The sociological context of magazine advertisements, particularly gender role descriptions, can be used to develop students' visual literacy. The techniques described are usually employed as an initial exercise in sensitizing undergraduate or graduate students to some of the issues involved in the content analysis of visual media. (Author/RM)

Finds evidence that the reading of content area materials is done less effectively than is the reading of basal readers or trade books, particularly at the lower grade levels. (FL)

Reports on research that reviewed 142 current middle and secondary school content materials to discover the organizational patterns used in each. Concludes that four such patterns are commonly used: enumeration, relationship, persuasive, and problem solving. Discusses each pattern and how it affects comprehension. (FL)

The present findings imply that a readability formula is not an effective writing production criterion, even when the writer does not deliberately write to the formula. Comprehensibility of text might be better controlled through the proper use of the transformer concept (MacDonald-Ross and Waller). (Author/PN)

The sentence structure in 64 academic journals representing the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering was examined to determine (1) what structures are common to all academic writing, (2) the range of variation within academic writing, and (3) the extent to which sentence structure differs in the academic areas. (HOD)

Two studies evaluated partitioning methods, in order to study how items are perceived by students and to determine how students organize content. Achievement test items in five content areas of educational measurement were used as stimuli to be sorted by groups of students who varied in sophistication. (Author/CTM)

Challenges two assumptions of the Gerbner cultivation analysis: that commercial television content is uniform in its symbolic messages about society's values, and that television viewing is habitual (ritual) rather than selective. Overall, both assumptions are found flawed; discarding them, however, serves to strengthen rather than weaken the…

Industrial arts multisensory manipulative experience may provide a missing link in helping children, specifically learning disabled students, remediate their educational problems. Author examines research findings on right and left hemisphere functions and reviews an application of this knowledge in a teaching situation. (CSS)

Describes a study to develop a communications research technique that can produce information suitable for analysis about the management of public institutions, particularly in higher education, from readily available sources, in this case, newspapers. (JMF)

Reports that workbooks and worksheets of two first grade basal reader series included more extra words in the written directional statements of their worksheets than in their workbooks. Concludes that this practice may inhibit pupils' achievement of a lesson's objectives when such materials are used for independent work. (FL)

Concludes that both boys and girls benefited from reading sex-appropriate content as opposed to content that was self-selected. Confirms that strong group feelings about reading exist outside a sex-typed pattern of interests. (FL)

An analysis of 1,461 newspaper editions indicated that, although only one future-oriented story appeared for every two editions, newspaper editors were taking these stories seriously, and that they realized the latent importance of speculative information to their readers. (RL)

In an effort to promote consistency in moral education practices in Indian schools, the All Indian Association of Catholic Schools (AINACS) is conducting seminars to collect and classify the principle values of the world's major religions and to develop these concepts into learning activities for the appropriate grade levels. (SJL)

A content analysis of primary school readers of Sierra Leone revealed that the particular modern and traditional normative aspirations expressed in the National Development Plan for 1974/75-1978/79 were also generally reflected in the children's readers. (Editor)