The more, the better? Effects of transparency tools and moderators on the perceived credibility of news articles

Transparency is often discussed as a way to increase the public’s perception of journalism. While its adoption by newsrooms is relatively well studied, only a few studies have investigated its effects on news users’ credibility judgments. We build on research about transparency effects and report the results of two online experiments (total N = 2262), one with a local and one with a national newspaper frame. Our results suggest that transparency does not affect the perceived message and source credibility newspaper articles and that moderating factors such as cognitive involvement and media skepticism are more important predictors of credibility assessments.

Giving feedback on peers’ concept maps as a learning experience: does quality of reviewed concept maps matter?

Giving feedback to peers can be a powerful learning tool because of the feedback provider’s active cognitive involvement with the products to be reviewed. The quality of peers’ products is naturally an important factor that might influence not only the quality of the feedback that is given, but also the learning arising from this process. This experimental study investigated the effect of the level of quality of the reviewed product on the knowledge acquisition of feedback providers, as well as the role of prior knowledge in this. Dutch secondary-school students (n = 77) were assigned to one of three conditions, which varied in the quality of the learning products (concept maps) on which students had to give feedback while working in an online physics inquiry learning environment. Post-test knowledge scores, the quality of students’ own concept maps and the quality of the feedback given were analyzed to determine any effect of condition on the learning of feedback providers. Students providing feedback on the lower-quality concept maps gave better feedback and had higher post-test scores. There was no interaction with level of prior knowledge. Possible implications for practice and further research directions are discussed.

Malformations of Cortical Development, Cognitive Involvementand Epilepsy: A Single Institution Experience in 19 Young Patients

Background. Malformations of cortical development (MCD) include a wide range of congenital disorders mostly causing severe cognitive dysfunction and epilepsy. Objective: to report on clinical features including cognitive involvement, epileptic seizures with response to antiseizure medications, comorbidities in young patients affected by MCD and followed in a single tertiary hospital. Patients and methods: A retrospective review of the medical records and magnetic resonance images (MRI) of 19 young patients with an age ranging between eight days and fifteen years affected by MCD and admitted to Pediatrics Department University of Catania, Italy from October 2009 and October 2020 were selected. Patients were distinguished in three groups following the Barcovich et al. 2012 classification for MCD: 4 (21%) in Group I; 8 (42%) in Group II; and, and 7 (37%) in Group III. Clinical features and MRI of the patients including cognitive involvement, epilepsy type and response to drugs treatment were analyzed. Results: In Group I, two patients showed cortical dysplasia and two dysembryoplastic neuroepithelial tumors plus focal cortical dysplasia; developmental delay/intellectual disability (DD/ID) was severe in one, moderate in one and absent in two; the type of seizures was in all the cases focal to bilateral tonic-clonic (FBTCs), and drug resistant was found in one case. In Group II, three patients showed neuronal hetero-topias and five had pachygyria-lissencephaly: DD/ID was severe in four, moderate in two, and absent in two; the type of seizure was focal (FS) in five, focal to bilateral tonic-clonic (FBTCs) in two, infantile spasms (IS) in one, and drug resistant was found in three. In Group III, six showed polymicrogyria and one schizencephaly: DD/ID was found severe in five, moderate in two, and the type of seizure was focal (FS) in five, FBTCS in two, and drug resistance was found in three.

Assessing the Emotional Response in Social Communication: The Role of Neuromarketing

Social advertising is designed to have an impact on the behavior of the target audience to improve the welfare of both the individuals and the society. The challenge for social marketing is to respond to the exchange process in a social perspective, considering that non-profit actions are perceived as intangible since they deal with services. As donations, the neuroscience applied to consumer behavior is an added value since it offers elements explaining the reactions of the individuals to emotional contents. Understanding the emotions in the moment in which they are felt allows to understand the experimentation of a message by individuals and to understand the possibility that the message can change the behavior of the target audience. The aim of the study is to assess the effectiveness of the Unicef bequest campaign in terms of emotional response, comparing different creative proposals to optimize communication, applying neuromarketing tools to the social area. The experiment involved 70 participants (35 males; 35 females; mean age 68.94 years) and compared two different spots and flyers. The progeny factor was introduced to assess the different impacts of bequests depending on the presence or absence of potential heirs. The neuromarketing tools such as electroencephalography (EEG), skin conductance (SC), and eye-tracker were used for instrumentation purposes. Analysis of the two spots showed statistically significant differences in both the Approach–Withdrawal Index (AWI), for the cognitive involvement, and the SC, the emotional activation indicator, particularly for those not having children (target audience) and in a specific spot that linked the possibility to live after death. The detection of the emotional responses through neuromarketing tools, associated with the non-profit communication, resulted particularly effective and verified an increment of 35% of the donations. Analyses performed with neuromarketing techniques allowed to understand both emotional intensity and cognitive involvement and to understand the best solution, according to the target audience and the aim of Unicef.

Learning Self-regulated L2 WritingUnder a Cognitive Model

This innovative approach of teaching L2 writing was experimentedbelieving that using a fewer self-regulated learning strategymay lead toweakmetacognitive learning attitude resulting in low proficiency.This research wasconducted to investigate the consequences of instructionally aroused cognitive involvement load for using self-regulated and metacognitive learning strategies to improve L2 writing skills. The innovative L2 writing instructional model of this study has been named as Strategic Self-Regulated Metacognitive Activities or S2RMCA.The approach of this model is to promoteself-regulated learning managementby learners. Forarousing the use of learning strategies, a set of self-monitoring and self-evaluatingassessment rubric namedStrategy Inventories for Learning L2 Writing(SILL2W)has also been designed. For collecting and analyzingthe data a questionnaire, pre-post-tests, checklist, and interviews wereutilized. Outcomes of data analyses have shownusefulness and practicality ofthe S2RMCA model for teaching self-regulated L2 writing. Acceptable resultshave also beenshownby participants intheir L2 writing skills. In research studies conducted on cognitive load, accurate measurement of load viaself-reporting has been a persistingquestion and this study has notbeen different from the onesthat have faced the challenge.

Critical discourse analysis in patriarchal society: Covid-19 and increased women workload

<p class="ListParagraph1">By utilizing discursive theory, social actors, and sociosemantics, this study aims to find the increase in women's working hours, reasons, and causality between working hours, types of work, and their respective recognition in social relations. The study used a qualitative descriptive method, with research data focusing on the context before and during COVID-19. Data were collected through online surveys and interviews. Data analysis was carried out based on sociosemantic analysis in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), starting with calculating working time, reasons, and causality according to the CDA. The research findings show that women's working hours when COVID-19 has increased accumulatively. The accumulative increase relates to all types of work when COVID-19 requires women's access. Respondents admitted that everything was done as a custom for reasons of fate, obligations and traditions. It can be concluded that, there is a causality between working hours, type of work and respondents' reasons that prevalence occurs due to cognitive involvement, religion, and tradition. CDA views the context of this imbalance in this relationship as a social problem. Problem solving according to the CDA can be done through an educational process, with the assumption of solving problems for the future.</p>