The study reported in this paper attempted to find out what evidences of active learning were displayed in the "ready," i.e., prompt and appropriate responses called for in classroom oral communication. Such an inquiry leads toward the claim that the learning process itself is a suitable arena for evaluation, and thus that the evaluation…

Three basal reading series, levels kindergarten through grade three, were studied to categorize the types of literature each contained. The following series were analyzed: "The Headway Program" (Open Court Publishing Company), "Series r Macmillan Reading," and "Basics in Reading" (Scott, Foresman and Company). It was…

A study was conducted to determine whether newspaper coverage of black Americans diminished after the 1960s Civil Rights Movement and whether new images of blacks have begun to emerge in the media. Items concerning black Americans in 66 issues each of the "New York Times,""Boston Globe,""Chicago Tribune," and…

Little information is available on therapeutic interventions or counseling techniques used with sexually abused children. Many experts consider parental and family support to be the single most important factor in preventing abuse from becoming a life destroying event. The goals of therapy are to make the child and family feel better about…

A study examined the general content and characteristics of elementary science textbooks and compared selected text segments from several content domains across publishers. The Merrill and Silver-Burdette science programs for grades 1-5 and one level of both the Holt and McGraw-Hill programs were evaluated. Results indicated substantial…

A study was conducted to identify, describe, and analyze the visual displays accompanying instructional texts in basal reading series. Specifically, the study reviewed 1,884 displays from the student textbooks, major workbooks, and teachers' editions of six series used from grades four through eight to answer (1) descriptive questions about the…

The origins of inquiry activities are discussed in this historical review and assessment of science textbooks. Approximately 80 texts (dated from 1822 to 1910) were analyzed specifically for inquiry teaching strategies. No significant patterns were detected, either by subject or time, which could support an identifiable birth of inquiry. After…

A typology developed from case structure and argumentation theory was used in an analysis of case types that evolved in the discussion of 12 issues during a 10-hour bargaining session between negotiators for teachers and a school board. Case types in the typology were (1) need-plan, which argues for the need to change the status quo; (2)…

A study compared the visibility and participation of women working in United States television with that of women working in television in other countries. Video tapes of five consecutive evening news broadcasts in 1986 from the United States, Japan, Sri Lanka, Colombia, and Jamaica were analyzed for such data as the proportion of women anchors,…

Although "The Equalizer" and "Finder of Lost Loves" are different kinds of prime time fiction--urban thriller on the one hand and fantasy melodrama on the other--they share an underlying dramatic structure and symbolic problematic in their repeated enactments of a therapeutic cure overseen by a mediating, authority figure. The…

Defining the media experience as the media and social interaction involved in any person's viewing of television and the consequences of that viewing for oneself and others, this paper examines how phenomenology and psychodrama--methods of experiential learning focusing on the feeling and imagining functions of communication--can be used to teach…

This executive summary of a research project explores the general question of how school districts change their domains through the management of major proposals ("issues"). The study, which focused on case studies of three suburban superintendents' management of five to seven major issues, used raw data consisting of interviews with…

To better understand the effects of the media on audiences, five media sociology theoretical approaches to the study of influences on media were investigated by looking at tests of the approaches in three journals over the last 10 years. The mirror approach predicted that the media would accurately represent reality, but, while accurate, the media…

This examination of the aspects of computers and computer conferencing that can lead to their successful design and utilization focuses on task-related functions and emotional interactions in human communication and human-computer interactions. Such aspects of computer conferences as procedures, problems, advantages, and suggestions for future…

Since the questions included in literature anthologies play a key role in the high school English class questioning process, a study examined the questions in four eleventh-grade American literature anthologies. The anthologies met the following criteria: textbooks (1) contained selections organized chronologically, (2) were major compilations in…