A UK-IRELAND INVESTIGATION INTO THE STATISTICAL EVIDENCE-BASE UNDERPINNING ADULT LEARNING AND EDUCATION POLICY-MAKING

该项目始于观察到成人学习和教育(ALE)的参与率在过去15年中显著下降。这在经济、商业、教育和更广泛的社会政策领域引起了许多利益攸关方的极大关注。除了在更大范围内促进经济和社会效益外，研究还证明了在健康和福祉领域学习对个人的好处。在英国，威尔士、苏格兰和北爱尔兰的权力下放政府负责教育和培训，并制定自己的政策，以找到本国经济和社会需求的答案；在英格兰，成人教育在某些地区已被下放为地区政府“定居点”的一部分。本项目从以下观察开始：a.英国四个国家的成人能力评估数据不是常规可用，特别是在被移交的国家决定不参加即将到来的经合组织成人能力国际评估计划(PIAAC)之后；b.现有的成人能力评估数据分析往往过于描述性，不涉及分析随时间推移的趋势，不同的数据来源对待参与度的衡量方式也不同；c.研究比较了欧洲各国成人能力评估方法的差异，倾向于将联合王国视为一个实体。这个项目的主要目标是(1)调查英国和爱尔兰四个国家(包括在已经存在的ALE工作组中)当前ALE统计证据基础的一致性，(2)更好地了解过去25年来针对经济、社会和政治变化的参与率下降的原因，(3)调查英国权力下放政府之间ALE话语的趋同和分歧，特别关注基于证据的政策制定的作用。这将通过三个相互关联的工作包来促进：关于审查在英国进行的调查的WP1，以调查概念、测量和结果的可靠性；WP2，通过分析学习与工作研究所的成人参与学习(APIL)调查的数据，从事关于参与成人学习和随时间推移的教育趋势的统计分析；WP3，通过借鉴国内比较，解开下放国家的ALE话语。研究结果将向学术和非学术受众传播，以产生影响，并鼓励人们接受循证决策。

This project starts from the observation that participation rates in Adult Learning and Education (ALE) have significantly declined over the past 15 years. This has caused significant concern to many stakeholders in the areas of economy, business, education and wider social policies. Apart from facilitating economic and societal benefits at a larger scale, research has also demonstrated individual benefits of learning in the areas of health and wellbeing. Within the UK, devolved administrations in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are in charge of education and training and design their own policies in finding answers to their own countries' economic and societal needs; within England, adult learning has in some areas been devolved as part of regional government 'settlements'. This project starts from the observation that:A. Data on ALE are not routinely available in the four countries of the UK, especially not since devolved countries have decided not to participate in the upcoming OECD's Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC);B. Existing analyses of ALE data tend to be overly descriptive and do not engage with analysing trends over time and different data sources treat the measurement of participation differently;C. Studies have compared difference in ALE approaches across countries in Europe and tend to treat the UK as one entity. A comprehensive study comparing ALE data and policy approaches across the home nations of the UK is lacking from the knowledge base.The main ambitions of this project are (1) to investigate the (lack of) consistency of the current statistical evidence base on ALE across the four countries of the UK and Ireland (which is included in an already existing ALE working group), (2) to better understand the decline in participation against economic, societal and political changes in the past 25 years, (3) to investigate convergence and divergence of ALE discourses between the devolved administrations of the UK with a specific focus on the role of evidence-based policy making. This will be facilitated through three interconnected work packages: WP1 on the review of surveys carried out in the UK to investigate concepts, measurements and reliability of results; WP2 to engage in statistical analyses on participation in adult learning and education trends over time through analyses of data from the Learning & Work Institute's Adult Participation in Learning (APiL) survey; and WP3 to unpack ALE discourses in the devolved nations through drawing on home comparisons. Findings will be disseminated to academic and non-academic audiences to generate impact and to stimulate the uptake of evidence-based policy-making.