Adult Basic Education Research Articles

Education of complementary and alternative medicine in adult education centers in Germany: aweb-based survey.

Adult education centers are an important part of health education worldwide. Our aim was to evaluate the courses offered by German adult education centers with regard to complementary medicine and nutrition. Asystematic web-based search was done for the websites of German adult education centers and courses were analyzed considering topics, scientific soundness, and qualification of instructors. Our search revealed 502 courses, 360 (71.7%) related to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and 176 courses on nutrition (35.1%). CAM courses most often presented methods with afocus on traditional Eastern medicine with yoga and similar mind-body practices (41.9%), traditional Chinese medicine (TCM; 13.3%), and ayurvedic medicine (11.4%). Content concerning nutrition mainly included controversial fasting methods like alkaline fasting, detox diets, and therapeutic fasting (43.8%), as well as Eastern traditional diets from TCM and ayurveda (21.7%). Most of the courses were given by non-medical practitioners (NMPs; 36.4%), while only very few physicians were engaged. There are substantial doubts on the scientific background of many courses offered for lay adult health education. Besides direct misinformation, many courses reinforce alternative and non-evidence-based notions in society. Adult education centers should reconsider the topics of their courses as well as the professional qualifications of the instructors.

Adult Basic Education Under WIOA Title II Implementation: An Integrative Literature Review

Adult basic education (ABE) scholars, practitioners, and policymakers have long debated the purpose and outcomes of federal ABE policy. Although the current policy, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), became law in 2014, there is no comprehensive analysis of the diverging perspectives on WIOA implementation. This integrative literature review generates a synthesis of WIOA-Title II implementation and suggests implications for future research. Based on a thematic analysis of 35 publications (2014–2021), the paper elaborates on four themes: limited ABE funding and the need to use funds efficiently, WIOA-mandated coordination between ABE providers and workforce development partners, increased accountability requirements that narrowly focus on economic outcomes, and framing adult education for economic purposes. Future research on WIOA-Title II implementation should build on this foundation to inquire for whom WIOA works, where it works, and under what conditions it is or isn’t successful in helping learners to flourish.

Gamification in Non-Formal Adult Educational Practices

The presented article reveals and generalizes the experience of using gamification in the context of non-formal adult educational practices. From this perspective, the basic understanding of gamification is defined, priorities are set for the use of gamification components, the non-game context as a basis for gamification of training course programs is analysed. An empirical study of extrapolated game mechanics in non-formal adult educational practices of Adult Education Centres has been carried out. Definitions are given regarding consideration of social and psychological types of adult students for application of gamification of non-formal education. In the article the gamified educational non-game context is formulated as non-imitation with apreserved invariable content of educational activity at changingthe way of organization of this activity. Among the most common game mechanics found to meet the priority needs of adult students are those in which reward was offered for the task; balanced competition was stimulated; different types of interaction were envisaged; an opportunity was provided to share results and achievements outside of training; quick feedbackwas provided. Variability of extrapolation of game mechanics into non-formal educational practices of adults concerns the following main didactic categories of educational programs: learning objectives; the forms of training organization; teaching methods; learning motivation; control of learning outcomes.

It's in the Way That You Use It: How Vocabulary Knowledge and Usage Predict Writing Quality Among Adult Basic Education Learners.

The goal of this study was to describe how underlying vocabulary knowledge manifests into vocabulary usage, and in turn, how usage predicts writing quality among adult basic education (ABE) learners. ABE learners were administered tasks that measured vocabulary knowledge, in the forms of both vocabulary breadth and depth. Participants were also given a composition writing task, and these samples were evaluated for overall writing quality and vocabulary usage. A mediating model was constructed to describe the relationships among variables. This model indicates that vocabulary depth is predictive of writing quality through the mediating variable of vocabulary usage after controlling for the direct contribution of vocabulary breadth. We found no evidence that vocabulary breadth contributes to writing quality when controlling for vocabulary depth and vocabulary usage. The results of the study reveal important relationships among vocabulary knowledge and vocabulary usage in written work that warrants further investigation in developing learners.

Interaction and meaning making in basic adult education for immigrants the case of Swedish for immigrants in Sweden (SFI)

In this article, focus is on students’ oral production in two classrooms in Swedish for immigrants (SFI). The study focuses on practices with interaction patterns where students are involved in negotiation of meaning. Theoretical basis is the importance of interpersonal interaction for language development, with a focus on students’ use of varied speaker roles and speech actions. Data were obtained through observations, field notes, and audio and video recordings. The examples presented here demonstrate that students were involved in the negotiation of meaning and had space to try different speaker roles and speech actions, such as (among others) initiating, agreeing, dissenting, arguing, interrupting, and taking the floor. These examples only constituted a restricted part of class time, and most of the teaching was of a type where little oral or written interaction took place. Overall, we think that SFI education could be improved by developing teaching that stimulates and allows for negotiations of meaning and language production and also allows for use of different types of digital media, both for oral and written interaction.

Demography of smallholder agricultural women and youth enterprises and their association with the cultivation of the tomato (Solanum Lycopersicum) vegetable crop

The study was conducted at the Madimbo corridor and upper Mutale valley smallholder irrigation schemes. The purpose of the study was to characterize smallholder agricultural women and youth entrepreneurs (SHAW-YE). A semi-structured household questionnaire together with facilitation was used to survey a sample, purposively focusing on Smallholder Agriculture Women and Youth Enterprises (SHAW-YE). The sample was comprised of 294 respondents with sub-samples of respondents selected through gender category, age category, and gender by age category. The study revealed that the SHAW-YE are characterized by small land areas under cultivation. There were some associations between age, education, and income of SHAW-YE with their capacity to produce tomatoes. Participation of women was 48.4% compared to 20% of men in the winter production of tomatoes. Production participation by SHAW-YE farmers for summer revealed that women were participating at 9.7% compared with 13.3% for men. The participation of SHAW-YE around the ages of 36-59-year was at 52.9% while that for ages >60-year was at 51.5%. The main source of variation may be the level of experience that the said age group of SHAW-YE may have in the production of tomatoes compared to 29.6% of 18–35-year participants. About 61.7% of SHAW-YE were at the level of Adult Basic Education & Training (ABET). About 45.8% of the SHAW-YE earned less than R5000.00 compared with 50.7% earning more than R5000.00. Market channels and access should be promoted for SHAW-YE to enable the throughput of tomatoes to not only informal but also fresh produce and retail markets.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT): An Aid to Adult Education Methodology in Promoting Teaching and Learning Activities in Rural Communities

This paper view information and communication technology (ICT) as an aid to adult education methodology in promoting teaching and learning activities in rural communities in Nigeria. The paper reviews the concept of adult education and the existing methodologies used in the delivery of adult education programmes. It also examines the various ICT devices that can be used to complement adult teaching methodology. The technological devices considered in this paper includes: mobile phones, projectors, slides with moving pictures, radio, television, computer/ laptops and internet facilities. The paper discusses the benefits of using these devices alongside adult teaching methodology to enhance effective teaching and learning activities in rural communities. The paper concludes that incorporating these devices into adult teaching methodology, particularly in rural communities would promote active learning, enhance critical thinking skills of adult learners, create awareness, facilitate learning and develop rural communities. The paper therefore suggests that; governments should provide necessary equipment and internet facilities in rural communities to aid adult’s teaching and learning activities. Also, quality technological devices should be made available in all the adult education centers to promote teaching and learning activities. Lastly, regular trainings, conferences and seminars should be organized for facilitators and workers on the use of ICT devices to improve teaching and learning activities.

O impacto do desenvolvimento da consciência fonológica na aprendizagem da leitura de jovens e adultos

The article presents results of a research about the infl uence of a teaching phonological awareness skills and grapheme phoneme correspondences program and its impact over adults and young people who where in diff erent stages of learning skills acquirement proposed by Linnea Ehri. Nine students, from an early literacy class at a Youth and Adult Education Center in the city of Rio do Sul – SC - Brazil, were subjects of this study. The intervention research, methodologically applied, was the application of a teaching program which aimed to contribute to the development of the aforementioned skills and knowledge, and two assessments applied at the program beginning and when fi nishing. The qualitative and quantitative analysis data results found shows that after the intervention the research subjects experienced a performance boost on phonological awareness skills, graphemes recognition and reading at all learning stages, especially those who were in transition from the partial alphabetic phase to the alphabetic phase complete. These results suggest that pedagogical practices that promote the graphophonemic correspondences and the phonological awareness development, especially phonemic awareness teaching, can be benefi cial for the reading in young people and adults in the early literacy development process

ПЕРСПЕКТИВИ УПРАВЛІННЯ РОЗВИТКОМ ОСВІТИ ДОРОСЛИХ В УМОВАХ ВОЄННОГО ТА ПІСЛЯВОЄННОГО СТАНУ УКРАЇНИ

The article examines the theoretical and applied aspects of improving the system of personnel training within the framework of adult education. Prospects for the development of existing and introduction of new organizational and legal forms that can ensure the construction of an effective model of this important type of educational activity in connection with the consequences of the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian aggressor are considered. The application of a number of management models is characterized, in particular, the creation of adult education centers on the basis of existing educational institutions, on the basis of legal entities that carry out their activities in the social and industrial spheres, at the regional level in the system of territorial communities, as well as in the form of intercommunal associations. Proposals for the application of a wider range of approaches in the financing of adult education are provided: a scheme for the application of a kind of "mortgage" form of financing with the involvement of various financial institutions: banks, credit unions, specialized trust funds is shown. The main components that should be inherent in the specified models and methodological factors that determine the functions and powers of the proposed management structures in the conditions created as a result of aggression have been analyzed.

Substance Use and Trauma Among Adult Education Students in the United States

Adult basic education (ABE) programs in the United States serve millions of students annually to help them achieve high school equivalency, English proficiency, and other skills. These skills are necessary for upward mobility and competitiveness in the labor market, which is important for ABE students who are disproportionately affected by racial/ethnic disparities and poverty. Among learners who are not in ABE programs, substance use and trauma affect student outcomes. Similar research is limited among ABE students. Understanding the influence of these factors among ABE students can better inform interventions. The current study, grounded in Stress and Coping Theory, examined rates, risk factors, and gender differences for substance use and trauma among 286 ABE students. Results indicated that trauma is prevalent and associated with substance use, substance use suggests a need for brief counseling, and there were gender differences in substance use behaviors. Recommendations for interventions among ABE programs are discussed.

Scaling up and Crowding out: How German Adult Education Centers Adapted Course Offers to Refugee Integration

Language skills are central to refugee integration and the availability of language courses could thus be a limiting factor. We explore how the most important provider of language courses in Germany, adult education centers (VHS), adapted their course supply to the refugee wave of 2015/2016. Our results highlight two channels through which the local environment can affect opportunities for participation in adult learning: First, exploiting the quasi-random allocation of refugees to counties, we causally estimate by how much VHS scaled up their German language course (DAF) supply as a reaction. Moreover, we show that DAF courses were created almost exclusively at the cost of other courses, that is, by crowding out. Second, we uncover heterogeneities in scaling success. VHS with more prior DAF course experience and larger VHS adapted better, which shows the relevance of initial conditions in course offers.

Regional Imbalance in the Levels of Development in Bagalkot District- Karnataka: A Spatial Analysis

After independence India has made remarkable progress in the socio-economic status of the people. But the attainment of this has spread highly uneven among the urban and rural areas. Regional imbalances are common phenomenon in the world, which occurred across different continents, countries and regions in different extent and India is not exception in this context. This phenomenon spread among inter-regions, inter-states and intra-states n India. This resulted into uneven development in the country. This process of imbalance is not exception in Bagalkot district. There are three major rivers namely the Krishna, the Malaprabha and the Ghataprabha and their tributaries flow in the study area and play important role in the development of the district. However, the study reveals that there exists a wide imbalance in the level of socio-economic development in the region. In view of this, an attempt has been made in this research work to evaluate and compares temporal growth and spatial pattern of disparities in the levels of socio-economic development at block level in Bagalkot district. Correlation coefficient technique has been applied to understand the correlation between different factors which are responsible for widening the regional imbalance. To analyses the regional imbalance of six taluks of Bagalkot district, 23 social, economic and demographic indicators have been considered. The present paper is based on secondary information based on which the socio-economic imbalance among the taluks of the district is made with the help of composite development index for two time of point i.e. 1997 and 2017 data. It has been observed that the social indicator values varied from 11 to 27. The study period witnessed Bagalkot, Badami, Hunagund and Jamkhandi are the three taluks which represent high social development, whereas low (< 11) social development was observed in Bilagi taluk. The outstanding causes for this backwardness are are, less number of education institutes, communication centers, adult education centers, health centers, family planning centers, recreational centers etc. The observed values of economic development are ranging between 19 and 35. It had been observed in only two taluks viz Bilagi and Hungund were found in high economic development, and low economic development was recorded in Jamakhandi taluk. Bagalkot, Mudhol and Badami taluks registered under relatively developed range. Lastly to understand the overall development, the observed values of socio-economic, economic and infrastructure indicators are added and derived a separate composite index.

The roles of Adult Education Centres and Civil Society Organisations in adult education in Turkey

This study intends to analyse the roles of Adult Education Centres and Civil Society Organisations in adult education activities in Turkey. The research design is a phenomenological pattern, one of the qualitative research methods. The tool for data collection is a semi-structured interview form. The study group consists of 30 participants. The authors use content analysis for the analysis of the data. According to the findings of the study, ‘collaboration’ is stressed in adult education activities of Adult Education Centres and Civil Society Organisations. Moreover, the results underline the fact that ‘their roles of providing resources’ are important for the adult education projects of Civil Society Organisations with Adult Education Centres.

Task of leadership for intercultural opening strategies in organizations in adult and continuing education

In view of the growing number of people with a migration background, continuing education organizations are faced with strategic tasks of intercultural opening. These tasks require leaders to initiate and expand integration-promoting teaching work, to promote the intercultural sensitization of the members of the organization, and to develop an intercultural culture. This is a wide issue and concerns leadership action regarding funding, regular and special course programs, training for staff and lecturers, intercultural training, etc. In this qualitative study, the types of intercultural openness adopted by the management of adult education centers were categorized into proactive, reflexive, ambivalent, and symbolic types of openness. Using the procedure of exploratory sequential design, hypotheses were tested with the aim of gaining information that would facilitate broader statements about the field of adult education providers. The quantitative distribution was analyzed using a data set called ‘wbmonitor’ and a regional data set.

South Africa’s adult educators in the community college sector: Who they are and how they view their training, their work and their position

This article examines the work context of South Africa’s state-employed adult educators. It is based largely on a recent cross-sectional study of adult educators commissioned by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), which draws on the DHET’s database of adult educators and qualitative information gained from visits to adult education and training centres in all nine provinces. The study enquired into adult educators’ working lives, their qualifications, their sense of whether their training was adequate, the issue of further training, their understanding of their work, their conditions of service and the support they believe they need. The study showed that the number of adult educators employed by the DHET is declining steadily and that the working conditions of adult educators are uneven: a few work in fairly well-resourced urban centres, but many work in poor conditions, with little support. Nevertheless, the study indicated that almost all the adult educators view their role in a positive light. Confident of support from one another, they have a definite shared identity as a social group and express a strong commitment to their learners and the communities in which they work. Overall, they constitute a group with strong, yet poorly tapped, potential to contribute to positive community development.

Exploring the soft side of success: non-cognitive and social factors impacting attitudes towards adult education for GED students

ABSTRACT Adult education centres provide a final opportunity for adult learners who have transitioned out of mainstream schools to earn a high school degree. These centers overwhelmingly serve low-income, African-American and Latinx students whose needs were not met by traditional schools. Adult Education Centers are underfunded, under-resourced and challenged with high attrition rates. Little is known about factors that promote adult education persistence in the adult education context. To address this, the authors conducted a cross-sectional study examining the relationship between social support, coping through emotional processing and expression, stigma consciousness and attitudes towards participation in adult education. Results indicate that higher levels of self-reported coping (via emotional processing) and social support improve attitudes towards adult education and higher levels of self-reported stigma consciousness increase negative attitudes towards adult education. Study findings have significant policy implications for constructing student centred supports for adult education students who experience multiple levels of social inequality.

Interconnectedness of Adult Basic Education, Community-Based Participatory Research, and Transformative Learning

This article argues for the beneficial interconnectedness of adult basic education as an educational practice, community-based participatory research as a methodological approach, and the framework of transformative learning, for exploring and theorizing about adult learning and education. It is elaborated that these three approaches are connected by shared core values that counter the dominant economistic discourse on adult basic education. A community-based participatory research project, comprising researchers with an adult basic education learners’ background, adult basic education practitioners, and the two authors as university-based researchers, serves as a local empirical example. Selected data from the research process illustrate how these three approaches complement each other and can show their inherent potential. Together, these three approaches establish a democratic space of learning and thus act as a resource of hope for education and research aimed at (self-) empowerment, emancipation, participation, and collective action toward humanization, democratization, and social justice.

Editorial

2018 saw the fiftieth anniversary of the spontaneous founding of an interfaith initiative involving Jews and Christians in the unlikely location of Germany. Anneliese Debray, who was the director of a Catholic women’s adult education centre in Bendorf, near Koblenz, had the imagination and courage to set about creating programmes for encounter and reconciliation in the post-war world. The centre, the Hedwig Dransfeld Haus, became a meeting place for French and German and Polish and German families; for physically and mentally handicapped people together with ‘normal’ people; for the challenging task of ecumenical encounters between Catholic and Protestant Christians; for dialogue between Christians and Muslims; and eventually between Israeli and German young people. In that latter context the editor of this journal found himself visiting the centre and then, with two fellow rabbinic students at Leo Baeck College, attending an annual Catholic Bible study conference that summer. Our presence, our willingness to be there, and the rarity of such an opportunity for the participants, led to the desire to repeat the experiment the following year. Through incremental changes, the International Jewish-Christian Bible Week became an annual reality. After the death of Anneliese Debray, who had struggled for years to keep the Haus financially afloat, it went into bankruptcy. Nevertheless, what had been built had enough recognition and influence that it led to an invitation from Dr Uta Zwingenberger, who was responsible for Bible education in the Diocese of Osnabrück, to re-establish the Week in a new home, another Catholic adult education centre, Haus Ohrbeck, in the area of Osnabrück. There it continues to grow and flourish, hosting up to 130 people each year. Part of the impact, which makes it different from other more formal interfaith encounters, is the participation of families, with special programmes for children, so that the entire atmosphere is one of a normal human community.

A Educação em Cidadania no Centro de Alfabetização e Educação de Jovens e Adultos de Morrumbene

This article presents an explorative research on Citizenship Education at the youth and adult literacy and education center of Morrumbene. We focus our analysis on previous students aiming to understand how these courses are favoring promoting the development of citizenship practices, namely on entrepreneurial and sustainable development level, complementing with the view of those that teaches and supervise the courses. Our objective, with this research, is to contribute for an education that has as purpose the fully forming the individuals, which may, and should, enable the development supported on human rights.

Migration narratives in educational digital storytelling: which stories can be told?

ABSTRACT This article investigates use of digital storytelling as a learning activity in education about migration. Based on a study in two Norwegian schools and two adult education centers for refugees and migrants, the article analyzes student’s digital stories and observations of the process of production. Counter to research on the promise of digital storytelling to promote diverse perspectives, personal experience and creativity, our findings show that digital stories as a learning activity includes powerful standardization drivers. The standardization limits diversity in students’ knowledge and experience from coming into view in the final product. The identified standardization drivers are; (1) discursive blueprints of refugee experience, including the narrative about the ‘Good Refugee’ and idealization of the destination country, (2) challenges with representing traumatic experiences through photographic imagery, and (3) material affordances in the production process such as google algorithms. In conclusion, we argue that critical engagement with the involved modalities and standardization drivers is a condition for using digital stories to foster critical thinking about migration.