How Do They Know They Know?: Evaluating Adult Learning

In Learning to Listen, Learning to Teach and Training Through Dialogue, Jane Vella introduced readers to an approach to adult learning based in concepts of popular education an approach emphasizing participation, dialogue, and learning by doing. But how can the results of training that uses these strategies be measured effectively and cogently?

How Do They Know They Know?, the third and critical piece to this highly–acclaimed approach to adult education, applies the principles and concepts of popular education to the task of evaluation. The book provides educators and trainers with a practical tool for determining the effectiveness of the teaching and learning that takes place in their programs.

Describing evaluation as a process of accountability, the authors take readers step by step through their approach, which connects evaluation to program planning and engages learners as partners throughout.

Using real–world case studies, and packed with stories that relate the concepts to real–life situations, the book shows how the evaluation model works in a variety of settings including a nonprofit lobbying group, a school of public health and community medicine, and a literacy group. It takes readers from an overview of evaluation and the genesis of the Accountability Process, through practical applications, to discussions of the who, why and what of evaluation as well as the future uses of the theory and practice.

How Do They Know They Know? Provides educators of adults in any setting with an accessible resource that will enable them to be accountable to their learners and to the wider community as well.

A New Way of Thinking About Evaluation.

Building from the Base: Philosophy and Practice.

The Accountability Process and Planner.

Evaluating Existing Programs.

Three Examples.

Evaluation and Accountability at Jubilee Today.

Reflections and Next Steps.

Appendix A: The Complete Jubilee Course Revises Using the Accountability Planner.

JANE VELLA is president of Jubilee Popular Education Center. She has worked in community education and training worldwide for more than 40 years. She is also adjunct professor in the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

PAULA BERARDINELLI founded the Center for Organizational Research and Education. Her consulting expertise is in evaluation and survey design. She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

JIM BURROW is associate professor and coordinator of the graduate training and development program in the Department of Adult and Community College Education at North Carolina State University. He lives in Cary, North Carolina.