Children's Learning from Television
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RESEARCH 10 18/2005 E Shalom M. Fisch Children’s learning from television It’s not just “violence” Studies on the effectiveness of negative television programmes can Bogatz and Ball, 1971). Each study educational programmes unveil a produce negative effects among child found that, among 3- to 5-year-olds, truly positive impact. Children viewers, positive programmes can heavier viewers of Sesame Street learn academic and prosocial con- produce positive effects. To illustrate showed significantly greater growth tent from specifically designed for- this point, let’s consider several ex- in an assortment of academic skills mats, such as that of the Sesame amples of studies that demonstrate related to the alphabet, numbers, body Workshop. children’s learning of academic and parts, shapes, relational terms, and prosocial content from educational sorting and classification. The areas television programmes. Afterwards, that showed the greatest effects were any discussions of tele- drawing upon research conducted the ones that had been emphasised the vision’s impact on chil- with a wide variety of television most in Sesame Street (e. g., letters). M dren focus only on nega- series, I will discuss some of the These effects held across age, sex, tive effects, such as the influences of production features that producers geographic location, socio-economic violent television or persuasive can build into their programmes to status (SES) (with low-SES children advertising (e. g., John, 1999; Kunkel, make them as educationally effective showing greater gains than middle- 2001; Wilson, et al., 1997). Such re- as possible. (Interested readers can SES children), native language (Eng- search is certainly important, and has find greatly expanded discussions of lish or Spanish), and whether the had a critical impact on policy and all of these issues in Fisch, 2004.) children watched at home or in legislation in the United States. How- school. Indeed, even when Cook and ever, it is equally important to recog- his colleagues (1975) conducted a re- nise that not all effects of television Children’s learning: analysis of these data that controlled are negative. academic content for other, potentially contributing fac- Often, far less attention has been paid tors such as mothers’ discussing Ses- to the positive effects that educational Perhaps the most prominent – and ame Street with their child, the above television programmes can hold. Yet, certainly the most extensively re- effects were reduced, but many re- if we believe that children can learn searched – example of an educational mained statistically significant. negative lessons from television, then television series is Sesame Street. For These effects found parallels in sev- it stands to reason that they can learn more than 35 years, Sesame Street has eral subsequent summative evalua- positive lessons, too. The same me- used puppets, animation, stories, tions of international co-productions dium through which children learn parodies, and numerous other formats of Sesame Street. Significant differ- product information in commercials to entertain and educate children, ences in cognitive skills (often fo- should also allow them to learn both across the United States and cussed on literacy and mathematics) science concepts in an educational (through its various international co- were found between viewers and programme. And the same medium productions) around the world. nonviewers of Plaza Sésamo in Mex- that can influence children to act The earliest evidence for the educa- ico (Diaz-Guerreo and Holtzman, more aggressively should also be able tional power of the U.S. version of 1974; UNICEF, 1996), Susam Sokagi to motivate them to co-operate with Sesame Street came from a pair of in Turkey (Sahin, 1992), Rua Sésamo a friend. experimental studies conducted after in Portugal (Brederode-Santos, In fact, research has shown that all of the first and second seasons of pro- 1993), and Ulitsa Sezam in Russia these propositions are true: Just as duction (Ball and Bogatz, 1970; (Ulitsa Sezam Department of Re- RESEARCH 18/2005 E 11 search and Content, 1998). Only one ond study was a Mexican study failed to replicate this correlational anal- pattern of differences (Diaz-Guerreo, ysis of data repre- Reyes-Lagunes, Witzke, and Holtz- senting approx- man, 1976), but it turned that the imately 10,000 “nonviewers” had, in fact, been ex- children from the posed to Plaza Sésamo as well. (See U.S. Department Cole, Richman, and McCann Brown, of Education’s Na- 2001 for a more detailed review of tional Household this research.) Education Survey The U.S. version of Sesame Street in 1993. Results was found to hold long-term benefits indicated that for viewers as well. One component preschoolers who of the Bogatz and Ball (1971) study viewed Sesame was a follow-up on a subset of the Street were more children who had participated in their likely to be able to earlier study, now that the children recognise letters of were one year older and had entered the alphabet and school (Ball and Bogatz, 1970). tell connected sto- Teachers rated their students on sev- ries when pretend- eral dimensions of school readiness ing to read; these (e. g., verbal readiness, quantitative effects were © 2005 Sesame Workshop. readiness, attitude toward school, re- strongest among All rights reserved. lationship with peers) without know- children from low- Sesame Street Characters ing their prior viewership of Sesame income families, Street. Results indicated that those and held true even after the effects of students’ early language skills and children who had been frequent other contributing factors (e. g., pa- family background variables were Sesame Street viewers were rated as rental reading, preschool attendance, removed statistically (Anderson, better prepared for school than their parental education) were removed Huston, Schmitt, Linebarger, and non- or low-viewing classmates. statistically. In addition, first and se- Wright, 2001; Huston, Anderson, More than 25 years later, the im- cond graders who had viewed Sesame Wright, Linebarger, and Schmitt, mediate and long-term effects of Street as preschoolers were more like- 2001). Sesame Street were confirmed by ly to be reading storybooks on their All of these results provide powerful other data. One study followed low- own and less likely to require reme- evidence for the educational effec- SES preschoolers over a period of dial reading instruction (Zill, 2001). tiveness of Sesame Street. And nu- three years. After controlling statis- Finally, the longest-term impact of merous other studies show that Ses- tically for background variables such Sesame Street was found in a “re- ame Street is not alone in helping as parents’ level of education, native contact” study that examined high children learn. Summative studies on language, and preschool attendance, school students who either had or had other educational series for preschool the study found that preschoolers’ not watched educational television as and school-age children have shown viewing of educational TV pro- preschoolers; the bulk of this viewing that educational television can en- grammes – and Sesame Street in had consisted of watching Sesame hance children’s knowledge, skills, particular – was positively associated Street. Results showed that high and attitudes in a wide variety of with the amount of time children school students who had watched subject areas. These include effects spent reading and in educational more educational television – and of series such as Between the Lions activities, as well as their letter-word Sesame Street in particular – as pre- and The Electric Company on chil- knowledge, maths skills, vocabulary schoolers had significantly higher dren’s language and literacy skills size, and school readiness on age- grades in English, Mathematics, and (e. g., Ball and Bogatz, 1973; Ball, appropriate standardised achieve- Science in junior high or high school. Bogatz, Karazow, and Rubin, 1974; ment tests. Also, as in the earlier They also used books more often, Linebarger, 2000); Square One TV Bogatz and Ball (1971) study, teach- showed higher academic self-esteem, and Cyberchase on children’s use of ers more often rated Sesame Street and placed a higher value on academ- mathematics and problem solving viewers as well-adjusted to school ic performance. These differences (e.g., Fisch, 2003; Hall, Esty, and (Wright et al., 2001a, 2001b). A sec- held true even after the effects of Fisch, 1990; Rockman et al., 2002); RESEARCH 12 18/2005 E the negative effects television series used in these studies of violent television were simply more effective than oth- tend to be about ers. Third, it is possible that children’s equally strong: social behaviour is more resistant to Both types of tele- change than their knowledge, skills, vision result in or attitudes regarding academic sub- small to moderate jects. Indeed, it seems likely that all effects on viewers of these factors play a role. (Mares and Wood- In particular, it is important to remem- ard, 2001). ber that the prosocial messages pre- Effects of prosocial sented in an educational television television have programme are likely to be mediated been documented by lessons learned from family and as increases in peers, as well as children’s own life several domains: experiences. In some cases, these “friendliness” and experiences may work hand-in-hand positive inter- with the prosocial lessons shown on- actions in general, screen. In other cases, however, the altruism and co- messages from these various sources operation, self- may conflict. For example, research control and delay of on race relations segments from Ses- gratification, and ame Street found that preschool chil- © 2002 Lyons Partnership, L.P. reduction of stereo- dren recalled the fun things that Barney, the friendly purple dinosaur types. Most of this young African-American and White research has been characters did together on screen. 3-2-1 Contact and Bill Nye the Sci- conducted with preschool children, so However, they also believed the char- ence Guy on children’s understanding the bulk of the evidence to date relates acters’ parents were less positive of science and technology (e.