Changes in journalism spurred by technological shifts and industry restructuring have left observers questioning both the nature of the profession and what educators ought to do in order to prepare aspiring journalists. Despite attempts to rethink what it means to be a journalist and the educational experience needed to prepare students, few qualitative studies have emerged that track how learners are negotiating professional values. This article does precisely that by providing a case study of how students in an undergraduate Canadian university’s journalism program are conceptualizing the profession against the backdrop of changing practices and principles. Based on the data generated from 96 open-ended reflections, this investigation offers some important findings about the student professional identity experience within a 4-year program. More precisely, the results indicate that the ideals of ‘high modernism’ (especially those surrounding objectivity, the role of the public watchdog, and ethical practice) are being negotiated by journalists in training in important and meaningful ways.

This study describes journalism students' value making of social research meth ods, such as sampling, data gathering strategies and quantitative and qualitative data analy sis, by using a mixed method approach to analyze 260 written reflec tion assignments. In their reflections, 26 student participants assessed the value of their new knowledge of social research methods on ten different occasions through out the term. The qualitative analy sis consisted of two stages: a content analy sis and an analy sis of students' collective experience of value making (phe nomenographic approach). The findings of the content analy sis showed that stu dents generally value knowledge that is seen as useful and familiar from the per spective of trainee practitioners (professional standpoint). A focus on students' collective experience showed that value making happens when students adopt a standpoint from where to judge new knowledge and make connections between new and past knowledge and experience. Weak connections may lead students to disregard new content. The analy sis of connections showed that students either reproduce the connections made by the instructor in class (performative connec tion) or make an origi nal link with present and past experiences and knowledge (origi nal connection). Performative connections produce general statements of value making, while concrete value making happens when students explicitly integrate and transfer knowledge to produce origi nal connections with past and present personal or professional learning and experience. KEY WORDSSocial research methods instruction, social research methods literacy, value mak ing, value, journalism education, phenomenography, qualitative content analy sis, connections, standpoints, trainee practitioners This paper examines the process of value making among 26 third year journalism students in an undergraduate social research methods class which introduces trainee practitioners to issues of sampling, data gathering strategies, qualitative and quantitative data analy sis, and a review of ethical implications of scientific research. Value making is 4

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