RECESSION HEADLINE NEWS, CONSUMER SENTIMENT, THE STATE OF THE ECONOMY AND PRESIDENTIAL POPULARITY: A TIME SERIES ANALYSIS 1989-1993

During the 1992 American presidential election, the media wereaccused of portraying the economy in a negative light, withboth economic and political consequences for the country. Suchcriticism was based on assumptions concerning relationshipsamong four variables: economic news coverage, public perceptionof the state of the economy (consumer sentiment), the actualstate of the economy, and presidential popularity. This paperseeks to examine the relationships among all four variablesin a way that accounts for inherent time series characteristicsof the data including: potential non-stationarities (or tendenciesfor the series to drift over time) and co-movements among theseries. Hypotheses concerning the nature and direction of influenceamong the four variables are proposed and time series analysesare conducted to test each hypothesis. We use recession-relatedheadlines from the New York Times to represent economic news.Each series is analyzed to isolate its principal characteristics,and tests for co-movement (formally, cointegration) betweenthe series are conducted. Vector autoregression is used to modelthe joint determination of the series, and tests for Grangercausality are conducted. The results show some causal evidencefor a media effect: recession headlines were a significant priorinfluence on the determination of consumer sentiment in thisstudy. There is some limited evidence of an adversarial presseffect, wherein the president's growing popularity rather thanreal world economic conditions appears to have led an increasein the number of recession headlines.     

Evolving strategies for using interactive video resources in mathematics classrooms

In order to understand the role of interactive video (IV) in mathematics classrooms, teachers were given a set of IV resources which were very mixed in character and style, and from which they could freely select. These were used in lessons over an extended period, in some cases two years or longer. By interviewing and by observing lessons, it has been possible to draw some tentative conclusions about the relative merits of different styles of IV in mathematics classrooms. IV resources are often managed in a similar way to computers and this similarity seems to have influenced teachers' opinions and choices. However, the affective impact of video was also evident in teachers' choices. A complex picture emerges with no one style dominating.     

Conflicting Growth Expectations Cannot Both Be Real: A Rejoinder to Yen

Different scaling procedures applied to the same empirical data can result in conflicting growth patterns. To retain standing in the norm group, some developmental scales require low-achieving students to gain more annually than high-achieving students. Thus, for low-achieving students, the growth patterns exhibited by grade equivalent scales may be more reasonable than those for developmental standard score scales.     

The New Universities: The Humanities

The plans of the New Universities for the Humanities had little in common: indeed Warwick was distinguished by having no plan at all, only a very few general guidelines. The success of developments in the Humanities at Warwick and the other New Universities is adumbrated, and it is pointed out that this could not have been due to any prior blueprints. Rather, the open and liberal atmosphere of their foundation and the commitment to that attitude of their founding staff is claimed to be the explanation. While today the circumstances of their foundation could not be reproduced, in spite of present difficulties the distinctive and still vital spirit of the New Universities should be cherished.