Improving Adult Literacy Instruction Supporting Learning and Motivation (2012) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Motivating Adult Learners to Persist
Motivating Adult Learners to Persist
Pages 14-26
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From page 14... ...
The average adult learner's duration in a literacy program is nowhere close to the length of instruction and practice needed. How can programs and instructors help motivate students to persist in their efforts?
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From page 15... ...
Adults often have very general ideas about why they need or want to learn to read and write. To motivate persistence and success, instructors need to help learners break down their learning goals into short-term and long-term literacy goals.
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From page 16... ...
If a teacher emphasizes the importance of mastering literacy skills, learners are likely to adopt mastery goals; if a teacher emphasizes relative ability (i.e., the teacher inadvertently makes comments that position adult learners as "good" or "bad" readers) , learners are likely to adopt performance goals.
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From page 17... ...
Research suggests the benefits of error management -- that is, leading adults to expect errors as a part of the learning process and then providing strategies for coping with errors and learning from them. Instructors need to know how to recognize and correct ingrained negative attributions by providing feedback that stresses the processes of learning, such as the importance of using strategies, monitoring one's own understanding, and engaging in sustained effort even in the face of challenges.
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From page 18... ...
Approaches to Avoid Research suggests that teachers can contribute to learners' negative framing and explanations in a variety of ways, including by: • Communicating, intentionally or unintentionally, to learners that a reading problem is internal to them. Teaching practices that could build negative internal attributions include labeling readers and writers as strong or struggling; making obvious assignments of readers and writers to working groups by skill level; and encouraging some learners to excel, while exhibiting low expectations for others.
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From page 19... ...
In some instances such systems may have positive effects. For example, the state of Tennessee recently implemented a program in which students received cash incentives for participating in adult education classes; the results of a nonexperimental study suggested that the introduction of rewards was related to achievement and to passing the GED examination among welfare recipients.
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From page 20... ...
Also, the reward should be contingent on the student's hav ing learned specific literacy skills or reached a goal, rather than for simply engaging with or completing a literacy task or course. For instance, if the reward provided by an adult education course is a job referral, then the job referral should be offered for having learned specific skills -- such as being able to write a coherent essay -- and not for merely having completed a set of tasks, such as completing all course exercises.
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From page 21... ...
If the task is new or especially challenging, an individual may appreciate having little autonomy. Building a sense of learner autonomy and control does not mean abandoning adults to learn on their own; there are a number of ways that instructors can give their students autonomy without sacrificing best practices such as providing specific feedback, offering explicit and clear modeling of strategies, and monitoring progress, all of which develop proficiencies and so support greater autonomy.
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From page 22... ...
When students are personally interested in topics covered in reading passages, recall of the main ideas of the passages is enhanced and subsequent motivation in reading related texts is maintained. Research on motivation has found value in giving readers opportunities to choose texts that connect with or expand their interests.
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From page 23... ...
using well-organized texts; • using texts that include vivid imagery; • using texts about which learners have some prior knowledge; • encouraging learners to actively and creatively think about the material they are reading; and • making sure learners understand the material by providing them with relevant cues -- for example, prompting them while reading or providing tools to help them organize the content and make sense of the material. The real challenge, however, is moving learners from situational to personal, or sustained, interest in a way that inspires them to persist even when they face challenging reading tasks.
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From page 24... ...
(See "The Potentially Negative Effects of Stereotypes" on opposite page.) Overcoming Systemic Barriers to Persistence When designing adult literacy instruction, it is important to consider the contexts of adults' lives and how to remove demotivating barriers to access and practice.
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From page 25... ...
Stereotype threats have also been documented among members of other racial and ethnic groups, as well as with respect to gender and cultural differences. These findings have important implications for any adult literacy program or course in which groups come together from a variety of racial, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds, as well as for mixed gender groups.
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From page 26... ...
The limited amount of research that has examined people's motiva tion to persist in adult literacy instruction shows that people were more likely to persist if they had a strong social support network. They were also more likely to persist if they had previously engaged in learning experiences after formal schooling and had a personal goal, such as helping their children or obtaining a more lucrative job.
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