Joint research project: Work and basic education for enhancement of chances - Sub-project: Diagnostic of linguistic, mathematical and motivational competences of illiterates

The main goal of the project was to diagnose fundamental cognitive, linguistic, mathematical, and motivational competences of illiterates before, during, and after a one-year alphabetization course. Evaluation of illiterates’ achievements and competences at various time points were effected over the alphabetization course. The measurements of competences in the illiterates were continued parallel to the alphabetization course (initial evaluation took place in 2009). Overall, the illiterates were investigated at four discrete time points: (1) before, (2) during and (3) immediately after the end of the alphabetization course, as well as (4) approx. two months after the end of the course and after having finished an internship. Before the course, the performance of the illiterates was clearly below the test norm values. However, during and immediately after the alphabetization course substantial increases in performance were shown, i.e. an approximation to the norm values. Yet, with respect to linguistic competence (as measured by phonological awareness) the performance of the illiterates was still below norm values even two months after the end of the course. Thus, long-term skill training seems to be inevitable. However, importantly, the tuition on written language competence positively influenced the performance in fundamental cognitive and mathematical tasks. That is, the alphabetization course was effective in terms of improving the general education of the participants.
The results of the interest inventories (AIST-R, GIS) show a diversified profile of illiterates’ interests that could support the motivation to learn. However, no specific focusing of illiterates’ interests could be observed over the alphabetization course.