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Much is unknown about those who do not finish high school and there is a need to understand who enters and completes alternative high school completion programs, such as the HiSet (High School Equivalency Test), GED (General Education Development Test), or growing number of state sponsored high school equivalency programs. The purpose for conducting the study was to describe the perceptions of adult education program coordinators about how to best categorize potential high school credential alternative completers. Using a phenomenological framework and semi-structured interviews, 12 adult education program administrators were interviewed about who enrolls in and completes their programs. A thematic analysis of these responses indicated distinct categories of individuals including opportunists (those looking for better opportunities), exceptionals (those with exceptionalities such as a disability that prevented the individual from completing a traditional high school diploma), immigrants (those validating learning in another country or language learners), and those who have been reformed in some way (e.g., those with a history of difficulty with legal situations). By identifying these initial categories of adult learners taking part in high school equivalency programs, recruitment efforts as well as the programs themselves might be better structured to correspond to learner needs.

Introduction: Despite the necessity for adults with lower literacy skills to undergo and succeed in high-stakes computer-administered assessments (e.g., GED, HiSET), there remains a gap in understanding their engagement with digital literacy assessments. Methods: This study analyzed process data, specifically time allocation data, from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), to investigate adult respondents' patterns of engagement across all proficiency levels on nine digital literacy items. We used cluster analysis to identify distinct groups with similar time allocation patterns among adults scoring lower on the digital literacy assessment. Finally, we employed logistic regression to examine whether the groups varied by demographic factors, in particular individual (e.g., race/ethnicity, age) and contextual factors (e.g., skills-use at home). Results: Adults with lower literacy skills spent significantly less time on many of the items than adults with higher literacy skills. Among adults with lower literacy skills, two groups of time allocation patterns emerged: one group (Cluster 1) exhibited significantly longer engagement times, whereas the other group (Cluster 2) demonstrated comparatively shorter durations. Finally, we found that adults who had a higher probability of Cluster 1 membership (spending more time) exhibited relatively higher literacy scores, higher self-reported engagement in writing skills at home, were older, unemployed, and self-identified as Black. Discussion: These findings emphasize differences in digital literacy engagement among adults with varying proficiency levels. Additionally, this study provides insights for the development of targeted interventions aimed at improving digital literacy assessment outcomes for adults with lower literacy skills.

Results from two studies provided strong evidence for the validity of the HiSET® tests, thereby demonstrating that HiSET is a well-developed battery of tests with passing and college and career readiness (CCR) standards that, when met, provide a pathway to postsecondary education, better employment opportunities and wages, and a better quality of life to those who are unable to experience a traditional high school education. Positive relationships exist between HiSET scores and both high school grades and ACT scores, including high levels of agreement between HiSET CCR indicators and ACT CCR indicators. Therefore, evidence supports the claim that HiSET scores are measures of high school equivalency, preparedness for middle skills jobs, and college readiness. Furthermore, there is evidence that passing the HiSET provides value to stakeholders. Passing the HiSET battery is associated with gaining academic and personal skills, college enrollment, employment gains (e.g., obtaining employment, obtaining more full-time employment, wage increases, and improvement in a job or position), and quality-of-life improvements.

Phraseology has been flourishing in the field of English writing studies in recent years. However, the focus has primarily been on items with less variability, such as ngrams or lexical bundles. To address this gap, this study investigates concgrams (Cheng et al., 2006), which encompass both constituency and positional variations, in advanced General English Proficiency Test (GEPT) writings. One hundred compositions from the GEPT were divided into two proficiency groups based on their scores and analyzed using the corpus tool ConcGram 1.0. The phraseological characteristics of concgrams are explored from four perspectives: frequency, type-token ratios (TTRs), word associations, and configuration. The goal is to determine the relevance of the use of concgrams to writing evaluation. The results indicate that TTRs and configuration play minor roles, while frequency and word associations appear to be more relevant to excellent writing. This study highlights the importance of including more variable phraseological units and provides a new approach to investigating the presence of phraseological units in greater depth.

African American men have among the worst high school completion rates of any population in the United States. The consequences of dropping out of school are serious and include high levels of unemployment and incarceration. Attempts at recruiting these men to return to complete a high school credential have not been broadly successful, and the current study was designed to identify the best ideas and practices of recruiting African American men into high-school equivalency completion programs. Using a snowball-generated sample of eight adult education program directors, interviews were conducted to identify strategies and approaches for recruiting African American men. Ultimately, program directors comments resulted in three broad categories of successful recruitment: using personal relationships that connect with men where they are, strategically using social media and online resources that are directly targeted toward these men, and utilizing the relationships and support networks of African American church communities. Responding program directors also stressed the need to meet these men at the physical and psychological places where they are, recognizing that these points of contact can and will change as the men age and face different personal circumstances. The findings provide key information for high-school equivalency program directors as they construct purposeful recruitment plans that also include measures for assessing the effectiveness of their recruitment campaigns.

This article aims to convey to the reader the experience of teaching in prison. Standard teaching methods within the correctional environment and methods of integrating support for executive function issues such as ADD/ADHD are examined.

It is no secret that many adult learners who enter GED® preparatory programs across the country experienced hardship and difficulty in K-12 schools. Often, many of these same students had to battle with learning disabilities such as ADD/ADHD, making school and learning an even more challenging task. Learning and concentration difficulties are conditions commonly associated with the attention deficit disorders of ADD and ADHD. Listening to long lectures or reading voluminous amounts of information at one time while trying to make sense of and comprehend material can be a momentous task for students impacted by attention deficit disorders. This article examines the impact of ADD and ADHD on learners and explores an alternative learning strategy of mind mapping to combat the challenges these students often face when returning to school to obtain their GED® credential.

The goals of placement reform and the elimination of developmental education at community colleges were to decrease the misplacement of students and to provide students with quicker access to college-level courses to improve retention and student success rates. However, the new placement reforms may be preventing some nontraditional students from attending community colleges.

Copyright of Journal of Bayburt Education Faculty / Bayburt Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi is the property of Bayburt University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The increasing complexity of interconnected power system has brought challenges to detailed dynamic simulation in terms of computational effort. Therefore, for transient stability assessment, dynamic equivalents of parts of large-scale system are required to capture the electromagnetic transients. This paper presents a review of past research on dynamic equivalencing using coherency-based methods and system identification methods. Future topics are discussed to improve the state-of-art approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a perfectly matched inhomogeneous receiving metasurface for line source incidence, based on the effective medium equivalency. Each building block of the inhomogeneous metasurface has effective constitutive parameters that satisfy a specific relationship dependent on the location of the line source. By doing so, the reflection from the receiving metasurface for the cylindrical wave incidence can be significantly suppressed, improving the total reception efficiency greatly. Theoretical analysis, numerical calculation, full‐wave simulations and experimental results are consistent with each other, showing promising applications in some short‐range wireless power transmission systems, where the incident wave is non‐planar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]