Factors in persistence and dropout among adult basic education students

This research attempted to provide a comprehensive, theoretically-based provisional model of persistence and dropout among adult basic education students. The task of the study was to find justification for including specific factors in the model.

The population selected for this study was comprised of adult education students from eight Tennessee counties. This sample of 133 students represented the first of three cohorts from the "Study of Adult Learners in Tennessee," conducted by the Center for Literacy Studies of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

A provisional model of the process of persistence/ dropout in ABE was adapted from an existing model of institutional departure developed by Vincent Tinto. The model consists of five phases representing meaningful clusters of factors that characterize the process leading to the decision to continue participation or drop out from ABE. The five phases were: Pre-ABE Enrollment Attributes, Transition to the Educational Program, Interaction and Integration of the Learner within the Literate Environment, Learner Perspective, and Outcome (the decision to continue participation or to drop out).

Forty-two hypotheses were tested using one-way analysis of variance, t-test, Pearson product-moment correlation, chi-square, Mann-Whitney U test, and Spearman rank-order correlation.

Ten of the forty-two hypotheses derived from the provisional model were supported by the data while thirty- two were not.

The theoretical model was useful in specifying ten significant relationships. The phases in the model were found to be inter-connected in terms of statistically significant relationships, and each phase of the model contained significant factors related to persistence and dropout. Thus, it was concluded that the model can be used as a framework for further research on the problem of ABE persistence and dropout.