Numeracy for adults: building skills with online learning links

5. Conclusion and recommendations

The learning links approach shows promise as a cost-effective way to increase the numeracy skills of adults in vocational training.

• All five workers made significant progress, independently, in a small number of hours and a short time frame.
  
• All of the workers were able to transfer their new knowledge and skills to various tasks, both at work and in the home.

Clearly identifying where workers’ skills were insufficient to meet the numeracy demands of the qualification and directing learning at this “gap” appears to be key to the success of the approach.

• The learning progressions for adult numeracy enabled this approach.
  
• Workers may be at different starting points on the progression towards the required numeracy knowledge and skills but learning must start from their existing understandings.

Further investigation of the approach seems warranted on the basis of the success of this small-scale investigation. In particular, the scalability of the approach could be explored. In this regard, several requirements need to be met to enable the approach to be successfully applied to any qualification and scaled up. These include:

• clear identification of the specific numeracy demands of the qualification
  
• an effective method to identify apprentices with skills that are insufficient to meet the specific numeracy demands of the qualification
  
• clear and specific identification of the required numeracy for tasks within existing learner resources. This would enable learners to be directed to online learning activities from within these resources
  
• clear identification of the progression of learning towards any required numeracy. The learning progressions for adult numeracy provide a useful framework for this process
  
• quality online learning activities. These need to cover the required content, use cognitively demanding tasks, provide immediate feedback and guidance, and be accessible and easy for adult learners to use. The establishment of a bank of appropriate activities that can be used by large numbers of learners would be most cost-effective
  
• workers need to understand the purpose of the online activities; they need to know that they are developing the numeracy knowledge and skills required for the qualification. Clear identification of the purpose of learning will increase learner motivation.