Use sentence completion interviews to elicit learner concerns and generate group themes¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The guide describes sentence completion interviews as a way to elicit what concerns learners, especially when a group was formed around a convenient meeting time rather than a theme. "These are exercises which address affective issues" such as feeling angry, happy, confident, or worried. Members write incomplete sentences, pair up, and interview each other, then the whole group reads responses aloud and identifies what issues and topics of interest emerge, which the facilitator records as emerging themes.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Pairing of members for mutual interviewing, followed by whole-group sharing with attention to individuals' privacy

Constraints¶

• The facilitator offers members the possibility of not having their papers read aloud to the group

Target Learners¶

• Adult literacy and basic education learners in collaborative groups

Target Learning Goals¶

• Theme identification, group bonding, and participatory curriculum development

Related Strategies¶

• Use paired interviews early in a group's life to build connections and surface participant information
• Using Empathy Interviews for Family Engagement
• Use three methods to assess concerns: questionnaire, open-ended statements, and informal conversation

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Philadelphia Mayor's Commission on Literacy. (1994). Collaborative Learning: An Alternative Approach to Adult Literacy Instruction. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED376329