Developing an Integrated Theory of Recall of Spot News Stories

In this article, a theory of the recall of spot news stories is developed from a large literature on psychological attention sets, principles of perception, cognitive processing, and patterns of distortion in recall and retelling. The theory consists of a set of 6 linked assumptions and a final inferred proposition. It describes the general nature of patterns of recall to be expected among individuals who attend to and retell a typical spot news story: Stories will be shortened, central and dramatic details will be retained, and in some cases, extraneous information will be incorporated. Previously unreported findings from an earlier experimental study of news recall are reviewed and offer support for the theory.     

Uses of history in present-day qualitative studies of schools: The case of the junior high school

This paper addresses the process of creating a historical context for a qualitative, micro-level study, focusing specifically on the case of the junior high middle school. The author reviews three qualitative junior high middle school studies and evaluates the usefulness and adequacy of the historical contexts the authors created to support their interpretations. In two cases, they relied primarily on historical accounts written by education professors in textbooks about the junior high school, which provided a limited point of view. A survey of historians' treatments of the junior high school provides more varied, complex, and theoretical interpretations. In the third case, the author conducted an original historical study to support his present-day qualitative work and his theoretical framework. However, this kind of effort to create an historical context may not be practical in all qualitative studies. Finally, the paper makes recommendations for the construction of adequate and meaningful historical contexts for qualitative studies.