Mobile Learning for Low-Literacy Adults

The potential for mobile learning in professional development is exciting to consider.  The ability to provide training on-demand and in-context will greatly improve the effectiveness of training on organizational development. Furthermore, by providing training as needed in the workplace without travel to a professional development session could result in considerable cost-savings for organizations, in the form of less down time and reduction of costly training sessions. However, this potential is tempered somewhat by barriers such as lack of access to broadband and/or compatible devices.  Another barrier encountered in the workplace is the skill level of the employee.  Up until very recently in my organization, custodians and student monitors did not have online access to our system.  We encountered resistance to moving some of the more low-tech and casual employees online such for a variety of reasons. Some of the reasons cited for this resistance were:

  1. they did not require access to the technology to complete the primary tasks of their job,
  2. the notion that most employees in these groups did not have the technical capability to use the tools provided

The first reason is increasingly becoming untrue.  The ability to print their paystub, access critical job related information, order supplies and report issues are gradually moving solely online.  Additionally, most people today own a mobile phone so they may already have the technology, it is just not being used in the workplace.  For now, however, I would like to explore in depth the validity of the second reason given.

What The Research Says

A key piece of research regarding adult learners is a multi-cycle international programme of assessment of adult skills and competencies initiated by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) which aims to collect the information of residents from several countries, including Canada.  The study is called the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) which focuses on key “information processing skills” such as literacy, numeracy, and problem solving in technology-rich environments (PS-TRE).  We can gather ample information about our international ranking collected for the OECD but would like to focus on the data specific to our country gathered by Statistics Canada.  The research uses the initial wave of the new Canadian Longitudinal and International Study of Adults (LISA) using international scales developed for the PIAAC. This study explored how skill levels are spread between low income and non-low income groups and it was discovered that there is an important relationship between low income and low skills that persists even after controlling for other characteristics known to increase the risk of low income for Canadians.  An Executive Summary of the results concludes that the 25 to 34 age cohort score highest in all the areas, where older age groups score lower; and individuals aged 16 to 24 and 25 to 34 are more capable in PS-TRE.  Another key determinant of information processing skills is educational attainment.  Obtaining a custodian or student monitor position at our board does not require a high school diploma.  While the majority of those hired today have one, some of our more senior employees do not.  As illustrated in the chart below, lower educational attainment correlates with lower PS-TRE scores.   Therefore, this study supports the notion that most employees in these groups have lower PS-TRE skills, which means we need to consider this in designing professional development for them.

What Can We Do?

There are several issues to consider as we tackle the challenge of training and communicating with our custodial staff using technological means.   The portability and affordability of mobile devices offers a realistic opportunity to provide new, context-sensitive resources to our employees to help them complete the tasks they were hired to do.  Not that long ago we were banning them from classrooms and now they are being used as a tool for learning.  It isn’t a stretch to think that the same is going to happen in the workplace as well.  The struggle with the workplace however, is that the learning group is not as homogeneous as the typical classroom.  The trainees vary in age from 18 to 65+ and bring with them various types of life experiences, expertise and skills but there are some methods that might help low scoring PS-TRE employees make the transition to a more technical environment:

Tap into the 2-8% who have high PS-TRE.  With such a group there are some who are proficient using the technology.  When providing group training you will be able to identify the proficient users.  By utilizing their expertise, and having them aid their peers, you will not only make them feel valued but you will also provide a peer resource for those who are struggling.  In our schools we have designated teachers who are technical consultants who help their fellow teachers who are struggling.  Our custodians can either work with them, and/or we can identify technical consultants in their own custodial group who would be a resource when needed.

Source out technology that is less text based.  Those with low text and computer literacy are challenged because up until recently, most activities online were highly text based.  But technology is advancing and on-line interaction is moving away from strictly text based to be more like a face-to-face interaction.  We now have Skype for Business available to all our employees which allows them to have a meeting with others in the organization over the internet.  Increasingly, we communicate new initiatives and provide training using videos rather than text based materials.   The language used is still English but it also provides an opportunity to observe visual cues, tone of voice and other methods that help in communication, whether in cyberspace or face-to-face.

Utilize mobile assistive technologies to provide practical support to low-literacy adults.  A study titled the ALEX project was completed in 2012 by Munteanu et al  in partnership with the Government of New Brunswick’s Community Adult Learning Program (CALP) that focused on the effectiveness of mobile assistive technology for low-literacy adults.  ALEX is a mobile application designed for use by low-literacy adults to become increasingly literate and independent.  It took some time, especially for the older students to get comfortable with the use of this tool but once they did it greatly increased their confidence and independence.  However, some participants expressed reservations about using ALEX on the job due to employer policy against using cellphones, potentially damaging the mobile phone while working, or feeling their supervisor would view the use as suspicious.  By allowing the use of a mobile as a supportive tool aiding them in doing their job we would be serving both the organization as well as the employee.

The acceptance of mobile technology in the classroom will hopefully be followed by tapping into the potential use of the technology to provide in-context assistance and training in the workplace.  By denying access to our custodial group we are contributing to the digital divide, putting them, and our organization at a disadvantage.  Instead, we should take look at the advantages we could bring to our employees by providing a mobile friendly environment and teaching them to use the technology to perform a better job.

 

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