Moderation Effects of Language Skills,Residential Tenure,and Education on Immigrants’ Learning From News

Abstract

Authors of the knowledge gap hypothesis predicted television’s potential to narrow the gaps in some circumstances. This online experiment aimed to bound the conditions that facilitate the leveling role of audiovisual news for a foreign-born audience (N = 137) residing in the United States. Results showed that audiovisual news narrowed the gaps by improving learning for those who scored low on language or U.S. education and by attenuating improvements in learning for those with high language or education scores. Conversely, text news widened the gaps by sizable gains in learning for those with better language or more education.

Keywords

knowledge gap immigrants modality education experiment

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