In the final report of the second phase of our study, we developed a 
typology of "persistence pathways". We chose to describe these as pathways 
rather than as types of students because we saw evidence that people moved 
from one type to the other over the course of their lives.

One pathway was "try-out". People on this pathway were motivated to learn 
(demonstrated by showing up to enroll in a program) but had too many 
barriers to persistence and were destined to drop out early. We suggested 
that a good approach for people on this pathway was for programs to counsel 
them out of joining a class (why should they experience another failure in 
education?)but help them develop a plan to both do some self-study 
(possibly coming in to the program to talk with a tutor once a month) and 
develop a plan that would lead them into a class after they had addressed 
the barriers to persistence in their life.

However, this positive "outcome" is not listed on the NRS. This is one of 
the new forms of success our programs should help students achieve (in fact 
some programs do this informally) and should be able to report on the NRS.

--On Tuesday, July 11, 2006 2:10 PM -0400 MWPotts2001 at aol.com wrote:


>

>

> In a message dated 7/11/2006 11:23:12 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,

> comingjo at gse.harvard.edu writes:

>

> As far as persistence is concerned, what other context or personal

> factors

> do people think might be important? That is, that the impact of supports

> to

> persistence might be affected by these factors.

>

>

>

> John and All,

>

> You have hit here on my question: What is the difference between program

> supports to persistence and the nature of student persistence? I see them

> as two different things, and most of the posts have been dealt with

> supports.  If we can identify the nature of persistence, we might be able

> to recruit to the point.  This may not be a popular stance, but given the

> drop out rate and even the stop out rate, perhaps we should give it a

> try.

>

> Meta Potts

> FOCUS on Literacy

> Glen Allen, Virginia




John Comings, Director
National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy
Harvard Graduate School of Education
7 Appian Way
Cambridge MA 02138
(617) 496-0516, voice
(617) 495-4811, fax
(617) 335-9839, mobile
john_comings at harvard.edu
http://ncsall.gse.harvard.edu