story by Claire Miller
The College of Education & Human Development’s Adult Literacy Research Center (ALRC) awarded $10,000 in grant funding among three Georgia State University students to further their research in adult literacy.
The ALRC’s new Research Support Grant Program awards up to $5,000 each to master’s and doctoral students affiliated with the center to “promote research that will support future research initiatives in adult literacy.”
Daniel Feller, a doctoral student in the college’s Department of Learning Sciences, received $3,333 for his project entitled, “Exploring the Ability of Struggling Adult Readers to Generate Bridging Inferences in Visual Narratives: A Comparison of Eye Tracking Methodologies.” His work focuses on eye tracking as a way to assess comprehension, and this project will test different types of eye trackers to find the one best suited for this type of research. After that, Feller hopes to conduct additional work in the field with struggling adult readers.
Rurik Tywoniw, a doctoral student in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL in Georgia State’s College of Arts and Sciences, received $4,965 for a project entitled, “Investigating Reading Behavior and Inference-Making in Advanced L2 Reading Comprehension Assessment Tasks.” This project focuses on second language proficiency, reading tasks and reading comprehension outcome scores, and whether current academic reading tests are a true measure of the cognitive processes necessary to meet reading demands.
Katia Regina Monteiro Vanderbilt, a doctoral student in the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL, received $1,000 for her project entitled, “Developing and Testing Alternative Benchmarks of Lexical Sophistication: L2 Lexical Frequency, Semantic Context, and Word Recognition Indices.” Her research seeks to develop effective assessment tools for evaluating adults’ second language writing quality and development.
“There is a wide gap in the U.S. in which adults with low basic literacy skills are simply not equipped with college and career readiness skills,” said Iris Feinberg, Adult Literacy Research Center associate director. “Through their research, our center’s Ph.D. students are working to find ways to improve opportunities for adults with low basic skills.”
For more information about the Adult Literacy Research Center, click here.