Nurturing and Nudging Adult Learners through Text Messaging: Final Report from the Technology-Based Coaching in Adult Education (TBCAE) Project

The Technology-Based Coaching in Adult Education (TBCAE) Final Report provides the context for the increased interest in the use of text messaging with adult basic education learners and describes the results from the TBCAE project. The project explored how text messaging can be used to support adult basic education learners’ program participation and success and involved 420 adult learners from 10 adult basic education programs in four states. The final report discusses how the use of individual and personalized text messaging with adult basic education learners supported them in working toward their education goals, including earning a high-school equivalency credential, completing an Integrating Education and Training Program, and enrolling in postsecondary education. The report provides data about the types of text messages that adult education program staff sent to adult learners, the range of content addressed in those text messages, staff’s approach to using text messages to support learners, and the types of progress toward their goals that learners achieved. A key finding was that individual and personalized text messages can support and prompt learners to engage in the myriad activities that they must complete to achieve their longer-term education goals. Adult basic education program leadership and staff can use the report to stimulate discussion about the ways in which individual and personalized text messaging could assist their program participants in remaining engaged and in making progress toward their goals. This report can also be used in conjunction with the TBCAE Toolkit, which provides detailed guidance for planning and implementing individual and customized text messaging as an integral part of an adult basic education program. 

Adult educators can use this resource to learn about the ways in which individual and personalized text messaging has been use with adult basic education learners, including the types of text messages that were exchanged between learners and staff and the types of  progress that learners made in working to earn a high-school equivalency credential, participate in an Integrated Education and Training Program, and enroll in postsecondary education. Program leadership and staff can use this document to guide a discussion about the potential use of individual and personalized text messaging as a formal part of the operation of an adult basic education program. Adult education program leadership and  would benefit from reading this resource along with the TBCAE Toolkit that is also in the LINCS Resource Collection. 

The document is succinct so that adult educators can read the whole document. The section of the document that provides the results from the use of text-messaging is the most significant.