This Contractor Report was prepared as background information for OTA's assessment: "Worker Training: Competing in the New International Economy." A review of workplace basic skills research and practice identified factors contributing to success. The review of the research defined workplace basic skills and found that: (1) there was a scant relationship between academic basic skill competence and job performance; and (2) requirements for job-related basic skills were best addressed in competency-based training programs. Eight field investigations were conducted to view current job-related basic skills programs. Programs studied were as follows: Plumley Companies; Aetna Institute for Corporate Education; South Carolina's Governor's Initiative for Work Force Excellence; Connecticut's State Education Department; New York's Employer Specific Skills Training Program; Houston Community College; Rockingham Community College; and Skills 2000. These programs were examined in terms of a figure with two axes--one representing a purely academic approach to basic skills designed to make the learner proficient in academic settings, another representing a purely job-related basic skills approach designed to make the worker proficient in quite specific workplace settings. The programs were found to illustrate the importance of four types of support: employer support, union support, state support, and federal support. Two major categories of interactive factors contributing to success or failure were identified in two major categories: learning system factors and support system factors. An "Executive Summary" of 11 pages precedes the full report. (YLB)