TITLE A Comparative Analysis of a Successful Approach for Rescuing the Undergraduate Media Research Course from Termination as Measured against the Traditional Teaching Modalities. PUB DATE 1999-08-04

In a national climate of moving the media research course from the undergraduate to graduate levels, this paper analyzes an innovative, easily replicative, and significantly successful new modality--implemented at an open-enrollment university in the Deep South--that may point the way to prevent termination of this essential course to undergraduates in the future when weighed against the traditional teaching dynamic. The paper is based upon a comparative analysis of the failings of the traditional teaching system and that of a new team-process approach, measured by survey and observation, that incorporated both quantitative and qualitative methodologies relevant to the demands of the media profession that were gathered from sources ranging from libraries, the Internet, and interviews and reported in 36 oral presentations, a major written project, and a series of examinations. (Contains 24 references; appendixes contain the course syllabus, an exit questionnaire, course materials and a questionnaire.) (Author/RS) * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * m A Comparative Analysis of a Successful Approach e