The Department of Labour (the Department) is responsible for a crossgovernment programme of research and evaluation on workforce literacy, language and numeracy skills. Its purpose is to build the evidence base to inform practice and policy development around improving adult literacy, language and numeracy skills. This is in partnership with the Tertiary Education Commission, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Social Development.
The New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) conducted the research for the Department of Labour (DOL) in four phases:
1. literature review (Whatman, Schagen, Vaughan & Landers, 2009) and the annotated bibliography (Whatman & Robertson, 2009)
2. key informant interviews (Whatman, 2009)
3. case studies (Whatman, Brooking, Robertson, & Spiller, 2009)
4. exemplar of good practice (Whatman & Twist, 2009). The exemplar is a table listing factors that have a strong, moderate or low association with successful LLN learning. The success indicators were first derived from the literature review, with further indicators added in the key informant and case study phases.
Purpose
NZCER wanted to answer three questions about young people’s engagement in LLN:
- How do young people best develop their LLN skills post-school (including in specific senior secondary school contexts)?
- What are the different ways LLN is delivered to young people through training and education programmes, and what evidence is there for the effectivenes of these programmes? (To what extent do programmes embed/integrate LLN?)
- How are young people best engaged, recruited, retained and supported in education and training programmes, so as to meet their LLN needs?