What Factors — Internal and External — Have an Impact On Service Delivery?
by Patsy Medina Adult literacy administrators make numerous decisions regarding the literacy programs they manage. Those decisions help shape the culture of those programs and influence everything from the curricula implemented to what gets hung on bulletin boards. The decisions directly affect how programs are configured in terms of methods of instruction, the content of instruction, and their learner support systems. Program configuration has an impact on how learners participate in programs and the learning options available to them. Administrators’ decisions are influenced by internal and external factors. Important external factors include federal, state, and local policies; regulations; required mechanisms; and events. Internal factors can range from the mundane, such as availability of space, to the philosophical, such as decision-makers’ values, attitudes, and beliefs. To examine the impact of internal and external factors on adult literacy program services, researchers at Rutg
