The Invention
of NewStart Life Skills Training
An excerpt adapted from Evaluating Social
Innovations by Stuart Conger
The Life Skills concept evolved out of a search for
more powerful counselling/learning methods for helping people learn the
psychological and social skills needed for coping with the predictable
developmental problems of life. The theory and concept of Life Skills training
was originally expressed by Adkins and Rosenberg (1965).[1]
Saskatchewan NewStart was an experimental adult
education laboratory located in Prince Albert, SK. It was charged with the mission of creating
methods of counselling and training for adults who were disadvantaged as to
their educational level. In 1968, at
Saskatchewan NewStart, a team of a dozen educators, social workers and
psychologists led by Himsl (1972 a, 1972 b) endeavoured to prepare and pilot
the first NewStart Life Skills course.
It was expected
that the new course would be used across the country in the adult retraining
programs managed by the provinces. It was necessary, therefore, to thoroughly
evaluate the course and to give other training sites the opportunity to see the
course being taught, and to know the full requirements of an institution in
conducting the course. For this reason the development of the Life Skills
course extended beyond the lesson plans to include any administrative
arrangements that were deemed essential to the conduct of the course.
Creating a social innovation such as NewStart Life
Skills ideally begins with a concept of what should be, and then determines
what might be done to move toward that concept. The concept itself is developed
in five somewhat overlapping stages:
1. a review of the nature of the problem area
2. a summary of attempted solutions to date
3. a review of the theoretical and research literature
4. a study of the requirements of the situation,
5. and assessment of various theories and methods of
intervention.
The resulting concept is the basis for action
planning:
1. preliminary specifications for the desired outcomes
2. identifying the skills or other factors required to
achieve the outcomes
3. and designing the broad strategies to achieve these
goals.
The concept study was a crucial support in the
invention of Life Skills. Reflecting on this, Mary Jean Martin, who was a
principal developer of Life Skills training, observed privately to me: “Theory
is essential as a starting point. I found that out in other programs I worked
on after I left NewStart. I always had to sort out what they were trying to do
before I could figure out how to do it and then how to evaluate it. Others
seemed to think any idea would do!”
With the concept paper
clearly and cleanly worked through it becomes time to try things out.
The Pilot Test
The Life Skills Pilot Test examined the efficacy of
the original orientation for the program, which was to teach communication
skills. This orientation was based on
the assumption that the target population was limited in its ability to orally
explain their own knowledge, ideas and feelings and as a result found
themselves at a disadvantage in many situations. In the Pilot Test it became readily apparent
that this assumption had merit, as the students clearly communicated with
fellow students as well as staff much more freely, openly and effectively as
the course progressed.
The Pilot test used a number of research and
development techniques and processes, including
1. the observation room
2. coach’s diagnosis
3. on-site evaluators
4. observation by lesson developers
5. developer response
The Observation
Room
An important tool for running the Pilot Test was the
observation room – a space separated from the group rooms by sheets of one-way
glass. Course developers and evaluators
used the room with its one-way glass and sound system for observing the
classes. The students were fully aware of the observation room and its uses.
Mary Jean Martin wrote to me about the value of the observation room as follows:
Feedback from the observation room was very helpful,
especially early on to get a real FEEL of what would work. We had a good
relationship with the [Life Skills] coaches and with the students. One incident
I recall was when a group was really struggling and the coach was floundering.
One of the students called out, "Martin if you are in there watching this,
please come in and join us. We need help." At which point I replied,
"I'm not here." I of course went in and joined them and together we
worked out the problem they were having, but also the problem the coach was
having. That was much more effective than if the coach had reported the
incident after the fact and might have been hesitant to admit having a problem.
We all worked together. I was in the
observation room a lot and took notes to improve lesson plans both for the
teaching by the coach and the learning by the student.[2]
Coach's Diagnosis/Prescription For Behavior Change
The purpose of
this study was to permit the coach to specify which skills need emphasis for
each student, and to specify the technique to bring about the desired behavior.
The requirements of this form pinpointed the coaches' inability to diagnose
skill failure and to devise a corrective instructional plan. It also revealed that
the coaches often lacked the instructional skill of insisting on adherence to a
behavioural contract. As a result modifications of the coach training course
placed greater emphasis on the diagnosis of skill failure and introduced some
techniques of behavior modification methodology, e.g. "the pin
point", "set goal" and "record progress” sequence.
On-site
Evaluators
Along with the developers, two evaluators (a social
worker and a sociologist) observed the progress, or lack thereof, during the
lessons. The evaluators gave the developers and the Life Skills coaches
feedback on their skills in conducting the program, and gave the developers
feedback (as did the coaches) on lessons that did not work as well as they
might have, and offered suggestions for strengthening them.
It was important
to position the evaluation as an internal team function, integrated into action
and ongoing interpretive processes. The evaluators in the observation booth
designed their process to capture system dynamics, interdependencies, models
and emergent interconnections. Their aim was to produce context-specific
understandings that informed ongoing course development. The evaluators
designed an evaluation process that matched philosophically with the
developers’ principles and objectives. Evaluation at this stage supported
ongoing learning.
The evaluators
watched all training sessions for a period of two months. During the sessions
all the behaviors manifested by the students were recorded. These behaviors
were categorized along three dimensions of the Life Skills Process/Content
model. Use of knowledge, use of group, and problem solving). The observers
attempted to classify each behavior on each of the three dimensions of the model.
30.5% of the total observations were assigned to the Student Use of Knowledge
Dimension, 38.7% to the Student Use of Group Dimension and 30.8% to the Problem
Solving Dimension. Of the total of the number of observations assigned the
latter dimension 25.8% were assigned, to the "not relevant to problem
solving" category. This seemed to indicate an observer inability to detect
problem solving behaviors when used by other people. Attention turned to the
resolution of this difficulty.
The evaluators conducted interviews with the students
two months after they completed the course. They found that the graduates had
the same problems as before with friends, family, neighbours, employers and
landlords. The environment they had to return to had not changed, and their
problems had not changed. How they dealt with them, how they coped with them,
how they got away from them, all these factors needed to be considered in
evaluating the students’ success, and subsequently the program's success.
Observation by
Lesson Developers
In this procedure, the course developers assessed the
effectiveness of course materials. An observation form/guideline was developed
for the recording of the developers’ observations of each lesson. It was found that reporting on specifics of
the written materials (clarity, timings, sequencing, completeness of
directions) was a very useful approach. The observers' reports indicated that
although the lessons provided skill objectives, frequently the level of
achievement of the skills was "not specific enough”. Also the reports
revealed a need for greater skill practice in order to facilitate transfer of
the skills learned. As a result of this information the Life Skills lessons now
include opportunities for the students to teach their newly acquired skills, in
order to facilitate skill training transfer (the PUT model (practice, use,
teach), from Curtiss and Warren, 1973, p. 15).
Saskatchewan NewStart did not conduct formal
experiments to test the value of alternative methods but with two classes being
coached each half day it was possible to have more than one coach and
more than one group trying the same lessons. The dynamics were often very
different as was seen from the observation room. It was possible to see how the same lesson
was used in two situations simultaneously, not just in one as would have been the case if the developers
had to sit at the back of one classroom.
The Stimulus and the Objective Enquiry phases were
presented in the same or a similar way in each room, but the Evocation often
took different directions because there was more input from the students than
from the coach. The skills development phase also took different directions as
again there was more student input and was different for each student not just
the two groups.
The challenge for the development evaluation was to
check on the flexibility of the lesson plans to accommodate these circumstances
and the extent to which the lessons achieved their goals in spite of the
variations.
Developer Response
As a result of
this feedback from the Pilot Test, the developers redefined the original
orientation of the course from communications to problem solving and in this
process defined Life Skills as using problem solving skills responsibly and
appropriately in such life situations as self, family, community, work, and use
of leisure time[3]. In
addition, the development team added Evaluation to the Adkins and Rosenberg
model as the fifth and final step of the NLS lesson plan (Conger, 1969; Martin & Himsl, 1973).
The field test
was conducted in a regular adult training centre. The first hypothesis was that
adult students who studied mathematics, English and science all day long would
do no better than students who studied these subjects for just half a day and
took the life skills course the other half day. The second hypothesis was that
the dropout rate would be higher among the former group (an objective measure
of life skills). Both hypotheses were
sustained.
Evaluator
follow-up interviews with graduates of the second, and revised, course reported
such incidents as the following:
This young man got a job planting
trees. A supervisor walked by him and yelled at him that he was doing the job
wrong. He reported that his first impulse was to walk off the job, his second
to punch the guy in the face! Instead, remembering his Life Skills training he
stood tall and asked the supervisor to show him the correct way to do the job.
Instead of firing him, the supervisor looked surprised and showed him how he
wanted him to do the job.
This summative evaluation was instrumental in
marketing life skills training.
Adkins, W., and
S. Rosenberg 1965, Training Resources for Youth, Bedford-Stuyvesant, YMCA Brooklyn, N.Y.
Conger, D. S.
(1969). Life skills skills.
Memorandum. Training Research and Development Station, Manpower and
Immigration. Prince Albert, SK.
Gamble, J. A.
A., A Developmental Evaluation Primer, J. W. McConnell Family Foundation,
Montreal
http://www.mcconnellfoundation.ca/assets/Media%20Library/Publications/A%20Developmental%20Evaluation%20Primer%20‑%20EN.pdf
Himsl, R and M J Martin (1972) Readings in Life
Skills, Saskatchewan NewStart, Prince Albert
Himsl, R and M J
Martin (1972) Life Skills Coaching Manual, Saskatchewan NewStart, Prince Albert
Martin, M, and R. Himsl, Evaluating Student Progress
in a Life Skills Course, in Readings in Life Skills Saskatchewan NewStart,
Prince Albert, 1973
Martin, M. J., & Himsl, R. (1973). The life skills
lesson. In V. Mullen (Ed.), Readings in
life skills (pp. 26-39). Prince Albert, SK: Department of Manpower and
Immigration.
Warren P, and A. Lamrock, Evaluation of the life Skills
Course, in Readings in Life Skills Saskatchewan NewStart, Prince Albert,
1973
________________________________ _____________________________________
Stuart Conger
16 Saddlehorn Crescent, Kanata, ON
K2M 1X2 Canada
Correspondence may be addressed to the author at: stu.conger@sympatico.ca
[1] The Adkins and Rosenberg original concept of the
teaching process had four components as described in the box below.
|
Stimulus |
A short video, case study or problem related to the
lesson subject. |
|
Evocation |
With
the stimulus as a start, the class discusses what they know, think about the
topic and have experienced |
|
Objective
enquiry |
A
research activity to determine what others, especially experts and
knowledgeable people know about the topic. |
|
Skill
development |
Practice
using the knowledge and skills discovered through evocation and objective
enquiry |
[2] When a delegation of Canadian Senators came to inspect
Saskatchewan NewStart and saw the use being made of the observation room they
realized that we were very serious about doing our very best. Their reaction
was very helpful in getting further funding and acceptance of our projects.
[3] The power of the problem solving approach moving through to the skill
development phase as opposed to the communication approach was that the student
did not just talk about a situation but had to come up with a plan and execute
and evaluate that plan. This behavioural emphasis was crucial, and owed its
origin to the findings of the concept study.