To investigate affective dimensions of adult literacy development more systematically, researchers conducted a qualitative comparative analysis of four women participating in an adult literacy program in Istanbul, Turkey. The contrastive study chose two participants who completed the course; each was matched with a participant who had dropped out. They were matched in terms of their spelling, letter identification, and word recognition levels at the beginning of the course. As much as possible, they were matched in terms of age and number of children. Responses to a lengthy, semi-structured interview before courses started were compared to detect differences in how they approached adult literacy classes. All reported they had not attended any school because their elders thought it was inappropriate or not useful, but all learned the letters on their own, indicating similar levels of cognitive ability. The four participants had very similar spelling, letter recognition, and word recognition scores at the beginning. The two completing participants had high levels of motivation and self-confidence as compared with the two noncompleters. The researchers say the cases illustrated that affective variables such as motivation and self efficacy are important in whether participants will complete or drop out of an adult literacy class, even when their beginning literacy levels and cognitive skills are comparable. (YLB)