Survey Says Masonites Know Their Stuff
Students Most Concerned About
War in Iraq, Terrorism

By Margaret Lipman and Anna Duning (March 3, 2007)
(Statistics compiled by Kirsti Price)

In a recent sampling of 118 students, (approximately one eighth of the student body) conducted by Lasso Online, 64 percent assessed themselves as being “knowledgeable” about current events. Of the eight possible topics provided in the survey, Masonites rated the war in Iraq and terrorism as the most important events currently in the news, followed by global warming, the genocide in Darfur, global poverty and AIDS. Iran’s nuclear program and illegal immigration were of the least concern.

Half of the surveyed students cited sports and entertainment as the topics in which they were most interested and knowledgeable. Seventeen percent were most interested in international events, 14 percent in technology while eight percent showed interest in either national events or politics. Only three percent of the sampled students expressed a strong interest in business news. Additionally, results demonstrate that television is the most popular news sources with 36 percent of students tuning in. Newspapers and online news still had significant followings with 22 percent receiving their news in print and 19 percent on the Web.

Around 36% of students said that they either read the newspaper, visit the website of an online news source or listen to television and radio news every few days. Smaller percentages said they checked the news at least every day or once a week.

 

Lastly, a majority of those surveyed expressed interest in seeing greater coverage of national and international news on Lasso Online. The surveys were equally distributed among male and female students in all five grades.