Participant # 3

Background Information

Int: Are you female or male?
P3: Female.

Int: Married or single?
P3: Single.

Int: What is your current age?
P3: 35.

Int: How old were you when you joined ABE?
P3: No. I don't know.
[From records First time entry age: 34]

Int: What was your age when you completed your goals?
P3: 35.

Int: Did you leave the program before completing your goals and then come back?
P3: No.

Int: Were you raising a family as you pursued your goals?
P3: Yes.

Int: Were you married or single as you worked on your goals?
P3: Single.

Int: Were you working outside the home while you studied?
P3: No.

Int: Were the places you studied rural or urban?
P3: Rural.

Int: At home or in a learning center?
P3: At home.

Int: How many tutors did you work with?
P3: One.

Int: What grade did you complete in school?
P3: 12.

Int: And now you're in Community College?
P3: Uh-huh.

Int: What grade did your father complete?
P3: Sixth Grade.

Int: your mother?
P3: My mother had some college because she was a nurse.

Int: Did you have a prior negative school experience?
P3: No, I don't think so.

Int: Either elementary or high school?
P3: No, I don't think so.

Int: Did you have a prior positive school experience?
P3: Nothing too positive. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't . . . you know?

Int: Were you diagnosed with learning disabilities while in school or did you feel that you learned differently than the other kids?
P3: No.

Int: Did you have any medical problems as a child? Eyesight, hearing, sinus . . . ?
P3: No.

Int: Did you require medication as a child?
P3: No.

Int: Did you require medication while you were working on your goals with ABE?
P3: Yes.

Int: Anything you want to mention?
P3: I was diagnosed with diabetes. I take glynase.

Int: Do you feel that had any impact on your learning or ability to concentrate?
P3: No.

Int: Do you consider yourself more of an individual determined to set your own course or a follower?
P3: I guess I set my own course.

Int: Would you rather determine for yourself how to approach a task or be given guidance/assignments to show you how to carry it out?
P3: I would prefer guidance to show me.

Int: Do you like to attempt something first and then seek out guidance or have someone tell you step-by-step, I want you to do this, then I want you to do that, then I want you to do that?
P3: Umm. Hmmm. I probably would try it first and then ask if I can't do it, I guess. That's probably what I would do. I don't know how to read manuals. So I guess I would try it first and then if I had trouble, go back and get help.

Int: Did you want your tutor to assign a set amount of work for you to do or determine for yourself what you could handle?
P3: Determine by myself what I can handle.

Int: Anything else you want to say about the last three? You feel that you like to set your own course rather than follow other people's program for you?
P3: Right.

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Interview

1) What were your goals in joining the program?
P3: To get help with algebra and to help me through my computer course.

Int: And to clarify, you were taking classes at CCV?
P3: Yes.

Int: What helped you reach your goals?
P3: Well, I found it helpful having you come to my home, because you seemed to come right after class or the next day while things were still fresh in my mind. That was really helpful to me because I lose it real quick.

Int: Someone being able to come to your home and work on what you felt you needed help with?
P3: Right. Shortly right after class when it was fresh in my mind, that was the biggest thing, I think.

2) What were the things that were most important in helping you to achieve your goals? If you listed more than one thing in number one, then you'd want to find the most important thing that helped you. That kept you going, kept you working on it.
P3: Kept me from feeling lost, too. Like algebra . . . I thought I was I was pretty lost in algebra. But I managed it and got a B.

Int: So doing the actual work and seeing that you could do it and you were able to keep up?
P3: That's about it.

3) Did you ever think of quitting?
P3: No.

Int: What kept you going if you had thought of quitting? You never got frustrated.
P3: I was frustrated but I knew I had to do it. And when you came, it seemed to make sense afterwards. I didn't think of quitting.

4) What things hindered your efforts to reach your goals? Some of these might be transportation, child care, things like that. Were any of those factors for you?
P3: No.

Int: If you had needed to come to the Learning Center, do you think that would have been a hindrance toward reaching your goal, as opposed to having someone come?
P3: Yeah, that probably would have been because I have a hard time with them in school and to transport them back and forth to schoolfor my school, I don't think I could have found the time to go there.

Int: We should mention that you have two young children.
P3: I have two young children, 3 and 5.

Int: But having kids didn't stop you from completing your goals.
P3: No.

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5) Once you saw you could make progress, did that keep you going?
P3: Yes.

Int: What helped you to feel that you were making progress?
P3: Getting better grades.

Int: In your CCV classes?
P3: Yes.

Int: So that was your major indicator that you were doing better.
P3: Yep.

6) Did any of the things you were studying make you want to continue? In other words, the subject content. Were you really excited about anything you were studying?
P3: Probably the early education was good. And drawing.

Int: This has to be related to ABE. Just what you studied with ABE, which was computer and algebra. Did you get inspired by either? And you can say no.
P3: No. I wasn't too crazy about that.

Int: Not even the computer?
P3: I didn't like that course. Too much technical stuff.

Int: But the computer stuff you did with ABE?
P3: That helped. That helped me to comprehend what he wanted us to know. Like all those technical words and what they did. I couldn't get it through my head, but that [ABE] did help.

Int: It helped but it didn't inspire you?
P3: No.

Int: It wasn't the subject matter itself?
P3: No.

7) What part of how the program works helped you the mostflexible time, location, materials, other?
P3: I thought the [unintell.] should come to my home was a big plus. And your flexible hours were good because you worked around me, too. The little blue book was fun to work in.

Int: The math book?
P3: I liked that book. It was neat. All three of them really worked for me.

Int: So, the type of material?
P3: It all related to what I was studying at the time, so it helped master it.

Int: But as a subject math wasn't particularly inspiring?
P3: I'm not crazy about math.

Int: But you felt the blue book was helpful?
P3: I liked that book.

8) What influence did your self-esteem have on your being able to continue?
(a) What was your view of yourself when you entered the program?
(b) Did it change while you were in the program?
If yes, how?
P3: I think it did boost my self-esteem, in the algebra one at least. I felt so lost in algebra. That's when I first contacted you. That's seemed to help once I figured I could do it, then my self-esteem did go up.

Int: You felt better about yourself when you could see that you could do it?
P3: Yeah.

Int: So feeling good about yourself, did that have any bearing on your wanting to continue in the program?
P3: Yeah, I would say so.

Int: You can say no if you want.
P3: No, it really did.

9) Did you have any support to reach your goals while you were in the program?
If so, who or what?
P3: Personal support or technical support?

Int: It can be anything, it can be family, your teacher, an agency.
P3: I was in the Reach Up program so that was a lot of support for me. I reached my goal, through their child care and all that. Having you come was a big plus for me.

Int: Did your family support your desire to reach your goals?
P3: Yeah, I guess. My mother did. The kids weren't too thrilled but my mother liked it. She was my major baby-sitter, so she was a big plus.

Int: If a person, how did he/she show support for you? You mentioned how your mother showed support by baby-sitting . . .
P3: By being here anytime I needed her. She was a big help. She gave me study time if I needed it. She was a big support. My other sister helped me.

Int: How did Reach Up show support for you?
P3: They paid for child care, and transportation. Plus they helped pay for classes, too, so that was . . . I'd be over my head in debt.

How did you feel about your tutor coming to your house? Do you feel she showed support for you?
P3: She helped me get through my classes, which I never thought I'd be able to do. Showing me that I could do this work that I didn't think I could do.

Int: So believing in you?
P3: Yeah.

Int: Do you think that was a major factor in you continuing? Or maybe not such a big factor? Do you think it was a factor at all in keeping you going?
P3: Yeah, because I know that if I didn't pass my two classes, I would have lost my Reach Up and then I wouldn't have continued any education at all. So that's a big factor, to pass those classes. That's what I managed to do.

Int: So you were really worried about not passing those classes when you called us in the beginning?
P3: Uh-huh.

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Int: Now that weve discussed a few factors, what do you feel had the greatest impact on keeping you going until you accomplished your goal(s)? If you feel you haven't changed anything from your first response, we could go back to question 1, what your goals were and what helped you reach your goals. Your goal was to pass your computer and algebra class?
P3: Yeah.

Int: Initially you said that that was the most important impact in keeping you going, was that you wanted to pass those two classes.
P3: Right.

P3: And after considering some of these other things, like self-esteem, support, and so on, do you feel that any of those were more important or do you still feel the major motivator was to pass those classes?
P3: I think the self-esteem was a big thing with me. Having that boost in my algebra class was kind of a plus to keep me going because I'm kind of shy.

Int: So you still feel that having the goal of passing those classes had the greatest impact? Attaining that goal and keeping you going?
P3: Yeah. I would say so.

Int: Anything else?
P3: Coming into the home was a big thing. It's hard to go somewheres out when you've got so much going on in your life. I think it's easier when it's at home.

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