Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

Differences Between Public Attention and Understanding of School Budget Formats Published in Newspapers

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https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/t435gj40s

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  • This thesis study attempts to differentiate between attention and understanding as separate phases of communication theory. To do this, additional analysis was made of data already gathered from a random sample of Oregonians by the Survey Research Center at Oregon State University. An additional objective was to determine the role adjudicated newspaper readership plays in dissemination of information to the community about school financial affairs. Ten independent variables were tested for discrimination between the two attributes. Statistically significant variables were then subjected to discriminate function analysis to determine the relative importance of the variables. Results show that variables found to be statistically significant in discriminating between attention and understanding were (in order of importance) voting in the last school election, knowledge score, readership of an adjudicated newspaper and years of residence in Oregon. A selectivity bias was found to exist because of homogeneity of the sample of 123 respondents whO retained the sample newspaper containing three formats and who were willing to bring it to the phone. A substantiation of "set" theory is a part of the results of this study. Readers of an adjudicated newspaper, who have previously experienced the opportunity of reading school budget information, were found to be more likely to read and evaluate that type of information in a sample newspaper containing three budget formats than were readers of non-adjudicated newspapers or non-readers of newspapers. Results indicate a significant degree of discrimination among respondents between attention and understanding features of the formats and suggest a need for further study in this area of communication theory. Results also show that readers of adjudicated newspapers are more knowledgeable about school financial affairs, engage in more interpersonal discussion about school financial affairs, are more likely to be registered to vote and are more likely to recall having seen a school budget in the past six months than are non-readers of these papers. These results underscore the need to improve school budget formats to increase attention and understanding among readers. A shorter, better organized format should be substituted for the Standard Oregon one now used and larger type should be considered. A need is shown for a cooperative effort between school administrators and newspaper publishers to make school financial information more attractive and easier to understand for community residents.
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