Week 5 – Assignment: Understanding Peer-Reviewed, Primary, and Secondary Sources Instructions Assignment: Part 1 In this assignment, you are the prof

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Week 5

BUS-7100 v1: Scholarly Literature Review (6760019724)

Exploring the Literature Search and Practice Writing a Problem Statement

This week, you will discover the differences between peer-reviewed articles, peer-

reviewed journal, and primary sources versus secondary sources. You will discover how to

find peer-reviewed journals also. The reason to understand this is because your literature

review must be based on reliable sources so your dissertation is scholarly and

academically reliable.

As most scholars would agree, a primary source is a first discover account or evidence of a

topic. For example, if you were researching philosophy you would want to go all the way

back to Socrates and get his view as a ‘primary source’. Another example would be the

creator of a theory would be the primary source. This is the author or inventor’s original

research. It can include research on any number of things. When looking at a topic in an

article, go to the references listed and follow the listings to determine that you have

found the original author. Otherwise, you may be using secondary sources.

A secondary source is one or more steps from the primary source. This writing can be a

number of things such as an article being written that cites the primary source; however,

the new author has added another view. Secondary sources can be many things, such as

books, models, articles, and much more in the world of literature and writing. The main

difference is the secondary source is not the first to discover or write the idea.

Peer-reviewed sources are required at NCU in your dissertation. You will also be required

to stay within 85 percent of your literature to be current. This means within five years of

your dissertation completion. Remember to keep watch for this as you progress through

your dissertation and update any old sources. In the NCU Library, you will find and

practice the process of narrowing down to ‘peer-reviewed’ articles. This information

typically comes from a journal that has subject matter experts in the field of study and has

agreed to the authenticity of the article before being published in the journal.

6/2/22, 8:21 AM BUS-7100 v1: Scholarly Literature Review (6760019724) – BUS-7100 v1: Scholarly Literature Review (6760019724)

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Books and Resources for this Week

NCU Libraries, (2018). How do I

determine if a particular journal is peer

reviewed? Link

SignifcancePurposeProblem

Click each card to know more about these parts o the dissertation research

Brief Discussion of Problem, Purpose, and Significance in Dissertation Research

Launch in a separate window

Be sure to review this week's resources carefully. You are expected to apply the

information from these resources when you prepare your assignments.

85.71 % 6 of 7 topics complete

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NCU Libraries, (2018). How do I find

scholarly, peer-reviewed journal

articles? Link

NCU Libraries, (2018). Primary Sources Link

NCU Libraries, (2018). Scholarly and

Peer-Reviewed Journals Link

NCU Libraries, (2018). What is the

difference between scholarly and peer-

reviewed journals? Link

Yettick, H. (2015). One Small Droplet:

News Media Coverage of Peer-

Reviewed and University-Based

Education Research and Academic

Expertise… Link

Week 5 – Assignment: Understanding Peer-Reviewed,

Primary, and Secondary Sources Assignment

Due June 5 at 11:59 PM

Assignment: Part 1

In this assignment, you are the professor and you will be creating a PPT presentation for

students that outlines the differences between the following:

Peer-reviewed journals

A primary source

A secondary source

6/2/22, 8:21 AM BUS-7100 v1: Scholarly Literature Review (6760019724) – BUS-7100 v1: Scholarly Literature Review (6760019724)

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Include in the notes section of the PowerPoint at least 200 words covering how you

would explain the use and purpose of each item. For example, use who, what, when,

where, and how to approach and explain each item as it applies to the peer-reviewed

journals, the primary sources, and a secondary source.

Assignment: Part 2

Include a problem statement with a maximum of 250 words, including the points below

that are from the dissertation template, for a topic that interests you.

Begin with “The problem to be addressed by this study is…” This statement should

logically flow from the introduction and clearly identify the problem to be addressed by

the study.

Succinctly discuss the problem and provide evidence of its existence.

Identify who is impacted by the problem (e.g., individuals, organizations, industries,

or society),

Explain what is not known that should be known about it

Explain what the potential negative consequences could be if the problem is not

addressed in this study

Remember to source the information and source assertions with citations of

current, scholarly works from the literature

Length: 5-7 slides with a minimum of 200 words in the notes of the PPT

References: Include a minimum of five (5) scholarly resources.

Your presentation should demonstrate thoughtful consideration of the ideas and concepts

presented in the course and provide new thoughts and insights relating directly to this

topic. Your response should reflect scholarly writing and current APA standards. Be sure

to adhere to Northcentral University's Academic Integrity Policy.

Upload your document and click the Submit to Dropbox button.

Educational Researcher, Vol. 44 No. 3, pp. 173 –184 DOI: 10.3102/0013189X15574903 © 2015 AERA. http://er.aera.net

ApRIl 2015 173

M ost members of the American public will never read this article. Even if they are interested in education and charged with making important decisions about

schooling, it is unlikely that they will seek information from a peer-reviewed education journal. Instead, they will probably turn to other sources. Despite their well-publicized demise, the news media are some of these sources. Daily newspapers are a top source of education information in America, second only to family and friends (West, Whitehurst, & Dionne, 2011). Online news ties with newspapers as a source of information about local education (Rosenstiel, Mitchell, Purcell, & Rainie, 2011). Additionally, after years of decline, news use may be rebounding as a result of the increasing popularity and functionality of tab- lets and mobile devices (Pew Research Center, 2013).

Although researchers disagree about issues of mechanism and degree, a large body of literature suggests that the news media can and do influence decision making, perception, and even behavior (Croteau, Hoynes, & Milan, 2012; Gamson, 1992; Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, & Signorielli, 1982; Graber, 2009). In the education sphere, this means that news media coverage can

guide, to varying degrees, policymaking, practice, voting, and selection of schools. For instance, Howell (2008) found that aca- demic research results that contradicted the popular perception that private schools are superior to public schools changed the opinions of large percentages of study participants. In a day and age in which personal choice plays an expanding role in educa- tion, parents, students, and other nonexperts need evidence and information more than ever in order to select the most suitable school or register for the most appropriate level of coursework. As such, one might hope that the news media would lean toward presenting the best available evidence (Henig, 2008). At the very least, this means that the education research mentioned in the news media would have undergone the quality control measure of peer review. Further, one might expect (or at least hope) that academics, who are generally required to possess advanced graduate degrees in their areas of study, would be a major source of expertise. Yet little if any academic research has examined

574903EDRXXX10.3102/0013189X15574903Educational Researcher research-article2015

1Education Week Research Center, Editorial Projects in Education, Bethesda, MD

One Small Droplet: News Media Coverage of peer-Reviewed and University-Based Education Research and Academic Expertise Holly Yettick1

Most members of the American public will never read this article. Instead, they will obtain much of their information about education from the news media. Yet little academic research has examined the type or quality of education research and expertise they will find there. Through the lens of gatekeeping theory, this mixed-methods study aims to address that gap by examining the prevalence of news media citations of evidence that has undergone the quality-control measure of peer review and expertise associated with academics generally required to have expertise in their fields. Results suggest that, unlike science or medical journalists, education writers virtually never cite peer-reviewed research. Nor do they use the American Educational Research Association as a resource. Academic experts are also underrepresented in news media coverage, especially when compared to government officials. Barriers between the news media and academia include structural differences between research on education and the medical or life sciences as well as journalists’ lack of knowledge of the definition and value of peer review and tendency to apply and misapply news values to social science research and expertise.

Keywords: communication; content analysis; in-depth interviewing; media; regression analyses; research utilization

FEATURE ARTIClES

174 EDUCATIONAl RESEARCHER

what kind of education-related studies, data, and experts are actually mentioned by the news media. In a sense, the issue has fallen through the cracks of the mass communication and educa- tion fields. Further, potentially relevant studies are difficult to assemble in that they span a wide variety of fields such as mass communications, education, and political science.

The purpose of this study is to address the gaps in the litera- ture by examining the prevalence of news media mentions of “higher quality education-related evidence.” From here on, this term is operationalized to mean research that has undergone the quality control measure of peer review in that it has appeared in peer-reviewed journals. The term also includes research and expertise associated with academic experts. Such researchers are most likely to publish in peer-reviewed journals and work for employers that require advanced graduate degrees in their areas of research.1 While this definition is far from perfect and open to debate, this focus on university and peer-reviewed research and expertise is also important because most academic research is either in whole or in part supported by public funds in that its authors work at public universities or receive government con- tracts or grants. This adds a layer of urgency to the need to understand the degree to which such research and expertise is disseminated to the public that has helped pay for it and is, indi- rectly at least, responsible for ensuring its continuing support. In order to provide a better understanding of the prevalence of such research and expertise, this study also examines the journalistic decision-making processes that might help explain why educa- tion writers often hesitate to mention research and expertise from peer-reviewed and/or academic sources.

Literature Review

Relatively little academic research addresses news media coverage of education research and expertise, much less academic research and expertise. One of the few exceptions is Jeffrey Henig’s 2008 book, Spin Cycle. Henig’s study includes an analysis of the affili- ations of the experts whom two large newspapers consulted for articles on school choice. Nearly half of the experts mentioned (46.3%) were university affiliated. Of the 12 experts mentioned more than three times, two thirds (8) were affiliated with a uni- versity for at least some point during the sample period (1980– 2004). The study also included interviews with journalists from elite organizations. Henig concluded that these journalists lacked the knowledge to sort the research wheat from the chaff. Further, they were skeptical about education research in general and char- ter school research in particular in part as a result of method- ological disagreements between high-profile researchers. They were also overwhelmed as a result of deep staffing cuts in their newsrooms.

Henig (2008) did not analyze research affiliations or news coverage unrelated to school choice. In a broader study of the education coverage of three elite publications (The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Education Week), Yettick (2009) found that Education Week articles most frequently cited univer- sity research, whereas the two newspapers most frequently cited government research, followed by university research. This study did not include an analysis of expert citations or interviews with journalists. Further, neither study examined online-only outlets

or local publications, which may be predisposed to cover more education news since, in the United States, K–12 schooling is largely funded and controlled at state and local levels.

In their landmark overview of media coverage of social sci- ence research (including education research), Weiss and Singer (1988) found that elite, national news outlets were most likely to mention government studies but that university research was a close second. They also found that social science was the subject of 4 of the top 10 stories generated by meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, meaning that social science attracted a disproportionate amount of media attention. However, the outlets studied completely ignored the research presented in five top peer-reviewed social science journals.

By contrast, a research synthesis of qualitative studies of health and science reporters found that both types of journalists relied heavily on scientific journals, which were their main source for story ideas, in part because they were skeptical of pub- lic relations efforts and trusting of scientists (Amend & Secko, 2011). In line with these results were the findings of a quantita- tive study that found that more than half of front page newspa- per articles about medical research (57%) were based on studies published in peer-reviewed journals (Lai & Lane, 2009).

Overall, research suggests journalists cover social science at major academic conferences (Weiss & Singer, 1988). They favor peer-reviewed studies of science and health (Amend & Secko, 2011; Lai & Lane, 2009). In some instances, they favor university- based education research (Yettick, 2009). However, an overarch- ing issue is that the news media, in general, mention very little peer-reviewed research or expertise of any kind (Henig, 2008). One reason may be that peer-reviewed education research has long been criticized as low status, irrelevant, and trivial, to the point that even practitioners in the field (i.e., teachers) often felt justified in ignoring it (Lagemann, 2000). Yet even in the health field, where the news media have arguably helped transform cer- tain peer-reviewed journals into household names, 0.34% of peer-reviewed studies attracted attention from the news media (Suleski & Ibaraki, 2010). As Suleski and Ibaraki write,

If the output of science articles were the volume of a swimming pool, the total papers that made it to a mainstream audience through news media would fill only a quart, and the non-health/ medicine papers would be just two tablespoons. (p. 120)

The results of this study suggest that in the education field, the medicine dropper might be a more appropriate instrument of measurement.

Conceptual Framework

The conceptual framework for this study is gatekeeping theory. Gatekeeping theory provides a model for how and why decisions are made. In essence, everyone is not equally important when it comes to mass social decisions, such as the foods a family con- sumes or the articles that appear in a newspaper (Lewin, 1997; White, 1950). Instead, decision making flows through one or more channels interspersed with gates. “Gatekeepers” determine whether the gates swing open or remain shut (Lewin, 1997, p. 300). In the case of communication, channels might, for instance,

ApRIl 2015 175

represent the path from a university news release to a newspaper article. Examples of gatekeepers would include the editors who sort through news releases and the reporters who decide whether to write about the sorted releases. An extensive body of mass communication research has examined gatekeeping influences, which include newsroom social control (Breed, 1955), cognitive processes (Stocking & Gross, 1989), and ideology (Gans, 2004).

More recent theoretical explanations have suggested that even in the Internet era, gatekeeping has not so much disappeared as evolved to varying degrees to incorporate more audience input (Bowman, 2008; Bruns, 2009; Cassidy, 2006; T. Haas, 2005; Livingston & Bennett, 2003; Singer, 2006; Storm, 2007). In a nod to the loosening of the editorial reigns by newer and more experimental online media outlets, Bruns (2009) proposed renam- ing gatekeeping as “gatewatching” because online journalists are not so much locking and unlocking the gates as they are watching what flows through a perpetually permeable opening that admits content from a seemingly endless supply of contributors.

Shoemaker and Vos’s Multilevel Model

A hallmark of contemporary notions of gatekeeping theory is the idea that multiple levels of analysis should be taken into account. Drawing upon more than half a century’s worth of gatekeeping research and theory, Shoemaker and Vos (2009) envision five levels that progress from narrow and individual to broad and societal: individual, communication routines, organizational, social institution, and social system/ideological.2 These levels interact and should not be considered in isolation. For instance, individuals (Level 1) put their own stamps on communication routines (Level 2).

The Shoemaker and Vos (2009) model is the conceptual framework for this research study. As such, the research questions examine the extent to which forces at various levels influence the prevalence of academic and/or peer-reviewed education research in the news media. The research questions are as follows:

1. What is the prevalence of peer-reviewed research and academic research and expertise in U.S. print news media coverage of education?

2. How do the journalistic decision-making processes help us understand the prevalence of academic and peer- reviewed research and expertise in news media coverage of education?

Past research suggests that potential influences on news cover- age of education and/or research and expertise might include per- sonal preferences, risk avoidance, and educational backgrounds at Level 1; skepticism as a news value at Level 2; reporters from com- peting outlets at Level 3; economic forces, think tanks, and audi- ences at Level 4; and neoliberalism at Level 5 (Dunwoody, 1980; Henig, 2008; Stack, 2007; Tunstall, 1971; Ungderleider, 2006).

Methodology

This mixed-methods research study sampled two populations: news media coverage and the journalists and bloggers who cre- ated that coverage. The first population consisted of U.S. print

news media coverage that mentioned education research or experts. It was unclear, based on past research, how journalists actually defined education research or expertise. So education research was broadly defined as evidence relevant to decisions about education. This definition excluded purely anecdotal statements. “Experts” were defined as researchers. Also included in the definition were non-research-conducting observers com- menting from the sidelines, in much the same way that sports commentators describe and analyze what is happening on the field in an effort to provide broader context and meaning to a game. Although these expansive definitions almost certainly included people, studies, and data that some people would not consider to be research or experts, the writers interviewed for this study generally agreed with these classifications.

This study operationalized media coverage as print news media articles, commentaries, blog entries, columns, and edito- rials about K–12 education, described from here on out as “items.” All items appeared during the first 6 months of 2010 in daily newspapers, online-only outlets, or the trade publication Education Week. The study excluded other outlet types because the print media have historically produced more education cov- erage, employed more journalists, and set the agenda for radio and broadcast news (Pew Research Center, 2013; Reese & Danielian, 1989; Weaver, Beam, Brownlee, Voakes, & Wilhoit, 2007).

Past research has largely neglected local news coverage of edu- cation even though one might expect local news coverage to be more comprehensive since K–12 education in this country is funded and controlled at the state and local level. So this study sampled content from the 650 daily newspapers, big and small, that are catalogued in the America’s News database.

In addition to newspapers, the study sampled online-only sites that either focused on education or wrote frequently about the topic. As a result of rapid and decentralized growth in the sector, it was difficult to find a comprehensive list of education blogs and other online-only outlets from which to work. For this reason, the sampled outlets were gleaned from a list of 86 education- related online-only outlets monitored regularly by Alexander Russo, who runs the news aggregation and commentary site This Week in Education. Russo chooses sites to follow “that include a variety of content, views that aren’t all predictable, and update regularly” (A. Russo, personal communication, March 20, 2010).

The final sampled text was Education Week. This periodical was included because it is an influential source of information for policymakers, academics, journalists, and others with an interest in education-related policy (Swanson & Barlage, 2006).

I used “constructed week sampling” to select daily newspaper articles and online-only texts. In a constructed week sample, each day of the sampled week is randomly selected from the entire list of those days (e.g., all the Wednesdays) that occurred during a given period. In this case, the time period was the first 6 months of 2010. This means that the Monday of the con- structed week may have occurred in January while the Tuesday occurred in June. The advantage of this method is that it accounts for the fact that news is heavier on certain days by including every single day of the week while also representing the entire range of months that occurred during the sample

176 EDUCATIONAl RESEARCHER

period. One constructed week represented 6 months of newspa- per coverage while 2 constructed weeks represented the same time period for online-only reportage, which is more variable (Hester & Dougall, 2007; Riffe, Aust, & Lacy, 1993).

On the 7 days sampled, a total of 223,400 newspaper items ran. Based on the research of E. Haas (2007), search terms such as “study,” “expert,” and “school” narrowed down these results to 40,000 items, each of which this author skimmed, selecting 1,332 newspaper items for coding because they addressed K–12 education and mentioned research and/or experts. These 1,332 items represented 0.6% of the 223,400 news items that appeared in newspapers on the 7 sampled days. They were drawn from 395 newspapers.

I did not use search terms for online-only outlets because many lacked search functions and because search engines gener- ated too many irrelevant results. Instead, this author skimmed 3,390 items that appeared on the 14 sample dates, selecting 361 items (11%) for coding. Finally, 7 randomly selected weeks rep- resented 6 months of coverage in Education Week (Lacy, Robinson, & Riffe, 1995). Because only 305 items ran in those editions, this author skimmed them all, selecting 159 items (52%) for coding.

The codes assigned to selected items are summarized in Table 1. Pursuant to methodological research on content analysis, an assistant recoded a random sample of 100 items, with Cohen’s Kappa used to gauge interrater reliability (Lacy & Riffe, 1996), discarding codes if κ < .90.

The second population sampled for the study consisted of the writers who produced the news media coverage. The selection of these 33 writers was purposive, with an eye toward gaining a deeper understanding of the results of the initial analysis of the sampled texts. Writers participated in open-ended, protocol- guided interviews that lasted 20 minutes to 2 hours apiece.

Analysis

This study employed logistic regression to analyze the 1,852 coded items. The item was the unit of analysis. The models spec- ified controlled for the fact that item length varied significantly (see Table 1) while also exploring interactions between different codes (e.g., item topic and research type). Pursuant to research suggesting differences between news coverage that mentions research and news coverage that mentions expertise, the study analyzed items that mentioned research separately from items that mentioned experts (Weiss & Singer, 1988). Items that men- tioned both research and expertise were included in both sets of analyses. Since the goal was to examine the individual parameter

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