Discussion and implications for practice
Results provide some evidence for the psychometric integrity of the ARIK-A, and consequently,
for its use. The study is important because the ARIK-A is the only nationally normed assessment
of adult reading instruction knowledge. In addition, data inform the field about adult educators'
level of preparedness as a function of education, work status, and certification. In summary, both
volunteer and paid instructors answered roughly 60 % of the content of the ARIK-A correctly.
There was no difference in knowledge of teaching reading based on employment status, but
certified educators demonstrated more knowledge than noncertified educators. Similarly, those
with a bachelor's degree or higher demonstrated more knowledge than those with less than a
bachelor's degree. These findings should provide some solace to teacher educators who find
themselves under attack and the value of their professional training programs questioned (Lyon
&Fletcher, 2001). Importantly, these results are similar to previous results with a K-12 in-service
elementary teacher sample (e.g., Bos et al., 2001) and about 10 % higher than a sample of adult
educators from one southeastern state in the early 2000s (Bell, Ziegler, & McCallum, 2004).