TELEVISION-NEWS IN THE CLASSROOM - WHAT ARE ADOLESCENTS LEARNING

Having adolescents study current events in school is valued highly by teachers. However schools often do not stress the instruction of curre nt events. In this study, students were compared across high schools t hat were designated as exemplary schools in the use of the Channel One television news program and three comparison schools. The results ind icated that students who had greater prior knowledge of current events were more likely to report being mastery oriented toward the news; co nsequently, those students reported engaging in more outside of school news-seeking behaviors and therefore knew more about current events t han did other students. In addition, watching television news in suppo rtive environments, grade point average, gender and socioeconomic stat us were related to current events knowledge. Implications for the inst ruction of current events in schools are discussed.