20 pages; Article 3, via online journal, Student-run publications, including newsrooms and similar agency-style work achieve the curricular goal of experiential learning (Roberts, 2006) for university agricultural communication students. Gaining a journalistic skillset in the classroom is richly supplemented with experiencing real-world and authentic agency immersion to reveal to students the genuine characteristics of a workplace. The purpose of this study was to use Q methodology to evaluate a real-world, out-of-class-but-supervised newsroom producing publications for the State FFA Convention. Fifteen undergraduate students who were immersed in this three-day program in which students publish original work to disseminate information to FFA participants and the public participated in the study at the end of the newsroom experience. With a concourse sampled along four dimensions of growth and development (Author, 2014), a Q set of 36 statements was sorted. In addition to the Q sorts, comments gathered from the students at the last session assisted in the interpretation of data. Post-sort interviews were conducted with exemplar sorters. Data were analyzed using principal components and varimax rotation and interpreted to show three ways the newsroom was experienced by the university students. The Supervisors honed managerial skills while working as colleagues with faculty supervisors. The Contented Staff valued the education gained from the experience and recognized the practical application of the communications-based skill-set. The Stressed Staff had insecurities and physical discomfort during the work and living in the city. Implications for program development, classroom instruction, and field experience assessment will be discussed.
2 pages., Research summary via online from the North American Association for Environmental Education., Researchers interviewed 11 environmental or science journalism educators from four-year institutions and identified four common challenges: (1) keeping up with technology, (2) student interest, (3) environmental advocacy among students; and (4) lack of potential careers in the field. They suggested pre-requisites.
Via UNC Research website. 6 pages., UNC students and faculty help community newspapers in North Carolina and across the country transform their product for the digital age.
Report based on data from a study among 3,757 students attending 18 institutions. Students who have chosen banking, dentistry, music and government service were found to be more conservative whereas the liberal attitudes were found among those planning on journalism, social work, law, and agriculture. The attitudes most favorable toward the college attended were found among students choosing such vocations as ministry, banking, teaching, and social service. The least favorable attitudes were indicated by the groups choosing aviation, agriculture, journalism, and music. It is possible that these unfavorable attitudes may be due in part to the inability of these 18 institutions to meet adequately the needs of students planning to enter aviation, agriculture, journalism, and music.
2 pages., Research summary online via the North American Association for Environmental Education., Author used a three-component data collection frame. Findings suggested that "very little training exists at the college level; almost 80% of schools with communication or journalism programs did not offer any courses described as directly or indirectly about the environment. Nevertheless, almost 80% of surveyed students thought coursework in environmental reporting was somewhat important, important, or very important. Furthermore, of the news article published in campus papers, under 2% covered environmental topics, which the researcher rated as "typically simplistic and local(typically campus) in geographic scale.
