Chapter 2

THE LITERATURE REVIEW

Adult literacy has become an important issue on the agendas of politicians, industrialists, and educators in the past decade; many proclaim a literacy crisis. While others dispute the label of crisis, there is no question that literacy and illiteracy have captured public attention in North America. However, one of the most persistent adult literacy program problems, along with the problem of very low enrolment levels, is the equally enduring problem of very high attrition or dropout rates. Adult students leave Adult Basic Education (ABE) programs in far greater proportions than they leave other areas of adult education.

More than two decades of research literature addresses the issues surrounding attrition in adult literacy. The majority of the research, based on quantitative survey research methods, attempted to establish relationships between demographic, psychological or social variables and reasons for dropout or persistence. This body of research yielded little solid information on the phenomena; most concluded with the recommendation for more study, while acknowledging the enormous complexity of the issue of attendance (including persistence, sporadic attendance, and dropout or attrition) in Adult Basic Education. All the quantitative studies were restricted by the nature of quantitative research and generally produced superficial demographically based results that do not result in much understanding, from a student perspective, of the issue of attendance. Given that this was the case for the majority of the studies, I have presented this review of North American research literature relating to ABE attrition and persistence in a chronological order (for the past fifteen years). It demonstrates how little research methodology, perspectives, values and categories have changed or shifted over almost two decades. It also reveals the gaps in the research in terms of how the question of ABE attrition has been defined and how it has been studied.