Using the Out-of-School Youth Literacy Assessment (OLA)

Group Submission Type: Pre-conference Workshop

Description of Session

With the current worldwide disruption to learning, the need for alternative education programs to support literacy acquisition for older youth and adults is likely to become ever more urgent. Facilitators and program managers need reliable, tested tools to place students at the appropriate levels and measure learning gains. The Out-of-School Youth Literacy Assessment (OLA) was developed by Education Development Center to measure literacy skills of older youth and young adults, whose learning needs are different from those of young children attending primary school. In addition to measuring foundational reading and writing skills, the assessment incorporates real-life reading items which document the functional literacy skills that youth and adults may have acquired without formal literacy instruction. It is designed to be easily modified for different alphabetic language and cultures, and has been adapted for use in Liberia, Rwanda, Mali, the Philippines, Guyana and Sierra Leone. The OLA has been identified by USAID as a suggested reading assessment tool for measuring youth reading skills . In this workshop, participants will be introduced to the tool and its uses. They will learn the procedure for adapting the instrument to local contexts, administering the assessment, and analyzing and using results. They will also hear lessons learned from implementers in various countries and discuss a road map for continued development. The first part of the workshop is geared toward all levels of program implementers, while the second part will delve more deeply into technical issues for monitoring and evaluation professionals.
Workshop Rationale:
Learning objectives:
By the end of this workshop, participants will:
a) Understand the range of appropriate uses of OLA
b) Know the domains that the OLA measures and have a basic understanding of the test structure and items
c) Identify promising practices for test adaptation, administration and use based on field experiences
d) Understand the steps involved in adapting the tool to local context
e) Know the administration procedures and basic steps for data analysis
Organization and delivery plan:
The workshop will be structured in two parts of 3 hours each. In the first part, participants will be introduced to the OLA, hear a brief overview of the tool development process and learn about how it has been used in various contexts. In small groups, participants will review the administrator’s guide and learner stimulus from an English language assessment to gain an understanding of how the test is structured and the key domains covered. In the second part of the workshop, participants will learn about the adaptation process, and discuss how they might apply it to their own context. They will also review the administration training guide and discuss best practice for test administration. Finally, they will learn and practice steps for data analysis and discuss ideas for continued development of the OLA.

Sub Unit

• Pre-Conference Workshops, Book launches, and Art Exhibits / Pre-Conference Workshop

Workshop Organizer

• Mary F. Sugrue, Education Development Center (EDC)

Presenter

• Brittany Hebert, Education Development Center (EDC)