Colleagues,

I want to thank John Comings for making time available during the  
last several days to join us in this discussion about research on  
learner persistence.  And thanks also to those of you who  
participated by asking good questions and giving helpful examples  
from your experience. The dialogue was engaging and enlightening.   
For me the highlights were the discussion about instrumental and  
transformational goals, and the recommendation by John that we can  
improve persistence by providing more supports within programs, but  
also by re-designing our systems of services so that we offer a range  
of options from supported self study, distance learning, hybrid  
learning (Face-to-face and online),  to intensive classes and  
tutorials, and that we expect that students will shift from one mode  
of learning to another, to more and less intensive modes, depending  
on what else is happening in their lives.

With many of you, I very much hope that the third stage of the  
Persistence study will be funded and carried out soon.  As a field,  
we need the answers which such a study could provide.

This discussion is now closed.  It will be archived on the Adult  
Literacy Education Wiki and on the National Institute for Literacy  
Web sites sometime in August.
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David J. Rosen
Special Topics Discussion List Moderator
djrosen at comcast.net