"I was born full deaf." Written language outcomes after 1 year of strategic and interactive writing instruction

Nonstandard grammatical forms are often present in the writing of deaf students that are rarely, if ever, seen in the writing of hearing students. With the implementation of Strategic and Interactive Writing Instruction (SIWI) in previous studies, students have demonstrated significant gains in high-level writing skills (e.g., text structure) but have also made gains with English grammar skills. This 1-year study expands on prior research by longitudinally examining the written language growth (i.e., writing length, sentence complexity, sentence awareness, and function words) of 29 deaf middle-school students. A repeated-measures analysis of variance with a between-subjects variable for literacy achievement level was used to examine gains over time and the intervention's efficacy when used with students of various literacy levels. Students, whether high or low achieving, demonstrated statistically significant gains with writing length, sentence complexity, and sentence awareness. Subordinate clauses were found to be an area of difficulty, and follow up strategies are suggested. An analysis of function word data, specifically prepositions and articles, revealed different patterns of written language growth by language group (e.g., American Sign Language users, oral students, users of English-based sign).     

Assessment matters: Considering the scholarship of teaching and learning in student affairs

Tony Ribera, Sarah Fernandez, and Matt Gray apply a scholarly approach to assessing student learning in the cocurriculum.     

What do people know about key environmental issues? A review of environmental knowledge surveys

This paper presents results from 15 little publicized state and national environmental surveys in the US that used similar questions. Our analysis reveals trends in adult understanding of environmental issues. These trends indicate that many may have difficulty making informed decisions about environmental policy as citizens, voters, and consumers. Some environmental myths are still prevalent in the US public’s understanding of environmental issues. The authors compare data from the National Environmental Education Foundation survey in the US and data from state surveys using the same questions to examine how public knowledge has changed from 1995 to 2008. Environmental myths and how they may affect the public’s perception of environmental topics are discussed. The authors suggest the need for greater consistency in the surveys of environmental knowledge to allow comparison among different studies.     

Enhancing student learning of research methods through the use of undergraduate teaching assistants

By using a quasi-experimental design, in this study, we test the effect of undergraduate teaching assistants on student learning. Data were collected from 170 students enrolled in four sections of a quantitative research methods course, two sections without undergraduate teaching assistants and two sections with undergraduate teaching assistants, over two semesters. Results indicate that having undergraduate teaching assistants in the classroom can result in higher student performance. Students in the sections with undergraduate teaching assistants earned higher grades, were more likely to pass the course with a C or higher and performed better on half of the student learning outcomes than students in the sections without an undergraduate teaching assistant. Based on the overwhelmingly positive results on student learning, we would recommend the active use of undergraduate teaching assistants in the classroom, but especially for courses that students find challenging.     

Mass Media

Robert C. Toll's On with the Show: The First Century of Show Business in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976---$19.95)

Edwin Fisher, et al., eds. The Art in Cartooning: Seventy-five Years of American Magazine Cartoons (New York : Scribner's, 1975---$14.95)

Vaughncille Molden's Telecommunications and Black Americans: A Survey of Ownership, Participation and Control (Center for Development Technology and Program in Technology and Human Affairs, Washington University, St. Louis, Mo. 63130-48.50, paper)

Working Papers in Culture and Communication (Department of Anthropology, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pa. 19122-- $2.00, paper)     

General Media

FUNDAMENTALS OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH by Alan D. Fletcher and Thomas A. Bowers (Columbus, Ohio: Grid, 1983 2nd ed.)

THE LIBRARY OP CONGRESS by Charles Goodrum and Helen Dalrymple (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1982---$25.00/10.95)

THE PERSONAL COMPUTER BOOK and THE PERSONAL COMPUTER IN BUSINESS BOOK, both by Peter A. McWilliams (Prelude Press, Box 69773, Los Angeles, CA 90069/distribution by Ballantine Books---$9.95 each, paper)     

broadcasting history

ON THE AIR: PIONEERS OF AMERICAN BROADCASTING by Amy Henderson (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988—$24.95, paper, ISBN 0-87474-499-7)

EDWARD R. MURROW: AN AMERICAN ORIGINAL by Joseph E. Persico (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988—$24.95, ISBN 0-07-049480-0)

THE CINEMA OF THE SEA: A CRITICAL SURVEY AND FILMOGRAPHY, by Tony Thomas (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1988—$24.95, ISBN 0-89950-342-X)     

User acceptance of SMS-based e-government services: Differences between adopters and non-adopters

Delivering public services through the SMS channel is popular in developed and developing countries, and it has demonstrated its benefits. However, citizens' acceptance of the services is still an issue. This paper presents a study on user acceptance of SMS-based e-government services. Constructs of the proposed model were derived from a survey on citizens' motivations for using SMS-based e-government services (142 respondents from 25 countries), prominent theories on individual acceptance of technologies, and current studies on user acceptance of SMS and e-government services. The model was validated using data from 589 citizens in three cities in Indonesia, who are non-adopters. The relationships between the factors then were compared with data from 80 adopters of SMS-based e-government services in Australia. The proposed model explains what factors influence non-adopters to accept SMS-based e-government services, and the comparison explains the relative importance of the factors for the adopters. The findings are promising for governments who wish to evaluate a new SMS-based e-government system very early in its development in order to assess potential acceptability and for governments who would like to diagnose the reasons why an existing SMS-based e-government service is not fully acceptable to citizens and to take corrective action to increase the acceptability of the service.     

The American Universities Which Published Most Often in Journals for Business & Finance,Law, Education,and Social Sciences Librarians, 2000–2010

The authors adapt the methods and ranking system of the 5-year study by Wiberley, Hurd, and Weller (2006) to report the number and affiliations of papers published by subject-specialist librarians in four journals from 2000 to 2010: the Journal of Business & Finance Librarianship, Law Library Journal, Legal Reference Services Quarterly, and Behavioral and Social Sciences Librarian. While both approaches demonstrated high output from many of the same highly ranked universities, our modified approach identified a significant number of unranked schools that may have deep specialty strengths among their subject expert librarian authors.