Most states have high stakes tests in place and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), with adequate yearly progress requirements, is tightening the screws on the whole system. No part of public education, however, is going to feel the stress more than the high schools and high school principals. When students who have passing grades…

Introduction: This article results from a qualitative case study focusing on the information seeking practices of environmental activists. The main attention was devoted to their perceptions of media credibility and cognitive authority in the context of seeking orienting information about environmental issues in particular. Method: The empirical…

This study examined the relationship between witness age, narrative features in testimony, and the perceived credibility of witnesses. Ninety older and young adult witnesses to a staged theft were videotaped as they freely recalled crime events. Later, participant-jurors viewed the videos and assessed the witnesses' credibility. Operational…

This chapter deals with the constraints that may inhibit authenticity, whether explicit and known to all or more insidiously embedded in our educational culture.

Objective: To understand how the Swedish legal system perceives and handles mentally handicapped children who may have been victimized. Method: Twenty-two judicial districts in Sweden provided complete files on 39 District Court cases (including the Appeals Court files on 17 of these cases) involving children with learning difficulties or other…

This study used an emotional geographies theoretical framework to analyze the emotional dimensions of urban teacher change. Fifteen urban physical education teachers involved in a comprehensive curriculum reform project were interviewed and observed multiple times across one school year. Data were analyzed using inductive analysis, and…

This study examines the pedagogical conditions that contribute to a productive teaching and learning experience in diversity courses, using the University of Utah (UU) as the case study. The purpose of this research is to assess whether diversity courses are effective (successful) in helping students gain more information about nondominant groups…

This paper summarizes the results of a university case study that explored the process of demonstrating institutional trustworthiness and factors that influenced the institution's bid for trustworthy status. Interviews were conducted with 14 administrators and faculty, while volumes of institutional history, archival documents, and press coverage…

A qualitative case study examined professor perceptions of the influence of race on the establishment of credibility in the classroom. Non-participant observation and semi-structured interviews elicited participant-generated conceptualizations of credibility of three Black and three White professors in the Northwest. Results indicated that…

A study examined the attitudes of legislators toward issues facing the Commonwealth of Kentucky, to determine (1) if there were differences in legislators' perception of the usefulness of mass media and interpersonal sources for information, (2) if there was a greater evidence of mass media usage among legislators who can be considered opinion…

An internal evaluation was carried out on the governing procedures of the Center for Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln during the spring semester, 1985-86. The evaluation focused on the major governance committee within the Center (the Center Executive Committee) and its relationship with the two other forms of…

Current print and broadcast journalism is moving away from a concept of journalism as "information people need to know" towards a notion of the "Right to Know": everything conceivable about everyone is newsworthy. It is axiomatic that a well-informed public is a better electorate. However, the First Amendment guarantee of…

This paper discusses from a historical perspective past shortcomings of public service television with its protective information policies, indifference to audiovisual language, absence of diversity in journalistic thematic choices, and "boring" style of television reporting. It is argued that there has been a substantial lack of concern…

The utilization of program evaluation may be made more effective by means of the application of contemporary persuasion theory. The Elaboration Likelihood Model--a model of cognitive processing, ability, and motivation--was used in this study to test the persuasive effects of source credibility and involvement on message acceptance of evaluation…

The debate over the role of the press in the Third World has largely ignored questions of public perception of media roles and performance. To investigate whether an audience perceives the fundamental difference between development journalism (where the state has significant involvement in news decisions) and a free press, and whether that…