This research sought to examine whether adult participants in workplace learning programmes demonstrate substantive changes in measured basic skills and other life course variables. The project examined whether workplace basic skills programmes increase the potential productivity of sponsoring enterprises and explored the interrelationships between learning, workplace experience and lifecourse trajectories. Focus was specifically on learners' motivations for becoming involved in workplace learning; the impact of learning on learner behaviour; relationship of work place learning to participation in later formal learning; changes in literacy skills; and impact of individuals' learning dispositions on their progress. The research buildt upon ongoing work carried out through the new National Research and Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy, the DfES funded centre based at the Institute of Education.