Adult Basic Education Teacher Competencies: Implications for Community Colleges

Abstract

This study examines previous studies concerned with Adult Basic Education (ABE) teacher competencies to corroborate their findings and to discuss the competencies in relation to their implications for ABE teacher training where the community college is the agency responsible for the administration of ABE programs.

Adult Basic Education teachers and administrators in five New England states were asked to rate 17 areas of teacher competency as derived from Mocker (1974). Five exploratory hypotheses of no difference between the two groups were postulated and analyzed using t tests. A sixth hypothesis of no difference in ranking of the competencies was also postulated and analyzed via the Spearman Rho.

No significant differences were revealed in analysis, thus supporting Mocker's findings. Implications of the findings for training community college teachers of ABE are then discussed in the context of relating training objectives to validated competencies.