-An interview with the author, Ted James

In August of 2024, BCCAT released a report on student transitions from ABE programs into further studies at BC post-secondary institutions.  The study examined data from students who had taken at least one upgrading course between 2009-2023 and tracked more than 197,149 students enrolled in ABE at BC institutions.  The report was prepared by Ted James, who in addition to his work with BCCAT is a long-time ABE educator.  You can read the report and more about its purpose on the BCCAT Upgrading Programs Report page.

In order to get some insights into the report, Groundwork editors reached out to Ted James for an interview.

Question:  What is your background in ABE and how did you end up working on this project?”

Ted’s reply:

I am the former Dean of Developmental Education at Douglas College.  I served in this role for 20 years and was responsible for Adult Basic Education (ABE), English as a Second Language (ESL) and Adult Special Education (ASE).  During some of that time I was also Chair of the BC Deans and Directors of Developmental Education, as well as the Chair of the ABE Outcomes Study (1994).  I later worked as a Registrar and Director of Student Services at Douglas College, and later as registrar for the BC campus of Yorkville University.  I submitted a project proposal and was chosen to work on this report.  I have a history of working with BCCAT and other BC agencies in other areas of research, including the 2018 BCCAT report “Admissions of High School Non-Graduates to Post-Secondary Institutions in BC ” along with co-authors Patricia Beatty-Guenter and Bob Cowin.

Question: What in the report is the thing that you’d like all ABE educators to know?

Ted’s reply:

Developmental Education programming (including ABE) fulfills a significant part of the mandate of many BC public post-secondary institutions. In the 2022/23 academic year, 22,250 domestic students were taking Developmental Education courses in BC, which is 10% of the total provincial enrollment at public institutions. Since the primary role of ABE programming at these institutions is to assist students to transition into further post-secondary education which they currently do not qualify for, stakeholders are keenly interested in the outcomes of former ABE students.  While we have several decades of BC research examining these outcomes, almost all previous research was based on surveys of students about how satisfied they were with their education, whether they went on to further post-secondary studies, and how well ABE upgrading had prepared them for future education.  While these studies found high levels of student satisfaction, they were based on self-report samples and did not include students who failed to graduate. This study evaluated the success of all former ABE students who pursued post-secondary studies at the same institution where they took ABE upgrading courses. Data was compiled from BC’s Central Data Warehouse (CDW) on 197,149 students who had taken one or more ABE upgrading courses between 2009/10 and 2022/23. Fully 63% of these students subsequently enrolled in some post-secondary level education at the same institution, and 44% later earned a post-secondary credential.  Thus, 28% of the cohort progressed from ABE to earn a post-secondary credential.  Approximately 10% of all BC graduates in the same time period had completed at least one ABE upgrading course. The results suggest that ABE upgrading programs in BC public post-secondary institutions are indeed facilitating successful student transitions into further education.

Question: What, if anything, in the findings surprised you, and why?

Ted’s reply:

In general, I was not surprised by the findings: I was heartened by them.  As a former ABE educator, I’d had first-hand experience of the power of ABE education to transform lives for the better.  However, I was curious to see how consistent the success rates were over the time frame of the study, and I was pleased to see that a number of students had gone on to achieve graduate and professional degrees – that represented  a long journey of education and personal achievement.

Question: How do you see the role of groups like the ABEABC in supporting student outcomes?

Ted’s reply:

I’m afraid I can’t really answer this question because the role of the ABEABC was outside the scope of my study.  However, the report does suggest that BC in general should conduct more systematic research to fill in gaps in our understanding about particular sub-populations of students, and does suggest that BC continue to explore ways to provide financial aid to students taking upgrading programs.  So, the ABEABC group could lobby for those sorts of initiatives.

Question: What are some “big picture” things institutions could do to support ABE learners on their pathways?

Ted’s reply:

While the focus of the report was on data not recommendations, the report did offer some suggestions for further discussion and further research.  With respect to what institutions themselves could do, one of the several suggestions stands out for me:  as pathways into other programs, learning communities, and other forms of innovation in ABE curriculum and program structure may become more widespread, these changes may require re-assessing the traditional dividing line between non-credit ABE courses and credit post-secondary courses. This division potentially inhibits the transition of ABE students into undergraduate or career programs. An example of how to address this division may be the curriculum for the BC Adult Dogwood Diploma which now includes some secondary school courses, some ABE upgrading courses, and some regular post-secondary courses.