This case reports on a basic skills program conducted by North Oaks Technical
College, a two-year postsecondary vocational institution on contract for
Pinewood Technology, a neighboring high-tech manufacturing company, both
located in Elmgrove, a small midwestern town. Pinewood is headquartered in the
town, and has a second plant across the border in a neighboring state.
Elmgrove lies an hour and a half away from the state's metropolitan center.
Its population is almost 100% white. Pinewood Technology is its second largest
employer. In the fall of 1991, the company embarked upon an initiative known
as Skills 2000. This initiative was prompted by the firm's in-house quality
thrust, aimed at reducing process variation. This push for quality improvement
in its process had increased the sensitivity of the firm to the rhetoric
regarding the absolute necessity of the human element in today's competitive
job market, the rapidly changing nature of jobs with the concomitant need to
train workers continually, the increasing need for attention to be placed upon
the literacy needs of workers, and the need for workers to be lifelong
learners.
Beyond the question of quality, the company wished to ensure that it was in
compliance with chemical right-to-know legislation that required workers to be
aware of their workplace environs. If workers did not possess the basic skills
necessary to understand and avoid workplace hazards, the company could be
liable. Some workers held jobs which had position descriptions which called
for basic skills. The company wished to reconcile stated skills with actual
skills.
Pinewood has a history of supporting the training of its workers. It has a
policy of open enrollment training and tuition reimbursement for courses taken
on the initiative of individual workers. Such courses do not necessarily have
to be tightly linked with workplace activities.
The company set forth three primary purposes for Skills 2000:
These purposes were consistent with the view that the new technologies would
engender less process variation, allowing employees to work to their full
potential.
The company devised a plan for realizing Skills 2000. This plan included
building employee support; conducting needs assessments involving job and task
analyses to determine whether there were skill gaps; conducting literacy audits
to resolve any gaps between the level of workplace materials and the reading
level of workers; and, importantly, determining the educational level of each
employee in reading and math. Information gathered from this process was to be
the basis of a training curriculum.
To help implement the project, the company contracted with North Oaks
Technical College on the basis of a long-standing collaborative relationship
between their respective institutions. Through its customized training
services, the college had worked closely over the years with the company's
human resource department in delivering technical training. The company
sponsored a computer laboratory at the college, which was used in its regular
programming and for company-specific training. Workers from the company had
also participated in the college's Adult Basic Education (ABE) programs. North
Oaks was invited to be a partner in the very foundational stages of the idea.
As spelled out in the company's newspaper, the college was expected "to assist
us with appropriate processes and validity of the assessments, individual
development plans, and coursework needed to upgrade skills."
We were invited by the project's literacy consultant to consider evaluating
Skills 2000 within the framework of our work. Upon examination, we found that
the case bore features that were consistent with our guidelines for selection
of cases (discussed earlier). This was a high-tech manufacturing firm with
world-class standing that had decided to embark upon a literacy audit of its
workers and to fund the training from its own coffers. This firm was actively
engaged in a quality initiative, seeking to reduce process variation. Indeed,
a goal was to win the Malcolm Baldrige Award for Quality. It had contracted
the services of a vocational institution to conduct the literacy audit, to
design the curriculum, and to deliver the training. The workers in question
were not in the at-risk classes that Carnevale et al. (1988) have identified.
The focus of the audit was basic skills. The project consultant had put in
place controls that enabled the firm to examine gain. All documentation for
the project was to be made available to us; we would have access both to the
company and to the college. We felt that in view of our guidelines for
selection, here was a quintessential case. We decided to include it in our
study.
Our purpose was to examine the role of North Oaks in this collaboration with Pinewood Technology, in order to acquire further insight on the possibilities for vocational institutions as partners in workplace literacy programs and as deliverers of basic skills.
The method included a combination of site visitation, document inspection and
analysis, and formal and informal interviews of key informants. Documents were
made available by the college's customized training staff, by the company's
education and development staff, and by the project's literacy consultant.
Materials provided included several interim reports on the project; memos
exchanged between representatives of the company and the college and between
the literacy consultant and college staff; copies of form letters designed for
correspondence with workers; samples of instruments (e.g., an employee basic
skills survey questionnaire and forms used to determine the reading and math
requirements of jobs and the readability of workplace materials); copies of
curriculum and instructional materials; a copy of the company's 1993 annual
report; and copies of relevant issues of the company newspaper that pertained
to the project.
Two site visits, each lasting two hours, were made to the college, during
which the head of customized training and that unit's lead curriculum developer
and ABE instructor were interviewed. In addition, several telephone interviews
were held with these staff to clarify issues. One two-hour site visit was made
to the company, during which we interviewed its education and development
specialist (who had direct responsibility for coordination with the college)
and its maintenance manager (who was intimately connected with the origin of
Skills 2000). A prime resource was the project's literacy consultant with whom
we held extensive conversations over a period of months and whose materials
from the project were all turned over to us for examination.
In developing the case, we first examined the company's background and its
stated reasons for engaging the college in its Skills 2000 initiative. Next,
we briefly described the college and expressed reasons offered by its
customized training staff as to why it was suited to delivering basic skills.
We then discussed the approach of the college to the project, including its
needs assessment and curriculum development activities. For the rest of the
report, we reflected upon the case, and tried to draw inferences from it that
might be instructive about possibilities for vocational institutions as
partners in the workplace literacy enterprise and as deliverers of basic
skills.
Pinewood Technology produces suspension assemblies for computers. These assemblies are "very precise metal springs that hold the recording heads at microscopic distances above the disks in disk drives" (from the company's 1993 annual report). Suspension assemblies are quite critical to the operation of disk drives. The company's world-class standing can be gleaned from the estimate in its 1993 annual report that its market share is "seventy percent of the worldwide supply of disk drives produced by all significant disk drive manufacturers." The company sees itself as benefiting from two trends--(1) increased sales of computer systems (particularly PCs and portables) and (2) the growing importance of suspension assemblies in enhancing disk drive data storage capacity and reliability. Its annual report shows company sales to be $198,734,000 with a gross profit of $44,423,000.
North Oaks Technical College is one of the few colleges in the statewide
system of two-year postsecondary vocational institutions that has a deliberate
customized training focus. Indeed, college personnel claim that it was the
first to embark on such an initiative. Also somewhat unique to the college is
that it is an on-site provider of ABE. Staff associated with ABE run the
college's developmental studies program which complements their regular
curricular offerings and includes classes in areas such as reading,
communication, grammar, punctuation, math, and study skills. Students may take
such classes for credit, or they may take them remedially. As part of
remediation, students may be tested to determine their assessed grade levels.
The developmental studies program has attracted workers who may pursue such
studies at their own rate and at times that are convenient to them. North Oaks
also has the additional capability of offering distance education through
interactive television. Such a capability allows it to reach customers beyond
its walls in locations that can include workplaces.
In the view of Beth, the member of the college's staff most intimately
connected with the project, "it was natural" for North Oaks to inquire as to
whether they were willing to take on the role of provider of basic skills in
the Skills 2000 project. This was because of the long tradition of partnership
in training. It was her view that, while the company would normally comparison
shop, "generally we're the provider of choice."
As indicated above, Pinewood had embarked upon a project called Skills 2000,
the rationale for which was detailed in an issue of the company newspaper. To
get a firsthand account of the company's way of thinking, we interviewed Randy,
Facility Maintenance Manager, and Nicole, Education and Development Specialist.
Beyond the basic rationale for the program, we were interested in the
explanation as to why North Oaks was seen as a suitable partner in the
enterprise.
Randy explained that a number of years ago the company had begun an internal
quality focus which involved team activities. Workers were at that time
expected to do more writing and calculating. This internal focus on quality
revealed that some people had difficulties which appeared to be the result of
their lack of basic skills. These perceived deficiencies were also evident in
interview processes for supervisory staff. Some people had difficulty
negotiating writing tasks. Others had difficulty working their way up through
the organization into the management staff.
Management had been attuned to articles about the literacy crisis which
appeared in trade journals and periodicals to which the company subscribed and
wondered about the extent of its own situation. It was decided that an
initiative to be called Skills 2000 might be a useful vehicle. A basic skills
enhancement program was to be part of this initiative. The company felt it
needed external assistance in determining if it indeed had a basic skills
problem; to this end it engaged the services of North Oaks Technical
College.
When asked why North Oaks--and not another provider--was engaged, Randy explained that there already was a good relationship between the institutions that had been "groomed over the years." They had worked with the college on the development of a technical skills training program "where they worked with us and helped develop the curriculum for our needs with our equipment and put it in place." Then there was the sponsored computer lab. Furthermore, the company did not have sufficient staff within its education and training department to facilitate the training.
North Oaks was engaged by Pinewood to implement the basic skills aspect of the
Skills 2000 concept. The college's customized services unit assumed the
responsibility, along with its developmental studies staff. To augment its
staff for the project, the college immediately encouraged the company to engage
the consulting services of a workplace literacy specialist, a professor at the
major university in the state. There was a long-standing relationship between
the customized services staff at the college and the consultant, who had been
invited there previously to teach a workplace reading course for the benefit of
the college staff.
The explanation for engaging the services of the consultant for the project
was that she would have "double the focus of having had the experience in many
industries, and a variety of places in the country, and being at the university
in adult education." The consultant joined the discussion between the company
and the college from the beginning and outlined a course of action which they
accepted. The work was to be embedded in the framework of Skills 2000. Main
features of that plan included (1) an employee interest survey, (2) testing,
(3) assessment of the grade level of workplace reading and math materials, and
(4) assessment of the reading and math level of workers in selected units.
The college, in conjunction with the literacy consultant, developed a survey designed to get employees to indicate how important they thought basic skills were to their job and to show their level of interest in signing up for basic skills courses (e.g., reading, writing, and math). They were also asked to indicate whether they wished classes to be on-site or at the college and to express preference for the delivery mode, instructional time, and so on. The company targeted 224 workers from its high-tech group, its maintenance group, and from its "out-of-state" plant. Of these, 108 were interviewed. The results showed that there was agreement that basic skills were important. Understandably, the maintenance group was less inclined to agree than were the high-tech and out-of-state groups.
Following the employee perceptions interviews, the college sought to establish
the level of the reading materials used by workers at the plant. A report
submitted by the project's literacy consultant indicated that the audit was
performed on "all the materials used on the job and in training to evaluate the
reading difficulty of the materials, their importance to the job, frequency of
use, and the exact reading, writing, and math skills needed to understand
them." A memo from the company's education and development department showed
that workers involved in the program were asked to bring "anything that they
read, write, or calculate with" to scheduled interviews.
Based upon the audit of materials, it was found that the most important and
most frequently used reading material was the job breakdown. Also important
were engineering forms and control charts. These materials were measured at a
seventh grade difficulty level. Reference materials, less frequently used,
were at a higher reading level. The employee handbook, infrequently used,
measured at grade twelve to thirteen. The training manual, used frequently,
was measured at the twelfth and thirteenth grade levels.
The company's managerial staff read most often and at the highest level.
Materials here ranged from grade seven to grade thirteen. No reading
deficiencies were found among this class of worker when they were tested.
Technical workers (e.g., skilled workers, engineers, electrical workers) had to
read high-level reference documents such as manuals and code books, materials
that tended to be at the twelfth grade level. They all tended to read at the
post-high school level when tested. Reading was not as important to the jobs
of general maintenance workers, as it was to the other groups of workers
tested. Here, lead workers read more than their subordinates. For this group
of workers, of particular difficulty were material safety hazard sheets, which
measured at the college level, between grades thirteen and sixteen on the
Flesch Readability scale.
Math skills used on the job included basic computations (e.g., addition,
subtraction, multiplication, and division); conversion of fractions to
decimals; basic statistics; knowledge of charts and ability to plot graphs; and
knowledge of how to read measurement devices (e.g., calipers, scales, gages,
and blueprints). Knowledge of the metric system was becoming a priority in
order to meet international standards.
College personnel had an active role in the audit process. As Beth described,
all people in the division met in groups; then some met individually. A
consequence of this audit was that the literacy consultant was charged to help
the company rewrite some of the higher grade-level materials so that they were
nearer the grade-level norms of employees.
A sample of the results of the audit is summarized in Table 3 (see Appendix
C).
Once the grade level of the materials in the workplace was determined, the college staff proceeded to test workers in reading and math to ascertain their grade levels and to discern any gaps between these assessed levels and the measured levels of workplace materials. Workers were administered the Level 2 Adult Basic Learning Examination (ABLE).
Of 108 high-tech workers, three tested below the ninth grade in reading, eight between grades six and eight, and one at grade 3.2. The vast majority tested at post-high school. Of eighty-nine maintenance workers tested, two were at the ninth grade, two at the eighth grade, and six at various levels below the eighth grade. The majority of the remainder were at the post-high school level. At its out-of-state plant, of thirty-six workers tested, two were at the eighth or ninth grade level; two more were at levels well below the eighth grade.
In math, the average grade level score for high-tech workers was tenth grade,
with most scores falling between the eighth and twelfth grades. However, ten
were below the seventh grade, and sixteen below the eighth. For maintenance
workers, the average score was at the ninth grade. In this group, five
individuals tested at the fourth grade, four at the fifth grade, two at the
sixth, eleven at the seventh, and four at the eighth. The remainder were at
the ninth grade level or above. For out-of-state workers, the average was at
the eleventh grade, with one worker testing below the sixth, three at the
eighth, and the remainder at the ninth or above.
Based upon its program of testing, the college was able to set forth a profile
of math skills that different categories of employees lacked. As can be seen
in Table 4 (see Appendix C), these skills were decontextualized from jobs.
In general, the findings did not reveal a problem of the order that has fueled much of the discourse on workplace literacy. But, as figures reported above show, there were workers whose assessed levels were at the eighth grade and below. Such workers were deemed by the project consultant to be at risk and in need of remediation. The basic skills enhancement need was more evident in math than it was in reading and more among maintenance workers than other workers.
On the basis of its needs assessment activities as described earlier, the college, in conjunction with its literacy consultant, made a set of recommendations to the company, which required (1) that individual reading assistance be provided for the single employee reading at the forth grade, (2) that "efficient reading" classes be established for those reading at or below the ninth grade, (3) that "brush-up" math classes be offered to the forty-two or so workers who tested at below the ninth grade, and (4) that reading materials for hazardous chemical materials should be rewritten.
Having completed the needs assessment phase of its work, as detailed above, the college proceeded to convert their analyses into curriculum. The focus was on math and reading. We describe approaches to both.
The math program was characterized as a refresher. The curriculum for the
class was framed by measured skill deficiencies as shown in Table 4 (Appendix
C). College personnel wrote to individual workers informing them of their
selection for the program. Individual interviews were held with workers to
discuss their test scores and their instructional needs. The college staff
used a math text, but they encouraged workers to bring work-related problems to
class, and efforts were made to match math skills with actual work situations.
The staff calculated that they could provide the brush-up skills needed by
workers in eight to nine weeks. A tenth week was added at the request of the
company to allow for a posttest. There is evidence from company records that
there was some variation from this model. The evidence showed that 63 workers
were provided with up to 19.5 hours of training (13 sessions of 90 minutes).
Their pretest scores were generally at or below the ninth grade, consistent
with reported figures. The posttest scores for these workers averaged at the
post-high school level. All employees showed grade level increases, with the
average being four years of high school. A majority of workers were able to
attain the exit goal. Some workers were able to progress beyond the basic math
curriculum to problems in measurement, graphs, and geometry.
Regarding grade level gains which were substantial, the college offered the
caveat that increases might have been a result of latent knowledge which lay
dormant because of lack of use, which the opportunity to participate in the
course had rekindled. This was a plausible explanation.
As discussed earlier, the needs assessment phase of the project identified the
type of reading materials used in the workplace by different groups of workers,
the grade level of these materials, and the grade level of workers. The
reading materials shared by workers with college personnel during the
assessments were to form an important part of the reading curriculum. As Beth
pointed out, workers were encouraged by their supervisors to bring work-related
material. This process yielded a variety of materials including college-level
books, chemistry texts, and so on.
Reading was confined to the facilities maintenance group, the group of workers
that provided the most workers reading below the eighth grade, considered to be
the at-risk marker. The curriculum outlined for the reading course (which was
taught twice a week for sessions of ninety minutes over a period of seven
weeks) was as follows:
A memo from the project showed that the goal of the reading program was "to teach the students how to read critically to solve workplace problems by following a four-step strategy." As with the hospital project discussed earlier and included in Item 4 in the curriculum outline shown above, this four-step approach consisted of the following steps: (1) define the problem, (2) plan your solution, (3) read, and (4) check. It was hoped that the method would transfer to the workplace, and indeed, it was taught in conjunction with workplace methods. As to reading materials utilized, the following memo from Beth to Nicole is instructive:
The class included a wide variety of reading materials. We used Reading for Workplace Success as the basic text; in addition, we used selected materials from another text from [the literacy consultant]. We progressed from these texts to [Pinewood] reading materials that our students might use: IDEAS form, [acid] bath room checklist, non-standard requisition form, job-posting application, Accu-Mix label and directions, and the [company] manual. Difficult vocabulary was defined and discussed.
As is evident from the preceding discussion and the course outline, North
Oaks' basic approach to reading instruction was similar to that adopted by
Redwood Technical College (Case 1) to the extent in which they both relied on
the text Reading for Success (Park et al., 1991), with its four-step
problem-solving approach and emphasis on generic reading skills such as
structural analysis (e.g., prefixes, suffixes, and roots). For the same
reasons we offered in our critique of Redwood's basic disposition to reading
instruction, we questioned the pedagogic merit in North Oaks' teaching these
generic strategies within the narrow context of jobs and in a reading course of
such short duration.
Since both colleges took their instructional cues from the same reading text,
Reading for Success, it was necessary to examine the provisions of that
text to better understand their instructional stances. The text does indeed
offer structural analysis as a fall-back strategy to be used by a worker when
he or she is unable to decide on the meaning of a word by sight or from its
context (Park et al., 1991, p. 142). But when a worker cannot recognize a word
that derives directly from the context of his or her job, the problem would
more likely be a lack of conceptual knowledge, requiring a different solution
than ability to analyze word structure.
Reliance on structural analysis alone creates its own problem--the requirement
that workers acquire a large enough storehouse of prefixes and suffixes.
Prefixes and suffixes are utilized in reading instruction for their transfer
power, not just to solve isolated verbal puzzles in narrow contexts such as
workplaces. Thus, an unwitting shortcoming of the text is that it appears to
offer these devices as alternatives to conceptual knowledge--in other
words, as another workplace-bound literacy strategy, rather than as ways to
move meaning making from the workplace into other spheres of life. If the goal
of instruction does not include transfer of literacy skills beyond the
workplace, then the reason for teaching structural analysis (e.g., prefixes,
suffixes, and roots) disappears.
Beth reported that, in retrospect, the workers "weren't as poor as we might have thought they'd be." There were no nonreaders. Participants did not have problems sounding out words. One of the texts was used to help them work on how to find information that was needed. There appeared to be progress. Beth gave the following illustration:
And then we got to the end and ... I dug some worksheets out of the employee manual which was written at the twelve to thirteen level. They were able to find that. Well, now, that's really what reading is all about. If you can read to find information that you need, you've got things fairly well under control.
What Beth was implying here was that these workers could at least read to
do. She felt that there was truth in the notion that workers read at one
or two grade levels above their assessed level when the materials are
work-related (Diehl & Mikulecky, 1980). This accounted for why the workers
in the reading program fared better than typical ABE participants.
Unlike the math program, for which there was an exit target standard, the
emphasis in reading was whether any gain was made. College personnel refrained
from measuring gain in terms of generic reading skills which were not a focus
of instruction. They also refrained from measuring grade level gain. This
probably was just as well, since there was not sufficient time here for such
gain. On this count, Beth observed that if a worker wanted to pursue further
reading beyond the workplace focus of the course, that worker could continue by
enrolling in ABE at the college, with the tuition being completely reimbursed
by the company. This was an important structural feature of the connection
between the college and the company and an important worker-centered feature of
the basic skills program.
It appeared to us that Beth was making a distinction between reading in the context of work and more generic reading. Reading in the context of the college's ABE classes appeared to assume a different coloration than workplace-based reading. We inquired about how reading was taught at the college and, indeed, the approach described was idealized, allowing not just for workplace-based reading but for more generic remedial reading. Beth noted the following:
We discuss ... maybe we read a story. And before the story begins, there's some vocabulary. We have adult reading books in our room. Lots of them. And if someone wants to improve their reading, if we know that their skills are quite low, we would work in improving their phonics. We use the Orton Gillingham method for phonics for the great part. Works well. Adults with reading problems generally have a learning disability of some sort that caused them not to be able to read well. And so we would use that approach, teaching them some word attack skills. We have some books that go right along with that, that develop it ... more practice, practice. We have them write. We have them read. And then we also have--for reading comprehension--we have a series of books that are made for adults. There's vocabulary instruction skills, break-down first ... and talk about what the word means, how to pronounce them, now read the story to find out. Maybe there's one underlying thing you want them to find out ... talk about ... what did you find out? Tell me about this, that, and the other thing.
Beth went on to point out that, typically, there are exercises in the text so that instructors do not have to manufacture all of their materials. For the Pinewood program, however, they had to "go to a little different source if [they] wanted it to be workplace related." She mused that it would have been nice to use a regular adult reading approach in the program, but that was not done. Asked why not, Beth explained:
Because that was not the goal. It was to help them improve their reading for the job.... We're going to read to find information. Because that's what they do at work. Now if they could not have done any of that [generic reading], then we would've had to go back to "go" and start to do some word attack building.
What Beth appeared to be saying here was that specific literacy must be goal directed. But she appeared also to be saying that such reading ought to be premised on an assumption of a foundation of generic literacy. If general literacy skills such as word attack or vocabulary building are not in place, then these have to be the focus prior to workplace- specific instruction. We agreed with this philosophical and pedagogical stance.
It was clear from the basic approach to curriculum and instruction taken by
the project that there was sympathy for the idea that workplace basics were
something pragmatic. There had to be a tie with what one experienced in one's
job. The purpose of reading in those circumstances was to extract information
for use. There was clear sympathy here with functional context theory. But
there was evidence of a second value at work, premised on a more generic
conception of literacy. This value, we surmise, was conditioned in great part
by the fact that Beth and her staff were fundamentally reading and ABE
teachers. They knew, as Beth alluded to in our site interview, that the
teaching of reading is difficult. The ABE focus required a broader approach to
the basics than focus on the workplace allows. If a worker was perceived to
not have fundamental skills (e.g., word attack skills), the solution was seen
as providing that worker with these basics in the context of general literacy.
This ethic was evident in the view expressed by Beth that "workplace literacy
leads to family literacy," a contentious view which, as Gowen (1992) points
out, suggests that what is good for management is ultimately good for
workers.
But we sensed a sharp difference between the tone of the King Memorial project
that Gowen describes and Skills 2000. Workers who wished to go beyond the
functional had the opportunity to so do in the Skills 2000 project. Beth spoke
with some satisfaction of workers saying that a benefit of the program was that
they could help their kids when they brought home their books.
One plausible effect of the involvement of vocational institutions in workplace literacy programming is that lessons learned can redound to the benefit of the regular curriculum. We asked Beth to consider this assertion. She agreed that the college had learned from the experience. They indeed know a bit more now about contemporary workplace conditions. They have acquired new capabilities with respect to reading literacy, which has helped them to be even more effective in diagnosing and remedying the basic skill needs of students.
What needs to be reflected upon here is whether North Oaks' role in the Skills 2000 project has been instructive for vocational institutions. What can other vocational institutions learn from the project? To address this basic evaluative question, we reflect upon (1) the disposition of the college as a literacy provider, (2) the processes embarked upon during the project, and (3) outcomes of the project.
A positive lesson to be learned from North Oaks is that, like Redwood Technical, it had over the years established a customized services capability that allows it the flexibility to collaborate with corporate clients to deliver training. But beyond working with corporate clients, the college had developed the capability to work with adults not only in meeting their technical skills training needs, but also their general education needs, through its ABE and developmental studies programming. The college had deliberately sought to improve its capability here through staff development efforts that drew it into partnership with university-based expertise. The college could now draw on this expertise as needed. This willingness to partner, and the professional relationships thus forged, provided a key link in the approach to the project. Hiring a literacy consultant was a progressive move that becomes evident as one examines the processes employed by the college during the project, notably, the controls that were put in place (such as pre- and posttesting of workers). When called upon, the college was ready to respond because it had the trained staff it needed, along with access to high quality advice on workplace literacy issues and procedures.
The noteworthy processes in which the college was engaged included the following: (1) working collegially with the education and development staff of the company, (2) dealing directly with workers in their workplace (e.g., holding worker interviews to determine the nature and level of workplace reading materials, (3) pre- and posttesting, and (4) curriculum design.
A crucial aspect of the partnership between a vocational institution and a company is that rapport be established with the human resource personnel of the company. Companies rely on their human resource departments for guidance on training issues such as the engagement of a suitable vendor. Rapport with these departments allows a closer scrutiny of company needs and of what is possible (e.g., the amount of training time that the company will tolerate, modes of delivery that suit workers, and other cultural factors pertaining to training that human resource professionals would have come to know). North Oaks' staff had cultivated such rapport with the education and development professionals at Pinewood. This collegiality created a proper framework for the college that allowed it to perform tasks (e.g., interviewing and testing) that could otherwise have been logistically and politically difficult.
To understand worker needs it is necessary to gain firsthand knowledge of their workplace circumstances. The college demonstrated capability to do this by having its customized training staff work directly with workers and their supervisors in their work settings in order to gain data that would lead to more credible and relevant curricula. Working in concert with workers in this way assured a degree of political support for and ownership of courses. That important safety-related documents were rewritten on the basis of direct contact with workers in the workplace could only have enhanced the credibility of the college staff, making the promotion of the instructional program easier.
A major feature of the project was the establishment of a framework that allowed the measurement of gain. The college was able to do this by establishing baseline data through pretesting and a collection of normative data through an assessment of actual levels of basic skills required in the workplace. These controls enabled the company to see gain (especially in math) and, thus, to feel that their investment was justified. While the establishment of pre- and postmeasures on their own does not assure the elimination of error in forming judgment about the efficacy of such programs, it does allow at least a crude measure of the effect of instruction. The establishment of such measures would seem to be a feature that colleges should include in the structures they establish when they become involved in workplace literacy programs.
Consistent with functional context theory, the college made a direct link between materials used in the workplace and the curriculum. What made the design noteworthy was that it was premised upon generic literacy skills such as word attack being in place. If these were not in place, then the design was such that a worker, at company expense, could attend classes at the college to acquire these generic skills, independent of a workplace focus. This premise of specific literacy being contingent upon generic literacy was noteworthy.
Under this heading, we draw attention to the practice of decontextualizing
workplace skills for the purpose of curriculum and instruction. While there is
a case for abstracting math and reading skills across occupations for
efficiency purposes, it might be sounder pedagogy in some instances (e.g.,
reading a rule, a micrometer, or a blueprint) to not abstract these skills and,
instead, to teach them in their natural confines, that is, on the job (Diehl
& Mikulecky, 1980; Gee, 1988; Resnick, 1990).
The more vocational institutions take the approach of decontextualizing
workplace-based curricula, the less they draw on their own unique strengths, at
the forefront of which is practicality. In short, basic skills should be tied
to technical skills as much as possible, or else the work of the vocational
institution would not be distinguishable from that of another provider.
To illustrate this point dramatically, our visit to Pinewood revealed that the company had embarked upon a new approach to basic skills training that was less dependent on the college. They had invested in a new interactive computer system, allowing for self-paced instruction on-site at the discretion of workers. They were experimenting with this new instructional model. The following excerpt from our interview with Nicole (company trainer) is instructive:
Researcher: Now, is the project still ongoing?
Nicole: The most recent group that we just had go through were the chemical technical technicians. There were eight of them, and they went through each of the steps of the process. It was determined that five needed to take some additional math training and one needed to take some training in reading. Now the difference here was where they got the training [emphasis added]. We have an interactive self-paced video learning lab here in the plant. And it was just operational December 5 of this last year. So it's only been up for a few months, about six, seven months. And with this group, we decided to pilot our basic math, reading, and writing skills program using them. And so they went through this interactive video series here in-plant. That's how they received their training.
Researcher: Interesting ...
Nicole: It's Beyond Words, [a commercially available] program. And we just got really high, high marks from the employees who went through on that program. They liked it. They liked being able to go at their own pace and on their own. The confidentiality so nobody else knew what it was that they were working on or if there were things that they were struggling with it, and [if] it took them longer to get through a lesson, nobody else needed to know that. They were completely on their own. They also scheduled their own time in. When they had time available, they got to do it on work time also, but they had to judge for themselves when they could get some free time or get somebody to cover for them to go into the lab to spend time.
Researcher: Now that curriculum, was that canned, or was that designed by the tech college too?
Nicole: No, that's canned curriculum. It was developed for eighth to twelfth grade level skills. And its intent, I guess, originally, was to prepare people to take the GED if they had not graduated from high school. But anyway, it takes them through what's normally taught through the twelfth grade level.
Researcher: So these people here had no real contact with the tech college?
Nicole: No. Correct. Well. They did in this part. They were surveyed, and then they were interviewed, but not for the class.
Researcher: OK. So what the tech college did here was to identify these people through the needs analysis?
Nicole: Yes, identify what needs were by looking at the materials that they needed to use on the job.
Researcher: But then, since the curriculum was canned and computerized... prescribed maybe by grade level, but beyond that ... one of the things it would seem they can't get would be the relatedness with their work ...
Nicole: Correct. Right. That's missing. If they don't get the job specific they have to figure out the application themselves [emphasis added]. So whereas with the chem tech, they're doing things like adding chemicals so that as things evaporate or are used up or whatever that the bath stays the right percentage of different chemicals. So they check that out and they have to add different amounts of chemicals, and that's an example that would have been real helpful in the technical college. They could have talked about those specifics. Well, if the tank is at this level and we have to figure out, I don't know what all they do, but anyway, they could have explained, and the tech college would have come up with some examples using that specific job-related type of example. And so that was missing. What we did have was a person in this area (now that made it real nice for this area) who is a math expert. He was a math instructor at the college level beforehand. And he was available as a resource for these people if they ran into problems. Of course he works right in that area so he could help share some examples of how they could be able to apply it on the job. That worked real nice in that area. We know we don't have that in all areas. And he's not available for all areas. He helped there because it's their people. So we may, and I've talked with the technical colleges about this, we may need some tutoring help with people as they go through these math, reading, and writing classes where, when they run into problems with the interactive video and there's no instructor there to answer their questions, we could send them over to the technical college.
Further conversation with Nicole revealed that the company was thinking about
fulfilling all or most of its basic skills requirements according to this pilot
model. She explained that since people have different learning styles, some
workers may not relish working on a computer, and these workers could go to the
technical college. The role of the college would be confined to needs
assessment, testing, and tutoring.
Interactive equipment is a high-tech way to substitute for the services of a
technical college. But there are less sophisticated solutions. The college,
after all, relied on standard classrooms and expert instructors. If the
problem is to deliver decontextualized basic skills, other providers, such as
public schools, can plausibly lay claim to the same skills.
As in Case 1, this case revolved around a vocational institution, North Oaks Technical College, and the philosophy, dispositions, and processes it brought to bear in fashioning a workplace literacy program according to the designs of a high-tech manufacturing company. In our view, based on evidence, such as was found at Redwood Technical College, North Oaks Technical College could point to some potential advantages that it might have over other providers. These advantages include the following:
Beyond these advantages which it shared with Redwood, North Oaks had an additional important capability--a tradition of offering ABE side-by-side with regular vocational programming, along with remedial capability for vocational students when needed. This ABE function had resulted in the college acquiring capability in reading instruction, not only at the functional, but also at the generic level. This was a very significant dimension of the claims that North Oaks has made regarding its comparative advantage in the workplace literacy enterprise.