A Functional Analysis of Televised U.S. Senate and Gubernatorial Campaign Debates

This study extended previous research on the Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse to investigate the nature of 21 U.S. Senate campaign debates and 15 gubernatorial debates from 1994 to 2006. Acclaims were more common than attacks or defenses in Senate (56%, 30%, 14%) and gubernatorial (68%, 30%, 2%) debates. Challengers attacked more and acclaimed less than incumbents in both groups of debates. Senate and gubernatorial incumbents used past deeds much more to acclaim than attack; challengers were prone to use past deeds to attack more than acclaim. There was no consistent effect of political party on functions of debates. The candidates focused more attention on policy than character in Senate (70%, 30%) and gubernatorial debates (73%, 27%). There was no difference in topics stressed by Democrats and Republicans, or incumbents and challengers, in either set of debates. These results are generally consistent with the findings from prior analyses of presidential debate

Determinants of Issue Emphasis in Gubernatorial and Senate Debates

This study employs computer content analysis to investigate the issue emphasis of political campaign debates. Issue Ownership Theory (Petrocik, 1996) posits that each political party “owns” a set of issues, which means that a majority of the public believes that one party is better able to handle that issue than the other party. He predicts that political candidates will emphasize the issues owned by their own party. This study applies computer content analysis to 12 gubernatorial and 12 senatorial debates. The results confirm the predictions of issue ownership theory: Candidates discussed the issues owned by their political party more, and issues owned by the opposing party less, than their opponents

Functional Federalism and Issue Emphasis in Political Television Spots

Peterson’s (1995) theory of Functional Federalism recognizes that political offices at different levels of government have different responsibilities, so that senators are more likely to emphasize national issues than governors. This theory was tested and extended. First, 1651 political television spots from 2002 and 2004 gubernatorial, US Senate, and US House races were subjected to computer content analysis. As predicted, gubernatorial spots emphasized local issues (54%) more than national ones (46%) whereas House and Senate spots stressed national issues (63%, 64%) over local ones (37%, 36%). Second, we extended Functional Federalism by arguing that presidential TV spots should stress national issues even more than spots for the Senate and House. Then 687 presidential television spots (1980-2004) and 526 congressional spots (1980-2002) were also content analyzed. Both sets of ads emphasized national issues more than local issues; however, presidential ads stressed national issues (66%) even more than congressional ads (56%). These data support and extend the theory of functional federalism

Revisiting Clickers: In-Class Questions Followed by At-Home Reflections Are Associated with Higher Student Performance on Related Exam Questions

Clicker questions are a commonly used active learning technique that stimulates student interactions to help advance understanding of key concepts. Clicker questions are often administered with an initial vote, peer discussion, and a second vote, followed by broader classroom explanation. While clickers can promote learning, some studies have questioned whether students maintain this performance on later exams, highlighting the need to further understand how student answer patterns relate to their understanding of the material and to identify ways for clickers to benefit a broader range of students. Systematic requizzing of concepts during at-home assignments represents a promising mechanism to improve student learning. Thus, we paired clicker questions with at-home follow-up reflections to help students articulate and synthesize their understandings. This pairing of clickers with homework allowed us to decipher how student answer patterns related to their underlying conceptions and to determine if revisiting concepts provided additional benefits. We found that students answering both clicker votes correctly performed better on isomorphic exam questions and that students who corrected their answers after the first vote did not show better homework or exam performance than students who maintained an incorrect answer across both votes. Furthermore, completing the followup homework assignment modestly boosted exam question performance. Our data suggest that longer-term benefits of clickers and associated homework may stem from students having repeated opportunities to retrieve, refine, and reinforce emerging conceptions

The effect of tourism education on students? entrepreneurial vocation

This paper aims to examine how higher education affects entrepreneurial vocation in a very specific segment, namely university education in tourism. We used a theoretical approach based on the psychological foundations of intentional theory to analyse a sample of 122 graduate and undergraduate university students in tourism from the perspective of higher education. The results show the differential effect of curricular and extracurricular activities on intentions, attitudes and behavioural control, while there is very little effect on the development of entrepreneurial competencies

Characterizing Student Perceptions of and Buy-In toward Common Formative Assessment Techniques

Formative assessments (FAs) can occur as preclass assignments, in-class activities, or postclass homework. FAs aim to promote student learning by accomplishing key objectives, including clarifying learning expectations, revealing student thinking to the instructor, providing feedback to the student that promotes learning, facilitating peer interactions, and activating student ownership of learning. While FAs have gained prominence within the education community, we have limited knowledge regarding student perceptions of these activities. We used a mixed-methods approach to determine whether students recognize and value the role of FAs in their learning and how students perceive course activities to align with five key FA objectives. To address these questions, we administered a midsemester survey in seven introductory biology course sections that were using multiple FA techniques. Overall, responses to both open-ended and closed-ended questions revealed that the majority of students held positive perceptions of FAs and perceived FAs to facilitate their learning in a variety of ways. Students consistently considered FA activities to have accomplished particular objectives, but there was greater variation among FAs in how students perceived the achievement of other objectives. We further discuss potential sources of student resistance and implications of these results for instructor practice

Issue Ownership in Congressional Campaign Television Spots

This study investigated issue ownership patterns in 602 U.S. House and Senate Democratic and Republican political campaign television advertisements from 1980–2000. First, the themes in these ads were about equally split between policy and character (unlike presidential TV spots from the same time period, which are roughly two-thirds policy and one-third character). Candidates from each political party addressed their own party\u27s issues more than issues owned by the other party. However, unlike presidential spots, congressional ads discussed Democratic issues more than Republican issues (59% to 41%). Although candidates from both political parties discussed their own issues more, winners tended to discuss issues from the other party more than losers. There was no difference in issue ownership emphasis between the House and Senate ads in this sample

A Functional Analysis of the 1988 Bush-Dukakis Presidential Debates

This study applies the Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse to the 1988 presidential debates between George Bush and Michael Dukakis. It challenges the notion that this campaign was mostly negative: The candidates relied more heavily on acclaims (59%) than on attacks (33%) or defenses (8%). The incumbent party candidate, Bush, devoted more discourse to acclaiming (62%) than the challenger (56%). The challenger attacked more (39%) than the incumbent (25%), which refutes the idea that Bush was more aggressive. Bush, who was subjected to more attacks, had more defenses (12% to 5%). Despite the belief that modern campaigns are devoid of substance, these debates stressed policy about twice as much as character

Data from: Landscape genetics of the nonnative red fox of California

Invasive mammalian carnivores contribute disproportionately to declines in global biodiversity. In California, nonnative red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) have significantly impacted endangered ground-nesting birds and native canids. These foxes derive primarily from captive-reared animals associated with the fur-farming industry. Over the past five decades, the cumulative area occupied by nonnative red fox increased to cover much of central and southern California. We used a landscape-genetic approach involving mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences and 13 microsatellites of 402 nonnative red foxes removed in predator control programs to investigate source populations, contemporary connectivity, and metapopulation dynamics. Both markers indicated high population structuring consistent with origins from multiple introductions and low subsequent gene flow. Landscape-genetic modeling indicated that population connectivity was especially low among coastal sampling sites surrounded by mountainous wildlands but somewhat higher through topographically flat, urban and agricultural landscapes. The genetic composition of populations tended to be stable for multiple generations, indicating a degree of demographic resilience to predator removal programs. However, in two sites where intensive predator control reduced fox abundance, we observed increases in immigration, suggesting potential for recolonization to counter eradication attempts. These findings, along with continued genetic monitoring, can help guide localized management of foxes by identifying points of introductions and routes of spread and evaluating the relative importance of reproduction and immigration in maintaining populations. More generally, the study illustrates the utility of a landscape-genetic approach for understanding invasion dynamics and metapopulation structure of one of the world's most destructive invasive mammals, the red fox