achievements, issues and ways forward: reflections on the english experience helen casey executive...
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Achievements, issues and ways forward: reflections on the English experience
Helen Casey Executive Director, NRDC12 October 2010
NRDC at the Institute of Education, University of London
• National Research and Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy
• Initiated by UK Government in 2002 as part of the Skills for Life strategy
• Now an independent research centre• Aims to improve professional practice and inform
policy, from a robust evidence base
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NRDC (2)• Wide range of ongoing research and development
activities• Outputs aimed at teachers and other practitioners,
together with researchers and policymakers: briefings, practitioner guides, research reports or literature reviews
• 161 publications on website to date
The history in a nutshell
• 1970s On the Move: 1st wave literacy campaign: liberal, loose, practitioner-driven;
• 1980s Gradual build-up of practice: job-focused; individual learner-centred
• 1993 Schedule 2 of F&HE Act breakthrough: statutory role for colleges to provide
• 1997 OECD International literacy survey: shock, upheaval• 1998 Reform-hungry labour government gets going• 2001 Ten-year Skills for Life strategy launched: target-driven, tightly-
managed
Skills for Life strategy achievements
• Government strategy launched 2001• Comprehensive learning infrastructure with national
standards and curricula, screening, initial and diagnostic assessment, national qualifications
• New requirements and qualifications for teachers• 2.25m learner achievements ahead of national target
in 2007
Achievements (2)
• Millions of learners, better teachers• Public understanding, policy understanding• International research and cooperation and national
reviews: ESOL, numeracy, embedding• Open debate: policy, practice, pedagogy• Policy makers’ level of understanding• Innovation, initiatives, new ground
Issues
• The price paid for high policy• Targets achieved, job done: end of story?• Qualifications as currency rather than participation• Narrow or ill-fitting assessment models• The most in need, the least favoured – entry level• Waste – top-down materials never used; Research
reports fading on civil servants’ desks ?• Beware researching that which needs more development
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Selected areas for focus today
• Returns on public investment in adult skills• Family literacy - parents and children• Embedded approaches• Teacher education and professional development
Economic impacts of improving basic skills in adulthood
• Extensive evidence on the earnings and employment returns of having better basic skills as an adult
• Less evidence on the returns to attaining basic skills in adulthood, although most of the evidence on this topic suggests a positive impact
• There is still not enough evidence to determine whether or not adult basic skills courses have an impact on earnings
• For future policy decisions (and future Governments), this may be a significant issue
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Economic impacts of improving basic skills in adulthood
Men and women born in 1958: earnings• Those who felt that their skills have improved tended to earn more
than those who did not believe their skills had improved• Men who felt their numeracy had improved earned 3% more than
those who did not• Women who felt their numeracy had improved earned 11% more• Evidence suggests that for adults with very low basic skills, in proving
their numeracy to at least Level 1 will have a greater effect on earnings than improving their literacy
• Adults with better basic skills will see the greatest wage gains from increasing their literacy
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Economic impacts of improving basic skills in adulthood
Employment • The evidence strongly suggests that attaining or improving
basic skills in adulthood improves the prospects of employment
• Among men and women born in 1970 who had poor literacy at age 21:o Men who improved their literacy skills between ages 21 and 34 were
much more likely to be in full-time employment at 34, compared to those who did not improve their literacy (94% versus 81%)
o Women who improved their numeracy skills were much more likely to be in full-time employment at 34 (43% compared to 27%)
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Does Skills for Life improve skills?
• There has been limited research on whether or not SfL courses improve skills
• NRDC research indicates that they do
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Learners’ progress
• In 2004/05 and 2005/06 we assessed 1,649 SfL learners in literacy, numeracy and ESOL.
• Assessed learners’ skills at the start and end of their SfL course.
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Learners’ progress
• Learners made significant progress in numeracy.• Literacy learners made significant progress in reading.• ESOL learners made significant progress in reading. • 16-19 year old ESOL learners made significantly more
progress than other age groups.
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Learners’ progress
• On average literacy learners did not make significant progress in writing.
• There were modest improvements in writing for ESOL learners
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Entry Level 2
• Education: nearly 1 in 2 men with EL2 literacy had no academic quals, compared to 8% of those with L1+. Similar for women.
• Employment: much more likely to be unemployed or in part-time work; if in work, more likely to be semi-skilled or unskilled.
• Health: more likely to report poor physical health.
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Motivation
• Self-perception of literacy and numeracy difficulties among 34-year-olds (BCS70): Reading: 8%; Writing: 25%; Numeracy: 11%
• Men were more likely to report reading and writing difficulties, while women were more likely to report problems in numeracy.
• Only about 3% of total BCS70 sample reported that they had been on a course to improve reading, writing or numeracy.
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Improvement and deterioration of skills
• Literacy and numeracy skills not ‘fixed’.
• Improvement may have larger impact than deterioration.
Health and social cohesion
· Cohesion: taking 3-10 informal education courses appears to increase racial tolerance by almost 75% more than the predicted change for similar adults who do not take courses.
Health and social cohesion
· Health: taking one or two non-accredited courses is estimated to increase the chances of giving up smoking by age 42 (NCDS) by a factor of more than 1/8, from 24% to 27.3%.
· Literacy and numeracy improvements between ages 21 and 34 are correlated with positive health and social outcomes.
Digital divide: change in literacy proficiency by email use, ages 30-34 (BCS70)
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not use email 30 + 34not use email 30, use email 34
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Parents and children
• British Cohort Study 1970 (BCS70): representative sample of 17,500 individuals born in UK in one week in April 1970
• Sample followed over the course of their lives and repeatedly interviewed
• Understand the role of literacy and numeracy in explaining life trajectories – disadvantage, mobility
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Parents and children
• Disadvantage begins early and tend to accumulate over time• Poor basic skills are an intergenerational phenomenon
• Poor adult literacy and numeracy strongly associated with:o family and financial disadvantage in early childhoodo parents lacking qualificationso lack of parental educational support
• Impact of parents’ basic skills on children’s cognitive outcomes is positive and highly significant
• Relationship holds even when we allow for other factors that also influence child development, including parents’ qualifications and abilities
Parents and children
• The intergenerational transfer of basic skills is particularly large for parents with low level qualifications
• Mothers’ basic skills are more significant for daughters
than for sons, and fathers’ basic skills are more significant for sons than for daughters
Parents and children
• Parents’ literacy skills seem to be more significant than their numeracy skills in affecting cognitive development of children
• There is a significant cut-off point between parents at Level 1 literacy and parents with higher levels
Parents and children
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Family literacy
Parents: impact on attitudes and behaviours
• Parents’ prime motivation for participating in FL was to learn about the school curriculum to help them support their children’s literacy skills
• Majority were concerned with spending quality time with their children and supporting their children’s learning, rather than developing their own literacy skills
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Family literacy
Parents: impact on attitudes and behaviours• 64% of parents said that since taking an FL course
they had become more involved in their child’s preschool or school
• 76% said they had changed as a persono greater confidenceo increased sense of capability across a range of areas
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Family literacy
Parents: impact on attitudes and behaviours• Parents on standard courses showed greater
amount of change in their perceptions of their children’s literacy activities
• Greater change in their perceptions of themselves and their children as learners
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Family literacy
Parents: impact on attitudes and behaviours• Vast majority of parents were very positive about
their experience of FL• 97% reported gaining some kind of benefit from the
course• 3 months after the course, 96% felt they were still
benefiting from having taken the course
Interpretations of the term ‘embedded’• The research used a learner perspective definition,
where ‘embedded’ refers to learners getting a ‘double diet’ of vocational plus LLN, organised in a variety of ways
• It did not follow the previous pattern of labelling differently for varying organisational formats eg embedded/integrated/discrete to explore underlying features of teaching and learning
The full version of the title:“You wouldn’t expect a maths teacher to teach plastering….so why expect a plastering teacher to teach maths?”
• Research set out to compare different ways of meeting literacy and numeracy needs within vocational training, not to compare embedded to discrete provision in general
NRDC report: “You wouldn’t expect a maths teacher to teach plastering….”
Embedded research • 1916 learners on 79 vocational courses in 16 organisations
in five regions of England
• Vocational programmes at levels 1 (52%) and 2 (48%) in:
– Health and social care (26%)– Hair and beauty therapy (18%)– Construction (22%)– Business (14%)– Engineering (20%)
Maths/numeracy levels of the learners at initial assessment
Literacy/language levels of the learners at initial assessment
The findings
• Higher retention rates• Higher vocational success rates• Learners report better preparation for future job roles• Higher achievement of literacy/language qualifications• Higher achievement of numeracy qualifications• Less success where vocational teachers have had to take
responsibility for LLN teaching
Higher retention rate for embedded courses
Numeracy achievements
Literacy achievements
But…
• Where learners were taught by a vocational teacher taking additional responsibility for Literacy, Language and Numeracy; learners were twice as likely to fail in literacy and numeracy qualifications.
Vocational teachers
• Concern expressed at being asked to teach in areas outside their expertise
• Some with dual skills and expertise• Need to recognise that not all staff can do
everything
The learner perspective
• Do they get a quality learning experience?• How well do their teachers understand the
subject(s) they are teaching?• Need to remember that many have not
succeeded with literacy the first time around in their earlier education and need specialist help
Features of embedded programmesThe successful embedded programmes showed great variations but all included:
• Teamwork between LLN teachers and vocational teachers
• Staff understandings, values and beliefs
• Aspects of teaching and learning that connect LLN to vocational content
• Policies and organisational features at institutional level
What works…• Learners being taught by teachers/trainers with deep
knowledge of their subject areas and how to teach it
• Teachers/trainers working together positively and collaboratively
• An ongoing focus on individual learner progress, and the role of different team members in contributing to learner’s achievements
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Teacher education and professional development
• A dual policy history : Skills for Life and Success for All
• 2001 national requirement for new teachers in post-compulsory education to qualify
• 2002-03 Subject-specific qualifications for teachers of adult literacy, numeracy & ESOL
• 2007 revision of mainstream teacher qualifications and subject elements
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Changes over time
• Early subject-specific teacher qualifications developed in the 1980s to reach the parts generic teacher education did not meet
• Policy intent to require teachers to qualify recognised from the outset the need for subject-specific expertise for LLN teachers
• 2007 revision of regulations made it possible for first time for LLN teachers to take a single integrated qualification
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Emerging and developing professional identities
• Take up of the new qualifications – far in excess of requirements
• Steady growth from low base in terms of qualified teachers – it takes time
• 35% fully qualified in 2005, 48% by 2008• More focus on the specialist teachers than on
the needs of vocational colleagues – currently a focus in review of 2007 changes
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What makes a good teacher?
• NRDC pair of longitudinal studies: the Learner Study and the Teacher Study
• Analysed teacher characteristics in relation to learner progress
• What factors are associated with learner progress in numeracy courses?
• Experience and qualifications both matter
Teachers’ qualifications and numeracy learners’ progress
· Experience matters: when teachers were more experienced, learners made more progress and had more positive attitudes about .
· Learners made more progress when their teachers were qualified to at least Level 3 in maths, i.e. A-level or equivalent.
· Learners with more qualified teachers also appeared to enjoy numeracy more.
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Roles of different teachers
• Specialist teachers – knowledge and skills in teaching and supporting adult LLN learners
• All teachers – awareness of LLN issues and strategies for supporting learners
• Need to cater for the roles of both in developing professional practice
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Build the professional community
• Research needs to listen to teacher professional wisdom and to learner perspectives
• What works best? The answer is often rich and varied
• Practitioner-led action research to inform and develop practice, policy and research
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Teacher education handbooks
• Teaching Adult ESOL: Principles and Practice
• Teaching Adult Literacy: Principles and Practice