The impact of the literacy education on increasing the societal and psychological capital of the literacy learners

The main aim of this research was studying the effect of the learner’s participation on the literacy courses along with the relevant educational content on increasing the societal and psychological capital of the literacy learners. It was a quasi-experimental study with with pre and post-tests control group design. The research sample included 480 literacy learners from Sistān and Blouchestān, West Azerbāijān and Alborz provinces who were selected purposefully from the target population, i.e., all the persons who had registered and attended in one of the literacy courses across the country. Half of the selected learners were assigned to the experimental group and another half were assigned to the control group (120 basic literacy learners, 120 transition course learners). Then, the researchers assessed the research variables, using two researcher-made scales which had internal consistency (social capital from 0.75 to 0.84 and social capital from 0.80 to 0.90). The results of covariance analysis revealed that the participation of the learners in the literacy courses has a significant effect on increasing the societal and psychological capital of the participants. Also, the results of the survey showed that the continuity of the learning literacy has 12.6 % effect size in increasing the societal capital (0.502 in literacy courses and 0.628 in transition courses). In addition, this continuity had 32.4% effect size in enhancing the psychological capital (0.327 in literacy courses and of 0.651% in transition course).