Improving instructional outcomes in correctional settings: Using data to make instructional and process improvements.

摘要

Adult Basic Education (ABE) prison and community based literacy programs, are under close scrutiny to report accurate data to the National Reporting System (NRS). Delaware community based ABE programs are administered by the states' vocational school districts in New Castle, Kent and Sussex County. The NRS is the federal accountability program for adult education and literacy programs. The primary obligation of the person responsible for monitoring the data for the educational program is to produce an end of fiscal year report.;The purpose of this improvement project was twofold. The primary goal was to determine if NRS data could be used effectively to improve instructional outcomes in a correctional education setting. The secondary goal was to examine the ABE instructional "best practices" that can be applied in a correctional setting to increase the number of inmate students who might move from higher levels of ABE to General Education Development (GED) classes and ultimately earn a GED while incarcerated.;For many years, ABE students at the Sussex Correctional Institution (SCI), Delaware, had been prevented from progressing from their ABE classes into GED classes. I was able to intervene and find an explanation for why the students were not being given the opportunity to earn a GED. I carefully reviewed data for the prison education program, determined the severity of the problem, and designed a number of data-based solutions to address the problems. The primary intervention became known as the "60 Hour Reassessment Report." The intervention showed outstanding results. During the first three fiscal years of the project (2005 - 2007), four men made the Educational Functioning Level (EFL) change from High Intermediate (HAS). After the two interventions, and the last three fiscal years of the project, 132 men made this level change. The chi-square with Yates Corrections leaves no doubt that the intervention was not successful nor could the changes have occurred had not the project been put into place. I was the Media and Technology Specialist for the Prison Education Program at SCI, and it was one of my responsibilities to manage the prison NRS database. I had been at this position since October 2000; I had concrete and well-managed data related to students' hours as well as other demographic information.;When I chose to implement this improvement project in late 2007, I was able to access information from previous years' reports. I began with a comparison of "Educational Functional Levels Gains and Attendance for Pre- and Post-tested Participants," which is reported on the National Reporting System's 4B fiscal year report. My project began with the fiscal year FY 2004-05 and the chi-square comparison was made between that year's data and the FY 2009-10 FY results.;This was no small accomplishment for my project, the inmate tutors who worked with me, the students who collaborated with each other, and the students who achieved the EFL progression that led them to the GED levels. A chi-square test determined that my intervention resulted in a significant (p.0001) improvement in inmate student performance.