Researchers have put forth the idea that the mass media have an "agenda setting" function, that the more coverage an issue receives, the more important the public perceives that issue to be. A study tested the hypothesis that the campaign agenda presented by the media would have a stronger agenda setting effect than the aggregate media…

A study examined readers' cognitive and affective responses to photographs and accompanying stories published in 20 newspapers. Subjects, 204 high school students (mostly 18-year-old seniors) in 9 Illinois high schools, each read the front page of one of the 20 newspapers (chosen from across the country) and completed a quiz dealing with…

An action research project implemented a program for improving the conversational skills of language impaired high school students. The students attended high school in a northwest suburb of Chicago, Illinois. Poor conversational skills in the language impaired students were documented through teacher observation, teacher assessment, and…

A study examined the impact of high school sophomore students' mastery of public speaking skills through sociodrama. Student attitudes toward role-play was also surveyed to provide more background information on sociodrama's impact upon student learning. A class of 26 students in southern Cook County, Illinois, prepared role-play characterizations…

A study examined natural dialogue between high school disciplinarians (principals, deans, assistant principals) and students in disciplinary situations. Four disciplinarians (two men and two women--two assistant principals, one principal, and one dean) representing three schools in central Illinois audiotaped as few or as many complete dialogues…

Within the congenitally deaf population there exists a sizeable number of individuals who are considered to be traditionally underserved. These individuals are characterized by severe communication deficits irrespective of modality (e.g., speech, sign language, reading, writing). Unfortunately, until now there has not been a comprehensive…

For individuals who have complex communication needs and for the interventionists who work with them, the collection of empirically derived data that support the use of an intervention approach is critical. The purposes of this study were to continue building an empirically derived base of support for, and to compare the relative effectiveness of…

Before there can be an understanding of politics, policy, and action in education, there must be an understanding of the value systems of policymakers. Policymakers, in their talk, in their choices of symbols and metaphors, in their choices of strategies for dealing with conflict, reveal their own needs, their role orientations, their group…