The Adult Literacy and Adult Education SIG (ALAE) is dedicated to research, development, policy, and practice in adult literacy and adult education. The group takes an interdisciplinary, lifespan perspective on learning and instruction among diverse populations.听 听
The Adult Literacy and Adult Education (ALAE) SIG is one of the few places in 熊猫视频to connect with researchers working with adult populations. We also offer听opportunities to be a听part of the community of adult education researchers,听to meet people who work with or have connections to institutions that fund research, hire adult education researchers, and publish adult education manuscripts. We are听always growing听our vibrant scholarly community. Please invite your colleagues and graduate students to join our SIG. If you are not already an 熊猫视频member, go to the website.听 Be sure to select the听ALAE membership ($10). If you are already an 熊猫视频member, you can update your existing membership online through the 熊猫视频site and by听selecting our Special Interest Group as one of your SIGs (note: we are听ALAE SIG #4).
As your elected officers, we are happy to serve you and the field!
Thank you to all who served as reviewers for the 2026 熊猫视频Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, CA (April 8-12)! See the Meetings and Other Events page for a flyer with all the ALAE SIG sessions at the annual meeting.
Please remember to keep听checking this听ALAE SIG webpage听for ongoing updates. We always invite everyone in the SIG to e-mail us (etighe@gsu.edu) something special that happened in the past month related to their work or exciting announcements. Please share big things - like being awarded a large grant, an appointment as a journal editor or editor of a book, or a call for manuscripts. Also, please consider sharing smaller things like an excellent article or a question for the group you would like to share.听
We sincerely appreciate your consideration and input, and we look forward to serving you while learning with/from you!
Elizabeth Tighe
ALAE SIG Chair听听
Meet the ALAE Leadership Team:
Elizabeth L. Tighe听is the ALAE Chair and is looking forward to an exciting 2026听Annual Meeting. Liz is an Associate Professor of Psychology and the Assistant Director of the Adult Literacy Research Center at Georgia State University (GSU). Her research focuses on the literacy skills and instructional needs of struggling adult readers. She has published and presented work on individual differences in adults鈥� component reading skills, assessment and measurement of reading constructs, classification of learning disabilities, and using educational technology in adult literacy classrooms. 听Her work has been funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, National Institutes of Health, and AERA. She has also tutored in multiple adult literacy classrooms in Florida and Massachusetts and has also taught high school equivalency courses in Arizona.
Amy Pickard is the Program Chair. Amy is an Assistant Professor of Adult Education at听Indiana University Bloomington. She is a qualitative researcher whose interests center on policy, equity and adult literacy education. As a former adult literacy and ABE teacher, she is interested in supporting adult learners to define their own learning needs and improving policy and programs to better meet these needs. She is particularly interested in systems-level understandings of ABE, reading and writing instruction in ABE spaces, self-directed learning of ABE students, and digital engagement of ABE teachers and adult learners.
Lindsay McHolme is the听Secretary/Treasurer.听Lindsay is an Institute of Education Sciences (IES) Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Georgia State University鈥檚 (GSU) Adult Literacy Research Center (ALRC). Her community-engaged research focuses on multilingual education in adult and secondary spaces. She holds a professional teaching certificate in secondary English Language Arts with a certification in ESOL and has taught ABE and ELL adult learners in multiple settings in Michigan,听high school EFL at a Spanish/English bilingual school in Honduras, and middle school ELA at a Spanish/English bilingual school in Michigan. She was also the director of a county-wide literacy coalition for all ages for several years, emphasizing the impact of community-engaged scholarship.听
Jennifer Kobrin is the chair of the ALAE Awards Committee. Jen is an Assistant Professor of Adult and Continuing Education at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her research focuses on how technology mediates the learning and literacy practices of adults, primarily in the context of Adult Foundational Education. Most recently, she explored adult job seekers鈥� adaptive literacy practices as they navigated across a variety of technology platforms, non-profit agencies, and government institutions. Jen also worked for decades as a practitioner in K-12 and adult education, most recently as Director of Digital Inclusion at the Office of Adult Education, City of Philadelphia.听
Margaret Patterson听is the Webmaster. Margaret is a Senior Researcher with Research Allies for Lifelong Learning in Virginia听(). She has served in听an ALAE SIG officer role for more than a decade and looks forward to keeping you informed about the latest SIG happenings.
has approved over $58 million in grants to enhance postsecondary education and workforce training for learners from low-income backgrounds. The funding supports community college workforce initiatives, strengthens institutional capacities, backs high-quality sectoral training programs, promotes evidence-based practices, and expands postsecondary education in prison. These investments target the removal of structural barriers and fostering of equitable opportunities for student success.
An exciting听Message from IEA (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement):
Are you interested in large-scale assessments?
听Some words about the ILSA Gateway: It听is an open-access platform that, for the first time, provides researchers a single entry point to major international large-scale assessments in education conducted by the following organizations: CONFEMEN (PASEC), the IDB (PRIDI), the IEA (ICCS, ICILS, PIRLS, TEDS-M, and TIMSS), IEA/UNESCO (REDS), the OECD (IELS, PIAAC, PISA, TALIS, and TALIS Starting Strong), SACMEQ (SACMEQ III, SACMEQ IV), SEAMEO/UNICEF (SEA-PLM), UNESCO (TERCE), and the World Bank (STEP).听
For each study, users can navigate to a fact sheet that provides a quick overview; read more detailed information on the study framework, design, results, and data pages; and easily access the related resources on the external study websites. The platform also features a glossary, search tool, and paper database, of which the latter allows researchers to identify relevant articles published to date in peer-reviewed journals, including secondary analyses of the above-mentioned study data.
The website is available at听.听
Download the ILSA Gateway brochure on:
Let's Keep in Touch!
Chair:听 Elizabeth Tighe, Ph.D. (etighe@gsu.edu)
Program Chair: Amy Pickard (Pickard@iu.edu)
Secretary/Treasurer: Lindsay McHolme (lmcholme@gsu.edu)
SIG Webmaster:听Margaret Patterson, Ph.D. (margaret@researchallies.org)