entrepreneurial subjects and those who cannot. In the case of Ontario, this threshold becomes an indicator of “employability” and produces a singular and problematic population who are subjected to coercive educational interventions. Tactics and techniques in the province’s Literacy and Basic Skills (LBS) policy construct literacy programs as sites responsible for transforming subjects below the threshold into human capital assets; this represents a significant departure from the original mission of community-based agencies. Data from interviews with educators in these programs indicate that adult literacy workers occupy an uneasy position between the demands of policy, their pastoral relationships with learners, and the complex realities faced by adults who struggle with print. While these educators may choose to disobey some policy imperatives they nonetheless act, at times unwittingly, as agents of governance. By highlighting the impossibilities produced by the neoliberal problematization of literacy, and the negotiations that literacy workers perform in the face of such dilemmas, this research contributes to thinking through how to transform coercive and authoritarian tendencies currently governing literate conduct.

This thesis considers how statistics about adult literacy have produced a new transnational norm of what it means to “be literate” and asks what has been produced by demarcating a calculable threshold of capable literate conduct. Analyzing literacy as a form of conduct enables investigation of the political dimensions of governmental interest in literate conduct and consideration of what subjects, relationships and forms of power are produced by various problematizations. Genealogical analysis of the currently dominant governing rationality, what is termed the psychometrological regime, revealed that Level Three of the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) has been constructed as a threshold between people who can act as autonomous, entrepreneurial subjects and those who cannot. In the case of Ontario, this threshold becomes an indicator of “employability” and produces a singular and problematic population who are subjected to coercive educational interventions. Tactics and techniques in the province’s Literacy and Basic Skills (LBS) policy construct literacy programs as sites responsible for transforming subjects below the threshold into human capital assets; this represents a significant departure from the original mission of community-based agencies. Data from interviews with educators in these programs indicate that adult literacy workers occupy an uneasy position between the demands of policy, their pastoral relationships with learners, and the complex realities faced by adults who struggle with print. While these educators may choose to disobey some policy imperatives they nonetheless act, at times unwittingly, as agents of governance. By highlighting the impossibilities produced by the neoliberal problematization of literacy, and the negotiations that literacy workers perform in the face of such dilemmas, this research contributes to thinking through how to transform coercive and authoritarian tendencies currently governing literate conduct.

Communities of practice that occur naturally within an organisation enable the members to learn through participation in practice together (Lave & Wenger, 1991). However, when a community lacks expertise in 21st century practices, learning these skills through shared practice becomes difficult. E-learning is often marketed as if the tools were easy to adopt and adapt, but effective professional development is required to support educators in learning to employ e-learning tools in their practice. Research shows that effective professional development is timely, relevant, flexible, and often collaborative in nature with examples of good practice. The research presented in this thesis describes the design and implementation of professional development which supports a community of practitioners in building the expertise to incorporate e-learning within its professional practice. The research was informed by a comprehensive review of literature on professional development, with a focus on the area of e-learning, the theory behind the communities of practice concept, and the application of that theory. A design-based methodology was employed to gather data from a range of sources of evidence, over two years, in four iterative cycles of collaborative design, implementation, evaluation and redesign. The context in which the research took place was a small educational organisation with an average of twenty staff members over the duration of the study. This staged implementation of an online environment, designed in collaboration with the community, supported the development of a blended community of online practice and provided timely, relevant professional development in e-learning. Analysis of the research findings produced two instruments: (1) a matrix of strategies for enabling and supporting the development of a blended community of online practice, and (2) a heuristic model to guide the investigation of the learning taking place within the online aspect of a blended community of online practice. These instruments are recommended to designers, developers or researchers supporting the development of a blended community of online practice and the professional development taking place in its online environment.

286 f. / Submitted by Suelen Reis (suziy.ellen@gmail.com) on 2013-04-29T14:17:28Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao_Cilene Canda.pdf: 1809862 bytes, checksum: 788a648d5e3e62cc110d7ccfa56cb39b (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Maria Auxiliadora Lopes(silopes@ufba.br) on 2013-04-30T16:31:19Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao_Cilene Canda.pdf: 1809862 bytes, checksum: 788a648d5e3e62cc110d7ccfa56cb39b (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-04-30T16:31:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao_Cilene Canda.pdf: 1809862 bytes, checksum: 788a648d5e3e62cc110d7ccfa56cb39b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006 / A presente dissertação teve como objetivo analisar a importância da ludicidade na aprendizagem e na construção do processo de conscientização na alfabetização de jovens e adultos. A metodologia utilizada baseou-se no método da pesquisa-ação, no contexto da alfabetização de jovens e adultos em uma escola municipal de Salvador. A pesquisa-ação desenvolveu-se por meio da realização de círculos de leitura, vivências em atividades lúdicas, entrevistas coletivas com estudantes e levantamento bibliográfico. Este texto trata do entrelaçamento de dois conceitos educacionais: a ludicidade e a conscientização, considerando o contexto da exclusão social, do desenvolvimento da auto-estima e do aprendizado da leitura e da escrita de jovens e adultos. / Salvador

O estudo chama a atenção para o fenômeno do analfabetismo na população jovem e adulta da Guiné-Bissau, buscando compreender por que a alfabetização de jovens e adultos ainda não figura entre as prioridades da política educacional desse país africano, identificando as possibilidades de transformação dessa realidade e os fatores que interferem no processo educacional. Tendo por base a prática pedagógica de Paulo Freire, que considera o desenvolvimento do indivíduo como resultado do processo histórico, o estudo enfatiza que aspectos relativos à diversidade cultural, marcadamente as variedades linguísticas e religiosas presentes na Guiné-Bissau, devem ser considerados. A diversidade cultural, as cosmologias próprias vinculadas a diferentes idiomas e religiosidades compõem uma “África Profunda”, conforme a obra do filósofo argentino Rodolfo Kusch. Foi realizado levantamento bibliográfico e documental sobre a Alfabetização de Jovens e Adultos na Guiné-Bissau, sendo localizadas algumas dissertações de mestrado e teses de doutorado na perspectiva do estudo da questão. A pesquisa está estruturada também em torno dos referenciais da pesquisa qualitativa em Educação, e, a partir dessa concepção, foi feita a interpretação dos dados obtidos por meio das entrevistas junto aos facilitadores, técnicos e à diretora de Alfabetização de Adultos do Ministério da Educação da Guiné-Bissau, bem como a estudantes jovens e adultos que frequentam turmas de alfabetização em nove comunidades visitadas durante o trabalho de campo, desenvolvidos de maio de 2017 a fevereiro de 2018 O método de alfabetização ALPHA TV é desenvolvido nas comunidades visitadas, sendo utilizado pela maioria dos facilitadores. A observação participante contribuiu para a organização e construção de diários de campo, nos quais se descrevem os espaços e processos educativos que aí ocorrem. Foi realizado também um mapeamento das experiências públicas e privadas de alfabetização de jovens e adultos na Guiné-Bissau, descrevendo as condições sociais e políticas, e o sistema educacional vigente no país. O estudo conclui que o estado guineense precisa implementar um sistema educacional para a alfabetização de jovens e adultos, enquanto política pública destinada a todo o seu território. Para isso, precisa contar com a participação da sociedade e valorizar ou considerar a sua variedade linguística e religiosa, a fim de promover o desenvolvimento social do país. / The study draws attention to the phenomenon of illiteracy in the young and adult population of Guinea-Bissau, trying to understand why the literacy of young people and adults is not yet among the priorities of the educational policy of this African country, identifying the possibilities of transformation of this reality and factors that interfere with the educational process. Based on the pedagogical practice of Paulo Freire, who considers the development of the individual as a result of the historical process, the study emphasizes that aspects related to cultural diversity, markedly the linguistic and religious varieties present in Guinea-Bissau, should be considered. Cultural diversity, its own cosmologies linked to different languages and religiosities make up a "Deep Africa", according to the work of the Argentine philosopher Rodolfo Kusch. A bibliographical and documentary survey was carried out on the Literacy of Youths and Adults in Guinea-Bissau, where some master's dissertations and doctoral theses were located in view of the study of the issue The research is also structured around the qualitative research in Education, and from this conception, the data obtained through the interviews with the facilitators, technicians and the Director of Adult Literacy of the Ministry of Education of the Guinea- Bissau, as well as young students and adults attending literacy classes in nine communities visited during field work, from May 2017 to February 2018. The ALPHA TV literacy method is developed in the communities visited and is used most of the facilitators. Participant observation contributed to the organization and construction of field diaries, in which the educational spaces and processes that occur there are described. A mapping of public and private experiences of youth and adult literacy in Guinea-Bissau was also carried out, describing the social and political conditions and the educational system in force in the country. The study concludes that the Guinean state needs to implement an educational system for youth and adult literacy as a public policy aimed at its entire territory. To do this, it needs to count on the participation of society and value or consider its linguistic and religious variety, in order to promote the social development of the country.