In addition to testing the reading skills of ABE learners, the ARCS researchers administered a lengthy questionnaire, so we can give you more information about the people in Profile 2.

• Fifty-eight (58) percent are Native Speakers of English (NSE).
  
  
• The average age is 25.
  
  
• The average number of grades completed is 10.7.

• Eighty-five (85) percent have been attending adult education classes for less than a year.
  
  
• Most are in adult education classes just long enough to brush up on their skills in preparation for the GED exam or to qualify for a high school equivalency certificate.
  
  
• Learners in this profile cite "more education" and "getting a better job" as their reasons for taking adult education classes. However, this group needs more than just a "brush up" if they intend to go on to higher education.
  
  
• Receptive (listening) vocabulary: (as measured by the PPVT-III)
  
  
  • PPVT-III scores for the native speakers of English (NSE) range from "low" to "high average." The PPVT-III assesses word knowledge by asking the learner to select one of four pictures that best tells about a word spoken by the examiner. Scores for Profile 2 are pretty good for our population, and we would expect to see similar performances on the DAR test of elicited word meanings, "What does X mean?". But, this group's ability to tell what a word means (via the DAR) is far below their ability to identify a word from picture clues as required on the PPVT-III. Elicited word meaning scores, although higher for the NSE, are still low compared to their performance on the other components. Why?
    
    
    • Could this be a problem with productive speech? Do they have a difficult time expressing themselves?
      
      
      • No. They give full oral summaries of the DAR silent reading passages, showing their speech fluency and comprehension of the more sophisticated vocabulary in the high school passages.
    
    
• Have you thought that your learner's choice and use of words, especially in written work, does not support your impression of his/her ability?
  
  
  • It appears that this group's good verbal ability (as measured by the PPVT-III) masks a limited understanding of words that they may know or use in supporting conversational or written contexts but not in isolation. They don't understand the meaning of words well enough (even if they use them in speaking or writing) to be able to pinpoint their meanings and thereby use and understand them in varied spoken or written contexts.
    
    
    • For example, the word "guard"  is a Level 3 word on our Word Meaning Test. A learner's response may be "someone who watches prisoners,"  or  "he plays guard on the team,"  or  "it's a kind of deodorant."  These all may be true, but none expresses the word's overall meaning of  "protect from harm or danger"  that defines its essential concept.

      Would those who gave the above responses understand the idiom "off (one's) guard,"  or another common usage,  "to guard against illness?"  Would they figure out the meaning of "guardian?" If a learner can say what a word means in a way that leaves no doubt about its central meaning, he/she knows the word. "Someone who watches prisoners"  is the best of the above examples for guard  because it implies the word's central concept of "protection," but even so, there is no assurance that the learner will know the word in other contexts or forms.

      Direct teaching of the many specific meanings of a particular word will give depth to learners' vocabularies by fortifying their understanding of a word's essential meaning.

Profile 2 readers have good alphabetics skills, but 50% can give only sketchy word meanings, or none at all, of words above GE 6. This is true of the NSE as well as the Non-native Speakers of English (NNSE). Profile 2 is distinguished from Profile 1 by somewhat lower abilities on word recognition and silent reading comprehension but mainly by a smaller bank of word meanings.

Browse Profile: Menu
	Description of the ARCS Comparison Profile 2
	Suggestions for Instruction for Profile 2 Learners
	Additional Profile 2 Information from the Research
	Comparison of the Three Profiles in the GED Group
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