Ninety million American adults are deficient in the basic academic skills and problem solving competencies mandatory for success in today¿s workplace, resulting in unemployment, lowered productivity, and a shortage of qualified job applicants. This proposal is for the development of an internet-based, integrated training, assessment, and certification system called the Basic Academic Skills System for Evaluation and Training (BASSET). BASSET tells people specifically what skills they are expected to know, indicates to them whether or not they have achieved competency in those skills, and provides them a way to attain proficiency. BASSET achieves those objectives by combining teaching and assessment modes of use and by identifying the causes of errors and providing personalized training in the specific areas of deficiency. Adult basic skills education programs are inadequately funded, and the users to whom they are directed are often the least able to pay for them. BASSET answers this challenge by providing training at no cost, with the service funded by the businesses that use the linked assessment and certification program in their hiring and employment advancement programs.
