A UK-IRELAND INVESTIGATION INTO THE STATISTICAL EVIDENCE-BASE UNDERPINNING ADULT LEARNING AND EDUCATION POLICY-MAKING
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Glasgow
Department Name: School of Education
Abstract
This project starts from the observation that participation rates in Adult Learning and Education (ALE) have significantly declined over the past 15 years. This has caused significant concern to many stakeholders in the areas of economy, business, education and wider social policies. Apart from facilitating economic and societal benefits at a larger scale, research has also demonstrated individual benefits of learning in the areas of health and wellbeing. Within the UK, devolved administrations in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are in charge of education and training and design their own policies in finding answers to their own countries' economic and societal needs; within England, adult learning has in some areas been devolved as part of regional government 'settlements'.
This project starts from the observation that:
A. Data on ALE are not routinely available in the four countries of the UK, especially not since devolved countries have decided not to participate in the upcoming OECD's Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC);
B. Existing analyses of ALE data tend to be overly descriptive and do not engage with analysing trends over time and different data sources treat the measurement of participation differently;
C. Studies have compared difference in ALE approaches across countries in Europe and tend to treat the UK as one entity. A comprehensive study comparing ALE data and policy approaches across the home nations of the UK is lacking from the knowledge base.
The main ambitions of this project are
(1) to investigate the (lack of) consistency of the current statistical evidence base on ALE across the four countries of the UK and Ireland (which is included in an already existing ALE working group),
(2) to better understand the decline in participation against economic, societal and political changes in the past 25 years,
(3) to investigate convergence and divergence of ALE discourses between the devolved administrations of the UK with a specific focus on the role of evidence-based policy making.
This will be facilitated through three interconnected work packages:
WP1 on the review of surveys carried out in the UK to investigate concepts, measurements and reliability of results;
WP2 to engage in statistical analyses on participation in adult learning and education trends over time through analyses of data from the Learning & Work Institute's Adult Participation in Learning (APiL) survey; and
WP3 to unpack ALE discourses in the devolved nations through drawing on home comparisons. Findings will be disseminated to academic and non-academic audiences to generate impact and to stimulate the uptake of evidence-based policy-making.
This project starts from the observation that:
A. Data on ALE are not routinely available in the four countries of the UK, especially not since devolved countries have decided not to participate in the upcoming OECD's Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC);
B. Existing analyses of ALE data tend to be overly descriptive and do not engage with analysing trends over time and different data sources treat the measurement of participation differently;
C. Studies have compared difference in ALE approaches across countries in Europe and tend to treat the UK as one entity. A comprehensive study comparing ALE data and policy approaches across the home nations of the UK is lacking from the knowledge base.
The main ambitions of this project are
(1) to investigate the (lack of) consistency of the current statistical evidence base on ALE across the four countries of the UK and Ireland (which is included in an already existing ALE working group),
(2) to better understand the decline in participation against economic, societal and political changes in the past 25 years,
(3) to investigate convergence and divergence of ALE discourses between the devolved administrations of the UK with a specific focus on the role of evidence-based policy making.
This will be facilitated through three interconnected work packages:
WP1 on the review of surveys carried out in the UK to investigate concepts, measurements and reliability of results;
WP2 to engage in statistical analyses on participation in adult learning and education trends over time through analyses of data from the Learning & Work Institute's Adult Participation in Learning (APiL) survey; and
WP3 to unpack ALE discourses in the devolved nations through drawing on home comparisons. Findings will be disseminated to academic and non-academic audiences to generate impact and to stimulate the uptake of evidence-based policy-making.
| Description | Influenced researchers on the importance of participation research |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | The session provided the students with the opportunity to increase their understanding of the mechanisms that underpin participation in adult education from a micro-, meso- and macro-perspective. Professor Boeren's work featured on the reading list of the course. The guest lecture provided an additional learning opportunity through direct dialogue with the scholar. |
| Description | Secondary Data Analysis awareness |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | The events have raised awareness among staff and students on the opportunities for undertaking secondary data analyses as part of the own research projects, including their PhD or Master's thesis. Audiences were given a demonstration of the UK Data Services website, specifically on how to find suitable data. They were provided with recommendations for further reading to emerge themselves further in the topic. |
| Description | Learning & Work Institute |
| Organisation | Learning and Work Institute |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | The Learning & Work Institute undertakes an annual Adult Participation in Learning (APiL) survey. As part of the project, we are engaging in a trend analysis on this dataset. This is ongoing work. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The Learning & Work Institute has provided us with micro-level data and have contributed to our recent webinar. They are actively involved in the design of our dissemination activities. |
| Impact | Webinar |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | Project blog post |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Blog post titled 'How do we measure adult participation in learning: the impact of perception' This blog post featured on our project website as a way to inform the wider public on the importance of conceptual and measurement issues when gathering information about participation in adult learning and education activities. The blog post acts as a short piece to raise awareness of our work carried out under WP1. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://adultlearningpolicies.co.uk/how-do-we-measure-adult-participation-in-learning-the-impact-of-... |
| Description | Project seminar University of Durham |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Towards effective and efficient lifelong learning policies: the need for an evidence-based agenda. I received an invite from colleagues at the University of Durham to provide them with an introduction to our ESRC project. The seminar delved deeper into the project aims and objectives and the work to be undertaken. The seminar was attended by 15 colleagues and raised a intellectually stimulating debate about the need for adult education and learning, as well as the role of data to enhance evidence-based policy-making. The seminar further helped to generate insights into the structuring of an ESRC Standard Grant application. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Project website |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | At the start of the project, we opened a website to inform a wider audience about our project objectives. The website will gradually be filled with outputs arising from our project. So far, the project website has been used to advertise our project among colleagues. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023,2024 |
| URL | https://adultlearningpolicies.co.uk/ |
| Description | Webinar on WP1 results |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | BLURB USED TO ADVERTISE EVENT This webinar will present the audience to the ALE policies project, funded by the ESRC. The overall aim of the project is to investigate the knowledge base on adult education in the UK and Ireland, how participation has fluctuated over the past 25 years and how policy-makers use adult education data to feed into their policy processes. The webinar to take place on 13 March 2024 will introduce the audience to our review of survey programmes that include data on adult education issues. We will discuss differences in measurement and conceptualisation of adult education, drawing on insights from codebooks and questionnaires from the Learning & Work Institute's Adult Participation in Learning survey, the OECD's Programme for in International Assessment of Adult Competencies, the Eurostat Adult Education Survey and the Labour Force Survey. Throughout the presentation, we will investigate to what extent differences in methodologies and conceptual underpinnings lead to similar or different insights in the determinants of participation. The presentations will be followed by a Q&A session with the project's team members from the University of Glasgow, the University of Nottingham and the Learning & Work Institute. OUTCOMES A total of 70 people registered for the webinar. The audience consisted of a mix of academics, post-graduate researchers, policy-makers and colleagues working in practical settings. The majority of the audience was based in the UK but we had attendees from other European countries (e.g. Germany, Italy). We had a limited number of participants from outside Europe. This webinar was the first wider engagement activity of our project and was intended to spark a wider interest in the project. We received broad encouragement for our work during the event and significant interest in attending future webinars. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/c64170d5-268f-446f-990b-7271a0a2ccba@6e725c29-763a-4f50-81f... |
| Description | contribution Scotland adult learning event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The project team at the University of Nottingham actively contributed to a networking and dissemination event organised by Scotland's Learning Partnership. This half day event consisted of a range of inputs from leading figures in adult education. We were provided with the opportunity to introduce our project to the audience through a formal presentation slot. Other notable contributions during the event came from Graeme Day, Scottish minister for Higher and Further Education, from Katarina Popovic, Secretary General of the International Council for Adult Education, and from Gina Ebner, Secretary General of the European Association for the Education of Adults. The event was attended by 50 people, including colleagues from the Learning & Work Institute, civil servants working for Local Authorities and practitioners active in adult education settings. Our attendance provided us with the opportunity to network across a wide range of stakeholders and to spark interest in our work. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |