College of Lake County's National Workplace Literacy Program Grant. Evaluation Report.

An independent evaluation of the College of Lake County's National Workplace Literacy Program included both formative and summative evaluations over the 3 years of the project. The evaluation design was planned primarily as a naturalistic inquiry that used the structured interview approach to data collection. An external evaluator interviewed all project stakeholders during scheduled visits over the 3-year period to identify project strengths and recommendations for improvement. In addition, the evaluator visited classes at various sites and provided feedback on the instruction. The project had several unique aspects: development of a list of learning objectives and curriculum that could be used as a model across all sites; development of an assessment instrument for use with English-as-a-Second-Language students; and inservice education provided to part-time adult educators. The evaluator provided an introductory inservice session to the project staff on the Kirkpatrick evaluation model. Interview data were entered into a Filemaker Pro Database to detect trends in data across time and sites. Included in the trends were that all stakeholders were impressed by the changes evident in the learners and that staff viewed the project as a learning experience for themselves. Findings indicated the project was well implemented and became more central to the businesses concerned as time went by. (The five-page report is followed by these appendixes: structured interview forms, interview data, and analysis of trends.) (YLB)