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Helping Adults Persist

Step 1: Read the related research

“Helping Adults Persist: Four Supports.” John Comings, Andrea Parella, and Lisa Soricon, Focus on Basics, Volume 4, Issue A, March 2000.

Summary:
This article provides a summary of NCSALL's Adult Student Persistence Study in which researchers interviewed 150 Pre-GED students in New England at the beginning of their participation in ABE programs and again after four months of study. In this study, persistence is defined as adults staying in programs as long as possible, engaging in self-directed study when they are not able to attend class, and returning to the program when possible. Researchers identify four supports to persistence—awareness of and management of positive or negative forces that help or hinder persistence, self-efficacy, establishment of goals by students, and progress toward reaching a goal. The authors argue that it is necessary to reconceptualize adult learners as long-term clients who use a wide range of services including, but not limited to, ABE programs.

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Updated 7/27/07 :: Copyright © 2005 NCSALL