In the recent past several educators and practitioners have advocated the use of a Socratic dialogue or case method to teach public relations principles. Reported here are the results of an empirical study comparing student reactions to and perceptions of learning in introductory public relations courses using a traditional lecture format and a Socratic approach. The independent variables in this study are lecture and Socratic teaching methods. It was hypothesized that compared to students in a traditional course, students in the Socratic course would: (1) retain more factual information about public relations, (2) feel more confident in their knowledge and skills needed to work in public relations, (3) report more opportunity to practice critical thinking, (4) report more opportunity to practice problem solving skills, (5) report greater aspiration to work in public relations, and (6) report higher levels of course satisfaction. For four of the six research questions examined, there were small differences between students who received traditional and Socratic instruction. These differences were in the direction expected but were not statistically significant. There were significant differences in the two groups showing that students who received the Socratic instruction reported more opportunities in practicing their critical thinking ability, and ability to solve practical public relations problems.
The study reported here does not address the image of the legal profession. We do not purport to defend or condemn advertising. Rather, we look first to the decision by Justice Blackmun in Bates v. Arizona State Bar and other sources to determine the real objective of lawyer advertising. We then conducted a study to determine if those objectives are met.The objectives identified were to attract clients for new and small law firms and to attract the kinds of clients who have not historically used the services of attorneys. Based on other studies, we determined that these clients have low incomes, have low levels of education, are not Caucasian and have not used an attorney's services before. A survey of more than 1500 subjects produced data that shows attorney advertising does meet the objectives identified by Justice Blackmun. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH.
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