General Mass Communication

THE KNOWLEDGE INDUSTRY 200: 1983 EDITION—AMERICA'S TWO HUNDRED LARGEST MEDIA AND INFORMATION COMPANIES (White Plains, N.Y.: Knowledge Industry Publications, 1983---price not given, paper; with hardback edition available from Gale Research Co., Detroit---$98.00)

MASS COMMUNICATION THEORY: AN INTRODUCTION by Denis McQuail (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1983---$25.00/$12.50)

CREATING MEDIA CULTURE by Robert P. Snow (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1983---$25.00/ $12.50)

THE CRITICAL COMMUNICATIONS REVIEW, VOLUME I: LABOR, THE WORKING CLASS, AND THE MEDIA edited by Vincent Mosco and Janet Wasko (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex, 1983---$37.50/$21.95)

MARCONI TO McLUHAN: A SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF N.Y. TIMES SUNDAY MAGAZINE ARTICLES ON COMMUNICATION, 1900-1980 by Gerald V. Flannery (Department of Communication, University of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette, LA 70504---$12.00, paper)

INTRODUCTION TO MASS COMMUNICATION by Jay Black and Frederick C. Whitney (Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown, 1983---price not given, paper)     

Knowledge of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and attitudes toward teaching children with ADHD: THE role of teaching experience

Knowledge of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and attitudes toward teaching children with ADHD are compared across stages of Australian teachers' careers. Relative to pre‐service teachers with (n = 218) and without (n = 109) teaching experience, in‐service teachers (n = 127) show more overall knowledge of ADHD, more knowledge of characteristics and treatments for ADHD, and higher perceived knowledge. In‐service teachers reported less favorable emotion about teaching children with ADHD than did pre‐service teachers without experience and more favorable behaviors than pre‐service teachers with experience. Groups did not differ in knowledge of causes of ADHD, overall attitudes, stereotypical beliefs, and beliefs about teaching children with ADHD. Identification of knowledge gaps and ambivalent attitudes will guide pre‐service and in‐service training courses. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Cognitive and linguistic features of adolescent argumentative writing: Do connectives signal more complex reasoning?

Reading and Writing - The Common Core State Standards (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010) feature argumentative writing across the curriculum in grades 4 through 12, yet little is known...     

Romantic Dyads, Friendships, and the Social Skill Ratings of Preschool Children

The incidence of romantic, same-sex friendships and CMSS-sex friendship dyads was examined in preschools and daycare centers. The objectives were to demonstrate the existence of preschool romances, to describe behavior patterns that characterize these relationships, and to compare the social skills of the three dyad groups using the Social Skills Rating Scale (Gresham & Elliott, 1990). No significant difference in social skills existed between the groups. The results suggest that preschool romances and cross-sex friendships are common occurrences and do not interfere with normal development of social skills.     

Professional learning community process in the United States: conceptualization of the process and district support for schools

Abstract

As the Professional Learning Community (PLC) process becomes embedded within schools, the level of district support has a direct impact on whether schools have the ability to re-culture and sustain highly effective collaborative practices. The purpose of this article is to share a professional learning community conceptual framework from the US, and to highlight recent findings relating to district level support for the PLC process in schools. The professional learning community conceptual model is organized around five dimensions: shared and supportive leadership, shared values and vision, collaborative learning and application, shared personal practice, and supportive conditions. The overarching question guiding this qualitative research study is: How do school district personnel (central office staff) support schools in the professional learning community process? Findings reveal the importance of transformative and proactive district involvement, and the use of transparency, trust, accountability, and autonomy in school re-culturing. It was also found that developing leadership capacity, embedding professional development, and focusing the culture on student success were critically important. As districts provide support for the PLC dimensions and themes, school leaders will have a foundation of curricular strategies, collaborative skills, and necessary resources to serve teachers and students through continuous school improvement.     

Contextual Influences on Integration in Australia: Overview of a Report to the Commonwealth Schools Commission. Part I.

Integration of students with special needs has emerged as a significant challenge to education practice in Australia, as elsewhere in the world community. To date, however, little information is available regarding the implementation of integration policy which, in many cases, is still evolving. This paper presents findings of a study sponsored by the Commonwealth Schools Commission at the request of the Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development, Centre for Education Research and Innovation (OECD/CERI) and describes the current context within which integration in Australia occurs. Reference is made to the philosophical, legislative, and policy bases, administrative organization, and funding structures from which the implementation of policy is proceeding. Differences between States, as well as issues of common interest are identified.     

Re-Culturing Educator Preparation Programs: A Collaborative Case Study of Continuous Improvement

Teacher educators at one institution of higher education collaborated to reculture systems for a focus on continuous improvement even within mounting accountability pressures. A framework of social network theory allowed for themes to develop around layered interactions of faculty, processes, and professional capital. Findings focused on people, groups, and systems for sustaining a culture of continuous improvement.     

Teaching prereading skills with a talking computer

The phonological awareness skills of nonreaders were trained using an oddity task (e.g., which word in the series sit, fit, cat has the odd sound in its middle position). As training progressed, the basis of the oddity decision was shifted from rhyming, to consonant onsets, to consonant and vowel phonemes. The words were spoken by a DECtalk speech synthesizer. One of the experimental groups was given printed as well as computer generated speech feedback while the other was given just computer speech feedback. The alternative training control group based their oddity decisions on meaning rather than sound and was also given just computer speech feedback. Only children with low letter-sound knowledge showed pre-test to post-test gains in performance on a rhyming task compared to the control group, and these gains were not influenced by print feedback. In contrast, only children with high letter-sound knowledge, who were given print feedback during learning, showed pre-test to post-test gains in performance on a phoneme deletion task compared to the control group. These results indicate that a combination of high letter-sound knowledge and print feedback facilitates awareness of phonemes among children who cannot yet read or spell, but awareness of rimes is not facilitated by either high letter-sound knowledge or print feedback. Although consistent with bi-directional, causal models of phonological awareness and literacy, these results indicate that the definition of literacy employed by such models may require expansion. This new definition should include proto-literacy — knowledge of letter-sound and other print-sound relationships that are learned before becoming literate and that may influence the acquisition of awareness of some sub-syllabic units of speech.Abbreviations WPPSI Wechsler preschool and primary scale of intelligence - WRAT-R Wide range achievement test, revised     

Temporal perceptions and university faculty

This study is a preliminary investigation of the temporal perceptions of 100 male university faculty members grouped by professorial rank and by the three general academic areas of natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. The general hypothesis states that the temporal perceptions of these respondents relate to academic area and not to professorial rank. From the respondents' answers to an open-ended question during a taped interview session, three perceptual categories were derived and labeled ambiguous, analytical, and synoptic. Chi-square analysis confirmed the general hypothesis. This confirmation is congruent with previous research findings that academic area is a significant distinguishing variable to apply to the professoriate. Natural science respondents perceived time analytically, as increments for measurement, whereas respondents in social sciences and humanities tended to perceive time ambiguously, as having more than one meaning. Implications of this small-sample investigation at a comprehensive, state-supported university are important not for the answers provided but rather for the questions generated. These questions delineate areas for further research.