Attitudes of Special Education Paraprofessionals Toward the Disabled

Attitudes of 69 experienced special education paraprofessionals toward disabled persons were assessed using the Attitude Toward Disabled Persons Scale - Form A. A two-tailed t test showed significantly more positive attitudes by subjects compared to the norms

Interacting with television : morning talk-TV and its communicative relationship with women viewers

This thesis presents a unique interdisciplinary approach to gender and mass communication within the field of media and cultural studies. It evolves from a trend in media research that understands broadcasting as a communicative event which involves the creation of new and different forms of social action and interaction in a modem world (Meyrowitz, 1985; Thompson, 1995; Scannell, 1989; 1991; Moores, 2000). It investigates women's involvement with television discourse concentrating on morning talk programming in Britain which presents a concentration of talk shows and magazine programmes. These programmes are chosen specifically because in dealing with issues that are usually contained within the personal and private domain they often privilege the voices of 'ordinary' people and women in particular. It is argued that their personalised stylistic features produce textual strategies which position the viewer as also 'participator'. The research also involves a, broadly speaking, 'ethnographic' approach, viewing programmes with women in their homes and recording their responses alongside the text. This original methodology produces an analysis of text/audience interaction that concentrates on the motivation of a particular style of 'feminine' discourse, which can articulate the personal and private. As such, I emphasise the importance of the women's voices in the construction of the viewing experience which uniquely establishes a 'mediated conversational floor'. The research finds that through the interaction encouraged by the texts, the women respond producing their own relevant subjective experience that is significant as a modern phenomenon of self-reflexivity and identity construction

I heard you go by

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/4712/thumbnail.jp

INTERDEPENDENCE OF AGRICULTURE AND TOURISM: QUANTIFYING THE VALUE OF THE AGRICULTURAL WORKING LANDSCAPE IN VERMONT

This study evaluates the impact of the agricultural working landscape on the Vermont tourist industry and state economy. Vermont is known for its scenery, especially its agricultural landscape. It has often been stated that Vermont's tourist industry, which represents 15% of the state's economy, depends upon this special landscape for its comparative advantage in the New England tourism market. However, Vermont's landscape is changing. The number of farms and acres of farmland have decreased significantly in the past several decades. State policy makers are grappling with the challenge of supporting and preserving both the farm and tourist economies in the face of regional and global competition. This study quantifies the impact of the agricultural working landscape on tourist demand in Vermont. Primary data were gathered through a survey of visitors to Vermont to determine how the disappearance of the agricultural landscape would affect their willingness to visit the state. Findings indicate that 84% of respondents value the agricultural landscape of Vermont and 58.5% of the respondents would be less likely to visit Vermont if there were very few farms. Knowing the level of this impact will help policy makers decide how much to invest in the preservation of farmland and marketing of farm visits and eco-tourism.Land Economics/Use, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

THE IMPACT OF THE TOURISM SECTOR ON THE VERMONT ECONOMY: THE INPUT-OUTPUT ANALYSIS

There are only few states in the United States where state income relies heavily on tourism industry, and Vermont is one of them. Vermont has the advantage in possessing spectacular landscape, clean environment, and attractive agriculturally based rural community, which provide an excellent opportunity for tourism industry development. Vermont economy also benefits from the tourists' activities because: (1) tourists contribute significant amount of income to Vermont economy, especially from ski business; (2) tourists' expenditures in Vermont become a significant source of state tax income; and (3) to sustain tourism industry in Vermont helps to preserve rural community environment as well as nature beauty in Vermont. Although tourism industry is very important to Vermont, there is limited information associated with the economic impacts from the tourism industry to Vermont economy. The objectives of this article include: (1) to quantify the economic activities of tourism-related sectors in Vermont in order to create a tourism industry; and (2) to estimate the economic impacts of the tourism industry on Vermont economy in terms of total output, Gross State Product (GSP), employment, and dependency and inter-industry linkages between tourism industry and other industries in Vermont. Three surveys have been designed to gather data for tourists' activities and expenditures: (1) a nation-wide visitor survey in order to understand the profiles and expenditures of Vermont tourists; (1) a lodging business survey to estimate total revenue and cost structures for three sizes of the lodging businesses - small, medium, and large; and (3) a ski resort survey to estimate ski total revenue and cost structure and its contribution to recreation industry in Vermont. Further analysis in tourism impacts on Vermont economy is carried out by running a input-output model using Impact analysis for PLANing (IMPLAN) software. Several interesting results are concluded from this study. For the profile of the visitors, the majority tourists coming to Vermont are domestic pleasure travelers, every visiting domestic household spends approximately $323.66 for every trip to Vermont, and 75$29,000, and finally winter average revenue for a ski area is $19 millions of dollars ($4.3 millions of dollars in summer/fall). The impacts of tourism industry on Vermont economy include: (1) tourism industry counts for 15% of the total state output value, 22% of the state employment, and 26% of the indirect business tax; (2) for every million dollars spent by tourists in Vermont - 35 jobs are created, additional 690 thousands of dollars worth output will be generated, employment compensation will increase by $540,546 dollars, and indirect business tax will increase by$127,807 dollars. It has been shown that Tourism industry contributes significantly to Vermont economy relative to Agriculture and Manufacturing industries.tourism, Vermont, Input-Output model, Visitor survey, Lodging survey, Ski Survey, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

The Impact of Social Media on Young People’s Health and Wellbeing: Evidence, Guidelines and Actions

This report presents new evidence on the relationship between young people, social media and health, as well as providing clear guidance and actions for education and health research, policy and practice

RadioSource.NET: Case-study of a Collaborative Land-Grant Internet Audio Project

RadioSource.NET (http://radiosource.net) is a Web-portal news site for land-grant university radio programming. The project is a collaborative venture among university communication departments with the following goals: to share resources; increase online distribution; and promote access to agricultural and natural and life science research. This article is a case study of RadioSource.NET. The evolution of the RadioSource.NET project is examined with emphasis on the process of establishing and maintaining online collaborative partnerships within academia. The project’s development is described and discussed, and Wheeler, Valacich, Alavi, and Vogel’s (1995) framework for technology-mediated interinstitutional relationships for collaborative learning is used to help organize information and evaluate the project’s effectiveness. RadioSource.NET project is an example of successful university collaboration in new media. By utilizing a flexible system design, RadioSource.NET capitalizes on collaborative strengths such as increased innovation and efficiency, and it is anticipated that the project model can serve as a useful resource for other online collaborative endeavors utilizing emerging technologies