Dutch elementary school children??s attribution of meaning to written pseudowords

Grade two through six elementary school Dutch children were asked to perform a lexical decision task including 90 pseudowords constructed by changing one or two letters in a Dutch word. Subsequently, the children were asked about the meaning of pseudowords they had not crossed out and that they, apparently, had considered to be words. Multiple regression analyses on the lexical decision task showed that the older children were more hindered by the morphemic structure of a pseudoword than by its orthographic neighbors. The younger children, in contrast, were less hindered by the morphemic structure of a pseudoword and more hindered by its orthographic neighbors. Word length was a (small) predictor only for grade 6. Moreover, the answers of the children reflected that in their construction of meanings for the pseudowords they were hindered both by the morphemic structure and by the orthographic neighbors of the pseudowords.     

Literature of broadcasting: Books in review

This study compared and integrated the influence of motivational and situational determinants on news viewing behavior. Individual people-meter data allowed the unobtrusive study of news viewing situations. The finding is that the viewing context is much more important than motivations. However, interest in the news and politics can reinforce or reverse situational influences. For interested viewers, watching more TV in general mainly explains news viewing, while for less interested viewers, lead-out effects and social viewing are more relevant.     

Moving Forwards,Sideways or Backwards? Inclusive Education in Samoa

The introduction of inclusive education (IE) has been promoted to meet the needs of all students. Initially this was a western-driven ideology but has been adopted by numerous developing countries such as Samoa. In this country, the education of students with special learning needs has followed the usual pattern of development from voluntary provision to government-funded segregated placements, followed by mainstreaming, and finally inclusion in regular schools. This qualitative phenomenologically oriented study gathered data from educators and parents about their perceptions of IE and how it was being implemented. The results indicated that this has not always been an easy transition and many participants in the study, although subscribing to the notion of IE, believe that there are a number of implementation difficulties, particularly around issues of support. In relation to this, IE is regarded as a borrowed policy that has overlooked cultural issues and ownership. A model for future developments is outlined and recommendations for future research are indicated.