Learning from news: Is online better than print?

This study compares the process of learning from news between print and online news environments. The study adopts the framework of Cognitive Mediation Model that treats surveillance motivation as the cause of news orientation and news elaboration which in turn are the causes of knowledge acquisition.To identify the differences in news learning between print and online media, a “between-subjects” experiment was used. The study tested the two models using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM).The results show that both print and online models are supportive of the Cognitive Mediation Model. While most of the hypothesized relationships were supported, the study found that orientation in information space has significant effect on knowledge level of print but not online readers.This result suggests the disadvantages of Web non-linearity on learning outcome.The study also found that the mediating role of news orientation was only supported in the print model. The higher R2 value for print compared to online model suggests the influential role of traditional print in news learning

Who Posted That Story? Processing Layered Sources in Facebook News Posts

With social media platforms becoming primary news sources, concerns about credibility judgments and knowledge grow. This study (N = 233) experimentally tests the effects of multiple source cues on Facebook news posts on credibility and knowledge. Judgments of story credibility were directly influenced by media source cues, but not friend source cues. Involvement in the source topic moderated the effects of these source cues, such that particular combinations influenced credibility differently, and also influenced cognitive elaboration about the topic. Theoretical implications for cognitive mediation model of learning from the news and the heuristic-systematic model of information processing are presented

Master of Arts

thesisThis study offers a test of the cognitive mediation model (CMM) within a low-income, Spanish-speaking population in the state of Indiana. A survey study was conducted to test whether participants (N = 150) who consumed ethnic newspapers, namely La Raza, were more likely to have greater cancer prevention knowledge and more likely to comply with cancer prevention behaviors. The interaction between La Raza readership and health motivation was not significantly related to either screening or knowledge; however, individuals with high health motivation were more likely to report screening. Notably, two of the relationships posited by the CMM were absent, surveillance motivation and elaboration were not related to knowledge. Further, our test of the model did not yield any significant results in its original form or the modified version used to test an ethnic subsample in a health news learning context. However, once elaboration was removed from the model, there was an indirect relationship between surveillance motivation and cancer prevention knowledge through attention. Future research should focus on finding ways in which models such as the CMM can be modified to explain news learning in ethnic and linguistic subpopulations

Investigating the learning transfer of genre features and conceptual knowledge from an academic literacy course to business studies: Exploring the potential of dynamic assessment

Academic literacy courses aim to enable higher education students to participate in their chosen academic fields as fully as possible. However, the extent to which these students transfer the academic skills taught in these courses to their chosen disciplines is still under-researched. This article reports on a study that investigated the potential of dynamic assessment (an assessment approach that blends instruction into assessment) in the transfer of genre features and conceptual knowledge among undergraduate business studies students in a UK public university. The data includes three students’ written assignments (N = nine), interviews (N = three) and business studies tutor (N = three) feedback. Drawing on Vygotskian sociocultural theory of learning and a genre theory based on Systemic Functional Linguistics, the data were analysed. The findings suggest that dynamic assessment may contribute to the transfer of genre features and conceptual knowledge to a new assessment context. Implications of this for academic literacy instruction and assessment design are presented

Digital competencies and capabilities. Pre-adolescents inside and outside school

The investment on key-competences in last years was one crucial European strategy to face the new challenges of the knowledge society and of the digital convergence and to guarantee the active citizenship and social inclusion. The first answer has been given in Lisbon 2000’s, when eight main objectives have been presented; they were focused on the improvement of basic and "soft" skills in educational paths of the main agencies (i.e. school and family). Hence, the digital competence, included in Lisbon strategies, can be interpreted in a double meaning: as basic skill (focused on the digital literacy) as soft skill (focused on the digital learning). Starting from here, this proposal will construct a theoretical description of the digital competence and its impact to cognitive processes of the children, considering the influence and the strategies applied by agencies of the social capital, especially the family. This issue will be analysed through the re-reading the capabilities approach by Sen and Nussbaum (2011), according two perspectives: 1. the first is psyco-cognitive connected to the development of digital competences during the learning process of children; 2. the second is focused on the relational and communicative styles of their socializing agencies. In the digital skills, the generation gap is more evident: the youngsters acquire the digital literacy through their experiences; however their digital knowledge is often technical and linguistic, while it isn’t a lot oriented to the metacognition of the digital media, such as the critical thinking or the creativity; on the other side, the educators don’t have the same familiarity with media and for this reason they not always understand needs, values and references of youngsters. The consumption styles of parents, their prejudices and their competences influence the relationship of children with media starting from their first digital experience, with social and cognitive consequences

Narrative Health Communication and Behavior Change: The Influence of Exemplars in the News on Intention to Quit Smoking.

This study investigated psychological mechanisms underlying the effect of narrative health communication on behavioral intention. Specifically, the study examined how exemplification in news about successful smoking cessation affects recipients\u27 narrative engagement, thereby changing their intention to quit smoking. Nationally representative samples of U.S. adult smokers participated in 2 experiments. The results from the 2 experiments consistently showed that smokers reading a news article with an exemplar experienced greater narrative engagement compared to those reading an article without an exemplar. Those who reported more engagement were in turn more likely to report greater smoking cessation intentions

Assessing New York City's Youth Gun Violence Crisis: Crews - Volume III - Responding to the Problem: Coordinating a Continuum of Services

The success or failure of community strategies to address the youth gun violence crisis is often attributed in part to how well the problem is understood and diagnosed. With support from The New York Community Trust, the Crime Commission has undertaken an analysis of youth gun violence and crew activity -- violent turf rivalries among less-organized, smaller and normally younger groups than traditional gangs -- in select New York City communities. Our initial findings from available data, existing research and interviews with stakeholders are presented in a series of papers titled, Assessing New York City's Youth Gun Violence Crisis: Crews