Tracking gender differences: A comparative analysis of network correspondents and their sources

Being able to probive live coverage of breaking news events is one of the unparalleled strengths of television. The purpose of this study is to assess the opinions of 18–24 year olds about live television news reporting. Variables identified by respondents are characterized in one of three ways: awareness of live reporting; positive aspects of live reporting; and negative aspects of live reporting. From the more than 500 young adults surveyed, findings show most do not base their viewing habits on how often a news operation goes live or whether that operation happens to be first to hit the air with breaking news.

Respondents show strong agreement that live reporting gives the story a sense of immediacy, leading the positive attributes of live reporting. However, leading the list of negative attributes is the criticism that there are times when a live report is meaningless. There were differences in resoonses based on the market in which the respondents reside.     

Opening the black box of field experiences: How cooperating teachers' beliefs and practices shape student teachers' beliefs and practices

This study employed ethnographic methods to describe and explain changes to beginning science teachers' (n = 6) practices and beliefs during a year long internship. Teaching practices were strongly influenced by the cooperating teachers. Initially, all six interns attempted to re-enact lessons they witnessed their cooperating teachers teach, including following lesson structures and borrowing representations, anecdotes, and jokes. Later, they independently implemented instruction that emphasized similar strategies as their mentors, regardless of whether or not they were experiencing success. Interns who were successful also shifted their beliefs to match their mentors.     

Going Critical: Perspective and Proportion in the Epistemology of Rob Kling 1

One foundational element of Rob Kling's research and writing is his critical perspective on the nature, role, and dynamics of computerization. His main argument was that one should view as dubious any statements that are not grounded in empirical evidence or theoretical analysis. Rob's work was replete with critical refutation, in which he challenged assumptions or statements about computerization and provided alternative interpretations. Much of his work delivered indictments against hyperbolic statements that claimed either utopian or dystopian outcomes from computerization. However, some of his own writings on emerging technologies tended to be dismissive and marginalizing, revealing in his own work some of the weaknesses he pointed out in others' rhetoric and writing. This article identifies intellectual traps inherent in critical perspectives that can catch even the most acute practitioners. The objective is to help elucidate and stabilize the epistemological foundations for Rob's critical perspective on the role of computerization.     

Discrimination and classification of rising and nonrising pitch patterns by the European starling (Sturnus vulgaris)

In a series of four experiments, starlings learned to classify pitch patterns according to pattern structure. In Experiments 1 and 2, the starlings learned to discriminate a series of pairs of 1ourtone patterns in which one of the patterns rose in pitch and the other pattern did not. The starlings in these initial two experiments did not attend to pattern structure at all. Rather, they discriminated patterns according to the relative pitch of the initial pattern tones. In Experiment 3, the same starlings discriminated the same patterns from Experiments 1 and 2 in a new context that tempered the salience of individual pattern tones. The starlings initially failed to discriminate in the new context, but eventually learned to do so. In Experiment 4, the starlings classified novel pitch patterns according to their pattern structure. These experiments identify a hierarchy of relative pitch strategies, as well as a sophisticated conceptual capacity for the perception and classification of pitch patterns by starlings.