Dr. Christina White Prosser

The rehabilitative measures in place within Canadian Correctional centres include opportunities for incarcerated individuals to change and grow through educational interventions specifically designed to increase skills sets and overall self-confidence. Given the challenging environment of correctional facilities, opportunities to provide efficient and enhanced processes for learning with the potential are sought as they are considered to equip incarcerated persons for life after incarceration and reduce recidivism. Recent studies have shown that “inmates who participated in correctional education programs had 43% lower odds of recidivating than inmates who did not” (Davis et al., 2014, p. 14). With this positive outcome in mind, correctional programming is offered in all Canadian correctional centres, federal and provincial (Correctional Service Canada, 2019).  This project will provide an opportunity to pilot Scanning Pens, a technology designed to support students with learning difficulties such as dyslexia or those learning English. The objectives of this research are to better understand how instructors and students in Canadian correctional facilities can use Scanning Pens to enhance literacy learning within the corrections environment. Using mixed methods, including pre and post-literacy assessment tools, questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews, this research will draw on pragmatic and social constructivist research paradigms. The findings from this study will inform the fields of adult learning and literacy with implications for practice and policy in correctional education

2022-2025

https://www.mitacs.ca/en/projects/correctional-education-technology-assisted-literacy-and-language-learning-research-project

Nonprofit organizations often struggle to provide evidence-based measures of the success of their programs. This is particularly true of crime prevention programs, which do not lend themselves easily to being measured. It is difficult to quantify what hasn’t happened; yet crime prevention is fundamental to YouthLink’s vision and mission. The following research project will support YouthLink in evaluating the impact of their programming.  In partnership with YouthLink, the University of Calgary’s Werklund School of Education will:

1. Create an approved research plan for the evaluation of YL crime prevention programs
2. Identify appropriate evaluation measures and tools for measuring program impacts
3. Conduct exploration of the short-term impacts of YL 
4. Communicate Findings
5. Provide recommendations for exploring long term impact

2022-2023

Literature review of the benefits of international teacher and student exchanges for participant outcomes, school communities, and K-12 education systems led by principal investigator Dr. Roswita Dressler.

2021

Correctional education plays a vital role in rehabilitating incarcerated individuals in the correctional system in Alberta, Canada. Which types of programs and correctional learning experiences impact and facilitate this rehabilitation is largely unknown. Through a case study, I gained the perspectives of both incarcerated learners and their instructors to develop a detailed understanding of learning experiences at one Alberta correctional centre. Participants were asked to reflect on their teaching and learning experiences within several correctional education programs. In order to understand which correctional education programs were distinguished as effective by study participants, the four dimensions of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Domains – factual knowledge, conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge, and metacognitive knowledge – were used to frame the incarcerated students’ learning experiences in each program (Forehand, 2005). Participants’ views provided a deeper understanding of how factual, conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive knowledge acquisition provide students with diverse skill sets, increased self-confidence, and the tools to plan for a future once released from the correctional system. The research also revealed the instructors’ intentions to create an ideal learning environment through their curriculum and instructional design, and their observations on the impact of the curriculum on knowledge acquisition and application. Participants shared how education can serve as a catalyst for behavioural change through complex and sometimes difficult learning experiences. expressed a need for flexible and diverse instructional resources to assist in addressing students’ individual needs, including individual instruction, increased time with students, smaller class sizes, and additional teaching equipment. This research endeavours to inform learners in correctional centres, instructors who teach correctional education courses, the correctional and educational systems that administer correctional education, and society as a whole.

Doctoral Dissertation, Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary. 2017-2021

https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/113021