During the last 30 years, direct mail campaigning has become an integral part of the political process, and more recently has also become an influential fund raising tool for other political and religious groups. Analysis of over 70 examples of direct mail campaigns reveals at least 4 major content norms featured in most direct mail. First, the…

Focusing on changes in the minds of the audience, this study of the impact of television programs provides a general analysis of the perceptual spectrum of the television audience and its values, preferences, and attachments to the content of television programs. Influences are identified and cued to the development of programming, and findings of…

Excerpts from articles in the "British Medical Journal" and "The American Journal of Medicine" were compared to determine which journal was easier to read and what stylistic traits might account for such ease. Nine paragraphs from the discussion sections of articles on hypertension were taken from each of the journals. When…

An adaptation of Heilprin's model of the path of propagation of human messages is used to explore the truism that more experienced academic researchers tend to go directly to the published literature, while less experienced researchers may rely more on such secondary sources as indexes and other library reference and bibliographic services. The…

Based on the premise that young people's positive attitudes toward reading and writing can be shaped through the use of literature that treats those activities as valuable, a content analysis was conducted of Caldecott Medal winners from 1938 through 1981 and of Newbery Medal winners from 1922 to 1981 to determine how these books dealt with…

To help teachers assess the variety of available instructional materials, a comparative, point-by-point evaluation is recommended. Two distinct approaches have been identified: content analysis, and instructional design. Content analysis is useful when selecting materials in factual curriculum areas, such as science and mathematics. It involves…

The manual provides some guidelines for the content evaluation and selection of curriculum materials for use in bilingual-multicultural education programs, whatever the target student population. The material is organized as follows: rationale--a brief rationale for a shift in public education policy from a monolingual-monocultural to a…

A computer-assisted analysis was conducted of the punctuation skills taught in nine series of language arts textbooks. Each text was subjected to a detailed, page-by-page analysis of instructional content, resulting in a content-specific analysis of punctuation instruction at each grade level. The results indicated significant differences among…

One of a series of the EDSP (Educational Dissemination Studies Program) interrelated studies, this report describes the content of the ERIC database for five equity groups including the physically and mentally handicapped, Blacks, Hispanics, and women; and addresses the question of how much can be learned if the analysis is confined to examination…

This study was conducted to investigate what and how much is presented about American culture in English courses in Japan. A review of previous studies on the same subject indicates that only textbooks for conversation courses are likely to contain substantial cultural information. For the present study, ten series of senior high school English…

This collection of seminar papers is concerned with the presentation of emotions on the screen, the emotional impact of such presentations on young children, and the use of children's televised drama to foster the development of emotional sensitivity. Also considered are differences in the violence depicted on Japanese and American television, and…

To examine the production of programing material in a radio newsroom, a study was undertaken of the sources presented to the newsroom, of sources within the sources, of sources actively sought by the news staff, of degrees of processing of news items, and of the sources comprising the news output. Information in each of these areas was collected…

Document searching systems, such as those in libraries, are comprised of chains of components that transmit information. The components consist of mechanisms for doing classification, indexing, abstracting and cataloging of documents, and for converting users' statements of need to expressions suitable for searching the system. Improvement of the…

The purpose of this study was to determine what 11th and 12th grade students in social studies classes in Los Angeles County are being taught about what it means to be an employee, i.e., the responsibilities, regulations, problems, rights, and benefits of being a wage or salary earner. Personal interviews, questionnaires, check lists, and tally…

Based on a set of propositions for maintaining individual group culture, this study examined the outlook of adult Jewish education practitioners. A limited survey of adult Jewish education revealed certain needs and problems, and a national conference was convened to discuss the findings. Tape-recorded statements by speakers and workshop…