This dissertation has been 64—6881 microfilmed exactly as received

BURROWS, Robert Barker, 1905- THE USE OF RADIO, TELEVISION, AND OTHER COMMUNICATION MEDIA BY CHILDREN IN MONONGALIA AND PRESTON COUNTIES, WEST VIRGINIA.

The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1963 Speech—Theater University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan THE USI OF RADIO, TELEVISION AND OTHER COMMUNICATION

MEDIA BY CHILDREN IN MONONOALIA AND PRESTON

COUNTIES, WEST VIRGINIA

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Qraduate School of the Ohio State University

By

Robert Barker Burrows, B. A., M. A.

The Ohio State University 1963

Approved by

Adviser Department of Speech To

Barbara, Elizabeth, and Margaret ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to the many interested persons who have made the

completion of this dissertation possible. Special appreciation is

due my adviser* Professor Harrison B. Summers of the Department of

Speech in the Ohio State University* whose patience* personal kind­ ness * professional knowledge* and encouragement were of inestimable

value over a long period of time devoted to study, research, and

writingo

My thanks also go to Professor Donald W n Riley for the hours,

effort* and skill which he gave to reading and evaluating the dis­

sertation. In addition, Professor Franklin H. Knower* on the read­

ing committee* offered equally valuable criticism. Appreciation is

due also to other Ohio State University faculty members who served

on the examining committees* among them Professors Earl W. Andersen

and I. Keith Tyler of the College of Education; and Professors Roy

Ho Bowen* Richard M. Mall, and John H. McDowell of the Department

of Speech.

The co-operation of the Monongalia and Preston County Superin­

tendents of Schools sind the principals and teachers in the various

schools in which the surveys were made* as well as that of the

children who completed the questionnaires, was willingly given and

is here gratefully recognized. iv

Without the extraordinary help of the West Virginia University Data

Processing Center — its Supervisor Ernest L. Jones and his Assistants,

Edwin C. Townsend, Richard D. Ackerson, and others — the handling of the extensive data derived from the surveys would have been next to impossible. In addition, the people of the West Virginia University

Office of Publications were unusually cooperative and helpful in repro­ ducing the questionnaire forms and the final copies of the dissertation.

The generous and highly skillful assistance of the personnel in the Data

Processing Center and the Office of Publications is much appreciated.

My gratitude is due various members of the Administration of West

Virginia University for making available to me the facilities of the

Data Processing Center and for allowing a limited amount of research to be done on "University" time.

Not the least of my appreciation should go to Mrs. Melba B. Griffin and Mrs. C. G. Pearcy, of the Ohio State University Graduate School, for their sound advice and friendly help in steering this candidate along the path toward meeting the technical requirements of a doctorate.

Also, to Mr. and Mrs. John W. Howard, who advised in matters of grammatical form and expression, to Mrs. Georgeann Dunko for secretarial help, and to all others, not specifically mentioned, who have helped in ways too numerous to describe, I offer ray sincere thanks! V

TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...... iii

LIST OF T A B L E S ...... vii

Chapter

I. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY ...... 1

II. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ...... 6

III. METHOD OF INVESTIGATION . 57

IV. TIME DEVOTED TO RADIO AND TELEVISION...... ?3

V. TIME DEVOTED TO READING NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES ..... 83

VI. TIME DEVOTED TO READING BOOKS AND DOING HOMEWORK.. 91

VII. TIME DEVOTED TO READING COMIC BOOKS AND ATTENDING MOVIES . 10*+

VIII. CHILDREN'S TELEVIEWING IN RELATION TO OTHER ACTIVITIES . . 116

IX. CHILDREN'S PREFERENCES FOR PROGRAMS OF CERTAIN TYPES . . . 125

X. CHILDREN'S PREFERENCES FOR SPECIFIC PROGRAMS ...... l*+3

XI. PROGRAM SELECTION AND PARENTAL RESTRICTIONS ...... 165

XII. SUMMARY AND C O N C L U S I O N S ...... 17*+

APPENDIXES

A. Form of Questionnaire ...... 201

B. Table 2*+ - Number of Usable Questionnaires Returned From Each Grade and School ...... 20*+

Table 25 - Totals of Usable Questionnaires From Monongalia and Preston Counties Combined .. 205

C. Table 26 - Average Number of Television Sets in the Home in 1958 and 1961, as Reported by Children in Various Grade-Placement Groups . 207 vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS - Continued APPENDIXES - Continued Page

Table 27 - Percentage of Children on Each Level of Academic Achievement Who Reported One or More Television Sets in the H o m e ...... 208

D. Table 28 - Number and Percentage of All Children in Each Grade-Placement Group on Each Level of Mental Ability and Academic Achievement . ° 210

E. Table 29 - Percentages of All Children in Various Grade-Placement, Sex, and Mental Ability Groups Who Favored Television Programs of Certain T y p e s ...... 212

Table 30 - Percentages of All Children in Various Grade-Placement, Sex, and School Achieve­ ment Groups Who Favored Television Pro­ grams of Certain Types ...... 21^+

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 217

AUTOBIOGRAPHY 222 vii

LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

1. Average Daily Minutes of Radio Listening by Boys and Girls in Various Grade-Placementf Mental Ability and Achievement Groups ...... 74

2. Average Daily Minutes of Television Viewing by Boys and Girls in Various Grade-Placement, Mental Ability, and Achievement Groups ...... 78

3. Average Daily Minutes of Reading Newspapers by Boys and Girls in Various Grade-Placement, Mental Ability, and Achievement Groups ...... 84

4. Average Daily Minutes of Reading Magazines by Boys and Girls in Various Grade-Placement, Mental Ability, and Achievement Groups ...... 88

5. Average Daily Minutes of Reading Books, by Boys and Girls in Various Grade-Placement, Mental Ability, and Achievement Groups ...... 92

6. Average Number of Books Read in the Past Six Months by Boys and Girls in Various Grade-Placement, Mental Ability, and Achievement Groups ...... 94

7. Average Daily Minutes Spent on Homework by Boys and Girls in Various Grade-Placement, Mental Ability, and Achievement Groups ...... 100

8. Average Daily Minutes of Comic-Book Reading by Boys and Girls in Various Grade-Placement, Mental Ability, and Achievement Groups ...... 103

9. Average Daily Minutes of Attending Movies by Boys and Girls in Various Grade-Placement, Mental Ability, and Achievement Groups ...... 110

10. Average Number of Movies Seen in Past Four Weeks by Boys and Girls in Various Grade-Placement, Mental Ability, and Achievement Groups ...... 112

11. Average Number of Minutes Spent on Various Activities on a Midweek Day by All Children, Grouped According to Sex and Grade-Placement ...... 117 viii

LIST OF TABLES - Continued

Table Page

12. Average Number of Minutes on a Midweek Day Devoted to Badio Listening, Beading, and Other Activities by Heavy TV Viewers Compared to Light Viewers ...... 120

13* Books Bead in the Past Six Months and Movies Seen in the Past Four Weeks by Heavy Television Viewers Compared to Light Viewers ...... 122

1*+. Percentages of All Children in Each Grade-Placement Group Who Checked Television Programs of Certain Types as F a v o r i t e s ...... 130

13* Program Types Most Frequently Checked as Favorites by Boys and Girls in Various Grade-Groups ...... 133

16. Percentages of All Boys and Girls in Various Mental Ability Groups Who Checked Television Programs of Certain Types as Favorites ...... 136

17. Percentages of All Boys and Girls in Various Achievement Groups Who Checked Television Programs of Certain Types as Favorites ...... 133

18. Percentages of All Boys and Girls in Total Sample Who Indicated That Certain Television Programs Were Among Their Favorites ...... lM+

19- Percentages of All Children in Each Grade-Placement Group Who Indicated Specific Television Programs as Their Favorites ...... 1^7

20. The Twelve Individual Programs Most Frequently Checked as Favorites by All Boys and Girls and Those in Various Grade-Groups ...... 132

21. Percentages of All Boys and Girls in Each Mental Ability and Achievement Group Who Checked Late- Hour Movies as a Favorite Program T y p e ...... 136

22. Percentages of Children in Each Grade-Placement Group Who Indicated That They Disliked Television Programs of Certain Types ...... 157

23. Percentages of Boys and Girls in Each Grade-Placement Group Whose Answer to Question: Who Tunes In? Indicated That They Were the Program Selectors for Certain Pro­ gram Types ...... 166 ix

LIST OF TABLES - Continued

Table Page

2k. Number of Uaable Questionnaires Returned From Each Grade and School ...... 20k

25- Totals of Usable Questionnaires From Monongalia and Preston Counties Combined ...... 205

26. Average Number of Television Sets in the Home in 1958 and 1961„ as Reported by Children in Various Grade-Placement Groups ...... 207

27. Percentage of Children on Each Level of Academic Achievement Who Reported One or More Television Sets in the Home ...... o...... 208

28. Number and Percentage of All Children in Each Grade- Placement Group on Each Level of Mental Ability and Academic Achievement ...... 210

29. Percentages of All Children in Various Grade- Placement, Sex, and Mental Ability Groups Who Favored Television Programs of Certain Types ...... 212

30. Percentages of All Children in Various Grade- Placement, Sex, and School Achievement Groups Who Favored Television Programs of Certain Types ..... 21k CHAPTER I

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The need for this investigation

Among the many influences in children's lives today, certainly of no small importance are what they read, hear on the radio, and see on their television screens. When children devote many hours a week to these activities, presumably the opportunities for them to be influenced are greatly increased. Consequently, their habits with respect to radio listening, television viewing, and reading, as well as certain other activities, are worth investigating. It is vital to know as much as possible about the extent of their exposure to these influences and the nature of the influences to which they are exposed.

Children's leisure time use of such media as radio, television, reading, and motion pictures has long been studied by researchers in communications. Answers have been sought to questions about amounts and kinds of children's radio listening and televiewing in comparison to time devoted to reading and other activities.^- With few exceptions, however, these investigations have been conducted in large city areas.

Most of the studies have covered small numbers of children. Not many have considered the subjects of the sample on the basis of variation

Detailed consideration of these reports will be found in Chapter II of this paper.

1 2 in both mental ability and academic achievement. But each has added in some way to our knowledge of children's use of the mass media.

The pages that follow report the findings of a study conducted by the writer in 1961 among *+135 children in Monongalia and Preston Coun­ ties, West Virginia. In addition, certain comparisons are made between the data of the 1961 study and those of a similar study of approximately

3,000 children in Monongalia County made by the writer in 1958. The in­ formation in both surveys was gathered by means of questionnaires circu­ lated among public and private school children in grades one through twelve.

Objectives of the study

The purpose of these audience surveys and of this study is to in­ vestigate children's use of radio and television, as well as their read­ ing of various kinds and the time they devote to attending the motion pictures and to doing "homework" -- all of this on school days (later referred to as "midweek"). Comparisons are made on the basis of three levels of mental ability and academic achievement. Children who are

"heavy" viewers of television are compared with "light" viewers in re­ gard to time devoted to other activities, such as listening to the radio, reading, going to the movies, and doing homework.

Another objective of the study is to determine what types of tele­ vision programs and what specific programs are preferred by the various categories among these children. For instance, are programs featuring action and violence more likely to be the favorites of children of low intelligence? What kind of children prefer situation comedy, serious 3 drama, variety shows, or adult western dramas? How do the tastes of children in the elementary grades differ from those of junior and senior high school students? Is it the children of low academic achievement who axe most likely to be sitting up at a late hour watching movies on television? The foregoing questions are typical of the queries for which this study is intended to provide some answers.

Furthermore, some attempt is made to ascertain whether parents place restrictions upon the kind of television programs which their children are allowed to see. Are the children encouraged to watch certain TV programs and at the same time discouraged from watching others? In addition, children completing the questionnaires were asked to indicate whether they ordinarily tuned in various favorite

television programs or whether some other member of the family was

the program selector in each case. Still another specific objective of this study is to compare the amounts of time spent on the various activities mentioned earlier, in respect to the two different years surveyed — 1958 and 1961.

The 1958 survey covered the same schools in Monongalia County

that were included in the 1961 study, but, as was said earlier, did not

extend to Preston County. The first questionnaire contained questions on children's bedtimes that were not asked in the 1961 survey. On the other hand, the 1958 study obtained less information than did the 1961 survey concerning the television program preferences of the children

in the sample. The information gathered in 1958 was concerned with

number of television programs checked as favorites, on a list of more

than 100, and with preferences for certain programs scheduled late at night. k

A review of the literature in the field of children's use of the mass media is included in this paper, in order to make whatever com­ parisons are pertinent in respect to the data of the several earlier studies, in addition to this report.

It is the belief of the writer that this study adds to the present knowledge of children's use of the mass media in areas not included in similar studies. First, this study covers a group of children in West

Virginia, an area not previously dealt with extensively in regard to children's radio listening and televiewing. The commercial rating ser­ vices provide little more than a numerical estimate of children and teen-agers in certain broadcast audiences. Furthermore, practically all other such studies have been conducted in large city areas, while this one concentrates on children in smaller communities and rural areas.

In addition, few studies have considered children on the basis of variations in levels of mental ability and academic achievement or have included the full range of school grades from the first through the twelfth. Also, only one other extensive study, that of Witty, has made comparisons of findings gathered in more than one year. In the study reported in these pages, certain aspects of the data were compared with those of a 1958 survey of the same schools in Monongalia County.

The present report presents some information concerning television program preferences of children in four grade-placement groups, from the earliest through senior high school. This has been done in very few other studies. Finally, it should be noted that this study covered more than 80 per cent of the children in eleven typical schools in two 5 counties, an unusually large sample of the school children of this geographical area. Few studies have combined the large size of the sample with the variety of information as that yielded by this study.

In presenting the findings of this study, the following organiza­ tion is used: Chapter II is a review of the literature pertaining to children's use of the mass media; Chapter III discusses the method of investigation used in this study; Chapters IV to VII, inclusive, pre­ sent the data concerning the amounts of time devoted by the children in the sample to radio listening, televiewing, reading, attending the movies, and doing homework; Chapter VIII deals with children's tele­ viewing in relation to certain other factors; Chapter IX considers children's preferences for television programs of certain types;

Chapter X is devoted to children's preferences for specific television programs; Chapter XI discusses program selection or "tuning in" of television programs by children, in addition to parental restrictions on viewing; Chapter XII presents a summary and restatement of the conclusions of the study. CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Since the early 1950's researchers have been interested in the time devoted by children to radio listenings and later, to television viewing.

They have also concerned themselves with the amount and kind of reading, attendance at motion pictures, and with other typical leisure time activi­ ties of children. Often the researchers have been alert for significant correlations among the factors of school marks, intelligence differences, program preferences, social variables, and personality traits. Stress has been placed, in the individual studies, upon one or more of these or similar considerations.

Only a few outstanding studies, of the large number extant, will be considered in this review of literature on children's use of the various communications media. Also, the chief concern of this dissertation, in relation to children's radio listening, will be its characteristics after the establishment of television.

To limit the area covered by this study, emphasis will be placed on surveys of children's listening only from the late 19*+0's to the present time, the period during which television became a commonly used medium of mass communication. Four studies of radio listening will be consid­ ered first, two covering wide areas of the U.S. and two in different mid- western cities. Later in these pages, various studies of children's televiewing will be discussed.

6 7

Herbert Arnold Clark Survey, 194?

Clark's study of children's radio listening was made in twelve pub­

lic and four parochial high schools in several New England towns and

cities, primarily in Massachusetts.^ The sample Included 330 boys and

430 girls, and constituted, in the opinion of the investigator, a repre­

sentative group of children for these educational levels in this area of

the United States. In his summary of findings, Clark indicated that the

radio listening of these children averaged 2.84 hours a day, presumably

for a seven-day week, the girls listening somewhat more than the boys.

Three years later in an interview study of only 40 students in the high

school in Northampton, Massachusetts, Clark determined that the average

daily listening was 2.44 hours.

The Clark survey also provided information concerning student pre­

ferences in radio programs. Six of the program types in order of popu­

larity were drama, mystery or crime, comedy, popular or light music,

quiz shows, and sports programs. But on the basis of time spent in lis­

tening the order of choice was popular music, comedians, news broadcasts,

drama, sports, news commentaries, quiz shows, and crime or mystery pro- 2 grams. Comedians ranked high on both rating lists.

The program preferences of the girls in Dr. Clark's study differed

from those of the boys. The latter seemed to be most interested in

sports broadcasts, radio comedians, the more violent type of mysteries,

■'"Herbert Arnold Clark, "A Study of Adolescent Radio Listening," (Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University, 1950), pp. 122-23*

2Ibid., pp. 73-74. 8 and had a somewhat greater interest in news broadcasts. The girls were partial to musical programs with a love interest, and programs in which prizes were given. They were also more interested in programs dealing 3 with personal problems.

Raymond Edward Guth Survey. 19**#

Guth confined his survey of the radio listening habits and prefer­ ences of children to the junior and senior high schools of Davenport, 4 Iowa. Thus the total territory covered was considerably smaller than that of the Clark survey. The sample, however, was larger, totaling

1276 children and constituting about a third of the enrollment in the junior and senior high schools of that city. Considerable attention was paid to insuring that the sample was representative of the students in

the junior and senior high schools of Davenport, Iowa. Teachers who administered the questionnaire, according to Guth, were thoroughly briefed in procedure in order that the students answering the questions did so under "identical conditions." Data concerning the reading of

books other than school books, the reading of comic books, the number

of motion pictures seen, and radio program preferences were among the

types of information obtained from a questionnaire answered by the stu­

dents in grades seven to twelve, inclusive.

^Ibid., p. 86. if Raymond Edward Guth, "A Survey of the Radio Listening Habits and Preferences of Students in the Junior and Senior High Schools of a Mid­ western City", (Master*s thesis, State University of Iowa, 19^9)*

5Ibid., p. 12. 9

On a typical school day the boys in Quth's sample listened to radio two hours and 16 minutes, with an average of five minutes more of daily listening for the senior high school boys than for the younger ones. For the girls the amount of listening was about two hours and minutes on a school day. The entire group of respondents averaged two hours and 28 minutes of radio listening, somewhat less than that of the children in

Herbert A. Clark's main New England survey.^

Guth found that the students included in his study showed a wide divergence of taste in radio programs. However, it is to be noted that all of the students except the junior high school boys listed popular music as a first choice. The junior high school boys gave first place to comedians. Popular music, comedians, and mystery programs were often among the first three choices on the preference scale of all children in the sample. News programs and classical music programs were not generally popular, except with some twelfth grade boys and girls. There was wide 7 variation in program titles listed as first and second choices.

Guth's seventh grade boys read an average of 2.3 books (other than school books) a month. The figure declined with each year of school to

1.6 books a month for the twelfth graders. The average for all of the boys was 1.9 books a month. In regard to the girls, these figures were

2.k for the seventh grade, 1.9 for the tenth and eleventh grades, and

2.0 for the twelfth grade, with an over-all average of 2.2 books read by the girls each month. The average number for the entire sample of boys g and girls in the six high school grades was roughly two books a month.

6Ibid., p. ^Ibid., pp. 79-80 ^Ibid., pp. 67-68 10

The seventh grade boys in Guth's sample gave a fair amount of time to comic books, reading an average of six a week. The older students had less taste for this kind of reading material. They read fewer comics each year until the average for the twelfth grade boys was only 0.7 comic books a week. The range of time spent by the girls on comic books was not as wide, starting with 2.2, going up to 2.9 for the ninth graders, 9 and dropping to 1.3 in the twelfth grade.

The average number of movies seen each week by the entire sample of boys and girls in grades seven through twelve was 1.2 movies. Ninth grade girls saw the greatest number, 1.5 a week, with the seventh grade boys next, averaging 1.*+ movies a week. The tenth grade girls attended the movies least often of the entire group, averaging one a week, while most of the children saw slightly more than an average of one a week.^

Guth commented on the fact that as the students advanced in grade level, there was some decline in the use of all of the media on which he had gathered information, "probably because the student becomes more in­ volved in social activities, school work, and other gregarious events.

Robert H. Stewart Survey, 19^9-30

An unusually large geographical area was covered by another radio 12 study. Information was secured during the winter of 1949-50 relative to radio program preferences of 1 9 ,0 0 0 boys and girls in elementary and

9Ibid., pp. 73-74. 10Ibid., pp. 77-78. 11Ibid., p. 130. 12 "Radio Program Preferences of Children of School Age", tOhio Radio-Television Studies, Number 6, Department of Speech, The Ohio State University. No date). (Mimeographed) 11 high schools in Austin, Birmingham, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Columbus,

Ohio, and its immediate vicinity, and various New England communities.

Through the co-operation of radio or speech departments in six universi­ ties, Bobert H. Stewart was able to combine and analyze the vast amount of data gathered from these widely separated areas of the United States.

No figures were obtained concerning amount of time devoted to radio listening. The sole purpose of the study was to determine the influence of such factors as sex, age, intelligence, racial and cultural background, and place of residence on the radio program preferences of these 1 9 ,0 0 0

children. The sampling of school children in each of the communities was secured in each case through the combined efforts of school officials and teachers, working with the investigators.

The children chose fifteen of the programs that they liked best,

from a check list of 60 programs, mainly network offerings broadcast during hours when the children would have a chance to listen, with some adjustment of the list on the basis of availability of programs in each

community. Twenty types of programs were represented, covering generally the broad field of radio programming at that time. Of the conclusions reported those pertinent to the present study are concerned with the ef­

fects of sex, age, and intelligence on children's radio program prefer­

ences. In the following paragraphs the conclusions of the Stewart study

will be briefly summarized.

Differences in radio program preferences between boys and girls were

clearly indicated by the study, especially in relation to children eleven

or twelve years of age and older. Boy's preferences ran to comedy pro­

grams, adventure drama, and sports broadcasts. The girls preferred musical 12 programs, the less exciting dramatic programs, and audience participa­ tion shows. Also, as the children grew older, male and female tastes differed* Children's daytime adventure programs and comedy dramatic programs were less favored by the older children. On the other hand, their preference increased for musical programs, sports broadcasts, and the more "romantic" type of dramatic programs.^

In the Stewart study, data were gathered in Minneapolis concerning the influence of intelligence upon program selection. Of the 6 ,3 6 8 ele­ mentary and secondary school children included in the survey in this area, 65*+ children were considered to be of less than average intelli­ gence, having I.Q.'s below eighty. These children, in general, did not show a strong preference for comedy variety as a program type, but they liked comedy audience participation. Dramatic programs of all kinds were preferred more by the low I.Q. girls than by girls in the total sample. The low I.Q. boys, on the other hand, had a stronger preference for comedy dramatic programs but less liking for suspense drama and ac- 1*+ tion or detective drama than did the boys in the entire sample.

The report on the Stewart study closes with a cautionary notethat

"this study may not be regarded as conclusive, with respect to differ­ ences in popularity of all programs", nor are the geographical areas 15 covered by the study to be taken as representative of the entire country.

13Ibid., p. 1. 1^Ibid., pp. 10-11. 15Ibid., p. 13. 13

Panl Lyness Beport, 1930

One additional study involving children's use of radio should be re­ viewed here.^ Paul I. Lyness made a survey of reading, listening, and televiewing behavior of children in grades three, five, seven, nine, and eleven in the Des Moines public schools and reported his findings in a

Ph.D. dissertation for the State University of Iowa in 1950. The sample for study included more than 1*^00 boys and girls, evenly distributed as to sex and grade placement.

Lyness found a wide range in amounts of radio listening in all grades, but 80 to 85 per cent of the fifth, seventh, ninth, and eleventh grade children reported that they listened to the radio daily. Slightly more than half of the children in all grades listened from one to three and a half hours a day. One-fourth of the children in the specific grades mentioned above said that they listened four hours a day or more.

In judging the relative value placed on all media, Lyness found that radio led in every grade, its popularity increasing as the children ad­ vanced in academic level.

Writing again about his 1950 study of children's activities, Lyness reported that the most mentioned "usual" diversions for children at home in the evening were radio and reading, with radio cited far more often 17 than reading. Both the boys and the girls in the third grade spent

^Paul I. Lyness, "Beading, Listening, and Viewing Behavior of Young People in Grades 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11, in the Des Moines Public Schools",(Ph.D. dissertation, State University of Iowa, 1950.) 17 Paul I. Lyness, "The Place of the Mass Media in the Lives of Boys and Girls", Journalism Quarterly, 29: **3-5^, 1952. 14 from one to 2.75 hours a day listening to radio. The girls in grades five and seven, as well as the older hoys, devoted from two to 3*75 hours daily to radio, and the girls in the ninth and eleventh grades averaged three hours a day of radio listening. As a whole, upper grade girls listened to the radio more than did the upper grade boys.

The time spent on the newspaper by these children varied from five or ten minutes a day on the part of the third grade girls and five to twenty minutes for the boys in that grade, up to fifteen to thirty min­ utes a day for the older groups. The boys spent more time on the news­ papers; the girls gave their time to magazines and books. Both the boys and the girls increased their magazine reading after the seventh grade, but book reading declined as the children grew older. The peak comic book reading by the children as a whole occurred in the fifth and seventh grades. Twenty-three per cent of the fifth graders and 16 per cent of the seventh grade pupils read 15 or more comic books a week. Movie at­ tendance remained at a constant level, averaging about one movie a week for all of the children.

The children in the Lyness study had a wide range of tastes in pro­ gram content (also in other media, as well as radio). The boys in the sample preferred violence and adventure. The girls favored romance, stories of private life, and glamor. Both the boys and the girls of all ages liked comedy and mystery.

Some Early Television Studies

Eadio was the dominant leisure time activity for most of the young people covered by the surveys of radio listening discussed in the pre­ ceding pages. But television was soon to usurp the position of radio as 15 the moat popular of the masa media, at leaat among the younger children, and while relatively new, among the high achool students as well.

Philip Lewis reported, in 19^9* that 1700 high school students in

South Shore High School, Chicago, averaged almost three and a half hours 18 a day watching television. Qalen S. Besco, in the spring of 1950, ad­ ministered a questionnaire to 223 students in the Linden-McKinley High

School in Columbus, Ohio, and found their average weekly TV viewing time 19 to be 16.8 hours. In each grade, boys and girls who had television at home spent three times as many hours on TV as on other leisure time ac­ tivities . Usually they devoted four or five times as many hours to tele­ vision as to radio. Acquiring television in the home ordinarily resulted in a sharp decline in children's radio listening. Also, at approximately this time, Daisy B. Gessleman, in comparing third grade children from television and non-television homes, found that the non-TV group listened 20 to more than twice as many radio programs as the TV group.

Besco found, among the students that he questioned, a gradual de­ crease in interest in television from the tenth through the twelfth grades.^ Similar results were recorded by Koch and Witty, and later by Lazarus and Balogh. Figures for weekday viewing, compiled in Columbus,

xS Philip Lewis, "TV and Teen-agers," Educational Screen, 28:159-61, 19^9. 19 Galen S. Besco, "Television and Its Effects on Other Related In­ terests of High School Pupils," English Journal, **1:151-52, March, 1952.

^Daisy B, Gessleman, "Reading Activities of Third Grade Children From Television Homes as Contrasted With Children From Non-Television Homes," (Master's thesis, University of Utah, 1951)* P» 55• 21 Besco, loc. cit. 16

Ohio, by Freda Poatle Koch in 1952 varied from two hours and 20 minutes

for the very young children to two hours and 56 minutes for the middle grades and an hour and 57 minutes for the three senior high school 22 years* In his extensive studies of children's listening and viewing in the Chicago area, covering the period from 1950 to the present, Paul

A. Witty concluded that elementary school pupils were watching TV about

three hours a day and the high school students were viewing about two hours a day.^

Other investigators at this time found children watching television

2*5 to 5.0 or more hours a day. Eleanor E. Maccoby, reporting on a sur­ vey of 600 school children in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1951* stated

that youngsters with TV in the home watched for 2.5 hours a day during 2k the week. Among the 5700 public school children queried by Battin in

Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1950 the range in average hours of televiewing

was from about 2.5 to 3-0 hours a day, even though only a third of the 25 children came from homes where there were television sets. At the

same time, a survey in the elementary schools of Perth Amboy, New Jersey,

22 Freda Postle Koch, Children1s Television Habits in the Columbus, Ohio Area (Television Committee, Franklin County, Ohio Section, White House Conference on Children and Youth, 1952), p. 9« 23 Paul A. Witty, "Televiewing by Children and Youth," Elementary English, 38:103-113» February, 1961. 2k Eleanor E. Maccoby, "Television: Its Impact on School Children," Public Opinion Quarterly, 15:^21-4^, 1951• 25 Tom C. Battin, "The Use of the Diary and Survey Method Involving the Questionnaire-Interview Technique to Determine the Impact of Tele­ vision on School Children in Regard to Viewing Habits and Formal and In­ formal Education," (Abstract of Ph.D. dissertation in "Abstracts and Theses in the Field of Speech," VIII, Edited by Clyde W. Dow, Speech Monographs, 20:135* June, 1955* by W. C. McGinnis indicated that the children were spending from 15 to 26 25 hours a week watching television. Finally, Walter J. Clarke, con­ ducting a study for Xavier University in Cincinnati in 1931 among sixth and seventh grade children, found that the average number of viewing 27 hours was 3*7 for school days.

Edward S. Siudzinski Television Study, 195*+

An intensive study of television interests and viewing habits in comparison with the use of other media was made in relation to students 28 in two private high schools in New York by Siudzinski.

The findings, based upon a survey in these schools in March, 195*+•> were presented in a Ph.D. dissertation bearing a 1958 date. The study was limited to 1,175 members of the senior class, the group being made up of 59*+ boys and 581 girls. These students were believed to be "fairly representative of the population of high school students in the City of

New York29

Siudzinski found a mean number of weekly hours of TV viewing in this group of slightly more than 15, for the group as a whole. The boys, with a little more than 1*+ hours, watched less than did the girls, whose

26 W. C. McGinnis, "Now It's Television", The Journal of Education, 133:152-5*+, May, 1950. 27 Of Children and Television, (Report of Research Conducted under auspices of Xavier University, Cincinnati, 1951). (Pages unnumbered) 28 Edward S. Siudzinski, "A Study of Television Interests and View­ ing Habits and a Comparison of These With the Interests and Habits in Radio, Motion Pictures, and Reading, as Shown by Students in Selected Senior High Schools in Metropolitan New York",(Ph.D. dissertation, Fordham University, New York, 1958. 2 Vols.)

29Ibid., p. 103 18 average was more than 15*75 hours a week. Siudzinski stated that "the amount of time spent on television was not affected by the subjects' 30 chronological age* their I.Q* level, or their socio-economic status."

Also, differences in chronological age and level of intelligence, among both the boys and the girls, had little or no effect on the program 31 preferences, nor were these factors related to the programs disliked.

Three-fifths of Siudzinski's 1,175 subjects "were influenced most of the time in.their program selection by their own likes and dislikes," while only about ten per cent were influenced by their parents. He also found 32 that more boys than girls followed their own tastes in program selection.

As a part of his television survey among high school seniors, Siud­ zinski asked the students to list their favorite programs. More than a thousand did so. The students, divided almost evenly by sex, gave most often as their first choice the situation comedy, I Love Lucy, mentioned among the three most preferred programs by more than 35 per cent of the respondents. The second most favored program was Dragnet, a detective- police type of dramatic show. Third, was Life is Worth Living, inspira­ tional and educational in nature. All of these were designated as favor­ ites by approximately 30 per cent or more of the students. Others in or­ der of popularity, were Toast of the Town (Ed Sullivan), the Jackie Gleason

Show, the Comedy Hour, 1^ Led Tnree Lives, the Red Buttons Show, the Show of Shows, Godfrey and His Friends, and Omnibus, all listed by six per cent or more of the students.^

3°Ibid., p. 6 8 9. ^ Ibid., pp. 693 & 6 9 5.

32Ibid., pp. 631-3 2 . 35 Ibid., pp. 222-2 6. 19

Of the programs favored by five per cent or more of the students responding to this part of Siudzinski's questionnaire, two were situa­

tion comedy, two straight variety, two comedy variety or featured comedian, two police-detective or adventure mystery, and two that might be classed as educational. Missing from this group were western dramas, children's progrsuns, documentaries, "prestige" drama, news programs, and sports broadcasts. However, farther down on the list of mentioned favor­ ite types were some dramatic shows, documentaries, sports, musical variety, quiz panel shows, several situation comedy shows and semi-

classical music programs.

Dragnet was listed by *+0 per cent of the boys as their favorite

individual program, followed by I Love Lucy and the Jackie Gleason Show.

Fifty per cent of the girls placed I Love Lucy first; the girls' next

two favorites, in order of choice, were Life Is Worth Living and the 35 Toast of the Town.

A third of all favorite programs mentioned were comedy shows, with

the dramatic type of program next in popularity. Dramas featuring crime, mystery, and adventure, no doubt with much suspense involved, were placed

on the list of favorites only 5-86 per cent of the time, surprisingly

enough. Equally astonishing is that sports programs were first choices

only 4.21 per cent of the time and popular music 3.17 per cent of the

time. The most favored program type among the boys was the dramatic

program, with comedy in second place. The girls, however, put comedy 36 in first place and general dramatic programs second.

3ifIbid. 35Ibid. 36Ibid„, p. 250. 20

On the basis of I. Q. level, dramatic programs were most popular with the boys in the middle group, while comedy was more favored by the low I. Q. group, but with fluctuating popularity among the I. Q. levels above the middle. Educational programs generally appealed more to the boys with higher I. Q. The program choices of the girls indicated that comedy programs generally were preferred equally on all I. Q. levels.

Dramatic and educational programs were, on the whole, better liked by the middle levels of intelligence than the lower or higher levels. The liking for variety programs decreased from the low to the middle I. Q. groups, then increased slightly among the students with higher intelli- gence. 37

When asked to mention programs that were disliked. Siduzinski's subjects named most often the Milton Berle Show, listed by more than 21 per cent of all respondents to this part of the questionnaire. The next most disliked program among Siudzinski's subjects was Godfrey and His

Friends, which, with Strike It Rich, was listed by almost 10 per cent

- tQ of the students expressing their program likes and dislikes. Also, close to 5 per cent disliked Mr. Peepers. Types listed most often as disliked by both the boys and the girls were variety programs, dramatic shows, and comedy programs, in that order. However, since the latter two types were also popular with certain groups, the instances where these types were disliked depended no doubt on attitudes toward particular

57Ibid., pp. 2 5 7, 2 6 0. •^Ibid., p. 279* 21 programs. Siudzinski states that "almost 28 per cent of the subjects did not mention any programs as disliked; the other subjects mentioned "59 a total of 229 programs which they disliked."

In his surrey of high school students in New York, Siudzinski com­ pared the amount of reading done by those with access to television and by a group with no television in the home. He recorded the following data and conclusion: "The mean number of hours spent reading per week by the subjects in the TV-group was *+.52. This mean was 1.3 hours less, which was significantly less, than the mean of 5*82 hours per week for the subjects in the NTV-group [non-TV group")

Batten, Barton, Durstine and Osborn Survey

Another survey of children’s program preferences at that time brought somewhat different results. Broadcast-Telecast magazine reported in May 1956 on a survey made by the research department of the Batten,

Barton, Durstine and Osborn advertising agency, using a "National Child- *tl ren’s Panel" of 7,52*+ children up to 18 years of age. The four pro­ gram leaders in popularity among the children from 15 to 18 years of age, representing mainly the senior high school group, were Your Hit

Parade, The $6*+,000 Question, the Perry Como Show, and Disneyland. How­ ever, only two of these programs were on the air when the Siudzinski survey was made, namely, Your Hit Parade and the Perry Como Show. But they were not among the first dozen or more favorites chosen by Siud- zinski’s subjects.

59Ibid., p. 69*+. **QIbid.. p. 707.

*+1"Children’s TV Loyalties Pinpointed", Broadcast-Telecast, Vol. 50, No. 22, May 28, 1956, p. *+2. 22

Frances Bond Wolfe Survey, 1958

A study in Ohio dealing with television's effects on reading habits i+2 was Bade by Frances Bond Wolfe in Mansfield in 1958. Wolfe, using a

questionnaire, asked 151 elementary school children, 1?8 junior high

school students, and 86 senior high school students (as well as 103

adults) how much time they were spending on television and on reading

of various kinds.

Wolfe found that 50 per cent of the elementary and junior high school pupils spent about 30 hours a week watching television. Pre­

sumably the other half spent less time in this manner. Half of the

senior high school students spent only 13 hours a week watching tele­

vision. The remainder evidently put in more time at the TV sets. In

the first seven grades about one-fifth of the children gave less than

two hours a day to watching television. Thirty-one per cent of the

eighth graders and 25 per cent of those in the ninth grade devoted less

than two hours a day to television. In the tenth and eleventh grades,

more of the girls than of the boys watched for less than two hours a

day. In the twelfth grade, however, more than twice the percentage of

boys than girls watched television for less than two hours a day.

Among the heavier viewers of television, around half or more of

the boys in the first seven grades and about a third of those in grades

eight, nine, and ten watched TV for four hours or more a day. Only

about a fourth of the girls in the first seven grades gave this much

kz Frances Bond Wolfe, "Television: A Study of Its Effects Upon the Reading Habits of a Group of Mansfielders", (Master's thesis, The Ohio State University, 1958), pp. 19-23* 23 time to television. The girls in grades eight and nine did somewhat more viewing, on the average, and those in the tenth grade substantially less than the girls in grades one to seven. Both the boys and the girls in the eleventh and twelfth grades did less television viewing than those in the lower grades, according to Wolfe's figures. The boys were the heaviest users of television in the first seven grades and the tenth and eleventh, but the girls were the heavy users in the eighth, ninth, and twelfth grades.

The Wolfe study included much information about the amount of time that children in various grades devoted to reading newspapers, magazines, books, and comic books. In general, it was found that 50 per cent of the elementary and junior high school students spent less that 15 hours a week in reading of all kinds, in contrast to 30 hours a week on tele­ vision. Among the senior high school students, on the other hand, 50 per cent spent about 15 hours a week on reading and the same amount of 43 time on television.

The groups of children who spent less than two hours a week reading the newspaper included almost three-fourths of the elementary school and seventh grade children, a smaller percentage of the eighth and ninth grades, and slightly more than half of the senior high school students.

The boys in all grades except seventh and ninth gave more time to the newspapers than did the girls. The number of students reading the news­ paper for more than four hours a week increased from six per cent among the elementary school children to more than 20 per cent on the part of high school students.

**3Ibid.. p. 93- Zh

Wolfe further reported that from 9*+ to 100 per cent of the children on all grade levels spent less them six hours a week reading magazines.

In most grades there was not a great deal of difference between the boys and the girls in the amount of time devoted to magazine reading.

From the first through the eighth grades, around 65 per cent of

Wolfe's subjects read books less than five hours a week. Three-fourths of the ninth graders were in this group, in contrast to only 57 per cent of the senior high school students. The percentage of children reading books twenty hours or more each week declined steadily from ten per cent in the elementary school to only one per cent in the ninth grade, but the figure was up to eight per cent among the senior high school stu­ dents. The percentage of boys and girls reading books five hours or more each week fluctuated from the elementary years through high school, although in the ninth grade Zk per cent of each sex read this amount.

On the senior high school level more boys than girls read books for five or more hours a week.

As to the reading of comic books, Wolfe found that in all grades close to 8 0 per cent or more of the children read the comics less than four hours a week; in fact, all of the eleventh and twelfth grade stu­ dents reported reading the comics less than four hours a week. But among the few children who read the comics four hours or more a week there were more boys than girls.

Hopf and Bedwell Audience Studies, 1939

This study, by Howard E. Hopf and Raymond T. Bedwell, Jr., was one of a series conducted under the supervision of Dr. Harrison B. Summers, 25 of the faculty of the Department of Speech, The Ohio State University.

The purpose of this particular study was to obtain information concern­ ing broadcast audience makeup, program preferences, and other types ©f data, through interviews and questionnaires, in relation to a representa­

tive group of families in Columbus, Ohio in 1959^ The subjects of the study included, in addition to adults, about 700 children from 10 to 18 years of age. Also, the survey made available limited information con­ cerning younger children. Two reports on the study were made, the first if 5 dealing with radio and the second with television.

The radio information in the study that is pertinent here concerns

the amount of time given to radio listening by males and females from

10 to 18 years of age, as well as certain music preferences of the 1^ to

18 year old group. Boys from 10 to 15 years of age devoted about an hour a day to radio listening; the girls this age listened an hour and 12 min­ utes a day. The 14 to l8 year old boys listened to the radio an hour and 50 minutes daily, and the girls this age two hours and 38 rpinutes

daily. Thus, interest in radio listening increased with the age of the

respondent. Among the five types of radio music liked best by the boys

and girls from 1*+ to l8 years of age were rock-and-roll, popular, and

Broadway show tunes for the girls, with the boys expressing the same

kk Howard £. Hopf and Raymond T. Bedwell, Jr., "Listener Availa­ bility and Radio News and Music Preferences in Columbus, Ohio - April 1959”, (unpublished report, Department of Speech, The Ohio State Uni­ versity) .

______, "Characteristics and Program Preferences of Television Listeners in Columbus, Ohio - April 1959"» (unpublished report, Depart­ ment of Speech, The Ohio State University). 26 likes, except that they preferred Dixieland to the Broadway show tunes. 46 The preferences were listed in both instances in order of popularity.

In respect to television viewing, the boys from 10 to 13 years of age watched an average of 2.84 hours a day, and the girls of this age

3.29 hours a day. The boys 14 to l8 years old gave less time to tele­ vision than did the younger boys, or an average of 2.41 hours daily.

Likewise, the older girls devoted less time to watching television than 47 did the younger, having a daily televiewing average of 2.49 hours.

It is apparent, then, that the older boys and girls are more interested in radio than in television, judging from the amount of time given to each.

Hopf sind Bedwell found considerable variation between the television tastes of boys and those of girls. Of 22 television program types, the respondents were asked to name the six that each liked best. The boys from 10 to 13 years of age gave these types as favorites (in order of popularity): adult western drama, family comedy drama, play-by-play sports, and adventure drama. The girls in the 10 to 13 year old group named (in order of popularity): family comedy, musicals with modern music, adult western drama, and detective drama with jazz background.

The list for the 14 to 18 year old boys was as follows: adult western drama, family comedy drama, and play-by-play sports. The 14 to 18 year old girls placed their favorite program types in this order: jazz de­

tective drama, family comedy drama, musicals with modern music, adult western drama, feature motion pictures, and regular thirty-minute drama.

Hopf and Bedwell, ’’Listener Availability . pp. 3, 7 = I ______, ’’Characteristics and Program Preferences p. 5« 27

In the Hopf-Bedwell sampling, the two types of television programs included among the six favorites of more than 50 per cent of both the boys and the girls from 10 to 18 years of age were family comedy drama and adult western drama. The girls did not share the boys' interest in play-by-play sports, at least to the extent of listing this type of pro­ gram among their six choices. In contrast to this, the girls in both of the age groups chose two types not included among the boys' six favor­ ites, namely, "jazz detective drama" and musicals with modern music, choices which may be due to the fact that girls develop a "romantic" in­ terest earlier than do boys.

For boys and girls from 10 to l8 years of age, representing roughly grades four to twelve, inclusive, Hopf and Bedwell's findings provide some useful comparative data concerning amounts of time given to radio and television, as well as information concerning television program preferences. But the first of the reports to which reference was made includes the explanatory comment that "the sample is somewhat skewed in 48 the direction of higher-level individuals and groups

Schramm, Lyle, and Parker Studies, 1938-60

On the basis of individuals included and geographical area covered, one of the most far-reaching investigations in America of children's listening and viewing and the use of certain other media, was that of 49 Wilbur Schramm, Jack Lyle, and Edwin B. Parker, between 1958 and I960.

48 Hopf and Bedwell, "Listener Availability .... ", p. 1. 49 Wilbur Schramm, Jack Lyle, and Edwin B. Parker, Television in the Lives of Our Children (Stanford University Press, 1961), p. 8. 28

Eleven studies were made In San Francisco, Denver, and two towns in

Canada, as well as in a metropolitan suburb and in several Rocky Moun­ tain communities. The two towns in Canada had populations of about

5,000 persons each. One of the Canadian towns had television available and the other did not.

Information was gathered from almost 6,000 students, 2,000 parents, and several hundred teachers, school officials, and other persons. The data were obtained in various ways, such as direct interviews, comple­ tion of tests and questionnaires in the classroom, questionnaires answered by parents, and diaries kept by some of the children. Also, 188 families in San Francisco were interviewed in 1958, with the parents and children together as a family. Altogether, children in the first six grades and grade eight, ten, and twelve were represented, in various proportions in the different schools, but not necessarily all of these grades in each school.^0

Schramm and his colleagues found that the five year old pre-school child spends a little more than two hours a day watching television. By

the time that the child is in the sixth grade his viewing time has in­ creased to about 2.5 hours daily. Somewhere between the fifth and eighth grades, as the child enters the adolescent period, his viewing time adds up to more than three hours a day. Then it starts to decline from this

peak, until it is again about 2.5 hours a day when the youth is in the

twelfth grade. Viewing time was found to be somewhat less in the summer months, presumably because of competition from outdoor sports and other

summer activities.

5°Ibid., p. 35 29

Among San Francisco children, more than 90 per cent were making fairly regular use of television by the age of six, or the first grade in school. The authors of this report concluded that most children are seeing at least two hours a day of television before they start reading newspapers* Eight out of ten are old hands at viewing TV before they attempt any reading. Two-thirds are already habitual television fans before they do much movie-going. At ten, although they use some or all of the media, television is the only one resorted to every day. At this age, three-fourths of all children are likely to be watching television on any given day. One group of San Francisco children averaged about

2.3 hours daily watching television.31 In offering the foregoing in­ formation, the authors of the report said:

It is therefore television, more than any other medium, that furnishes a common body of information for the early socialization of children. It is television, more than any other channel, that builds the "set" with which the child approaches the mass media. All other media choices are „ judged against what he has come to expect of television.

The dominance of television is clearly evident. It fills nearly two-thirds of mass media time during the early grades, and until the very end of high school it occupies more than all the other media together.53

Discussing the use of radio by the children queried in the Schramm,

Lyle, and Parker survey, the investigators reported that in spite of the competition from television, radio "has nevertheless made a secure place

for itself with children as (a) a music medium, and (b) a secondary

51Ibid., p. 3 2 . 32Ibid.. p. 2 7. 53Ibid., p. 35 30 medium to be enjoyed while the child is doing something else". 54 In other words, children overhear much radio or listen casually when they are quite young, as a result of the set's being tuned in by other mem­ bers of the family. In this case, radio does not get the child's full attention, except in rare instances. But there is a great deal of general family listening of a passive nature to various kinds of music, as well as news reports, weather predictions, and the like.

It is the teen-agers, however, who begin to use radio again, to a great extent. Their interest in popular music makes radio important to teen-agers, especially girls, for personal listening, often on their own sets. More than half of the teen-agers in the Schramm, Lyle, and Parker study claimed that they left their radios tuned to one station for hours at a time, listening to one hit tune after another. Schramm and his as­ sociates found that the number of girls doing this kind of listening was proportionately much larger than that of the boys.^

Comparing radio listening with television viewing, Schramm, Lyle, and Parker determined that in the San Francisoc area the average hours of daily TV viewing for children in grades two, six, and twelve were

2.2, 2.9, and 2.3 respectively. In contrast to this, the average number of hours devoted daily to radio listening by these children were, re- spectively, 1.1, 1.2, and 1.9 hours. Thus it can been seen that there is sin increase in time devoted to television by children in the sixth grade, compared to those in the second, but the figure drops off again for the twelfth grade viewers. In respect to radio listening, on the

^ I b i d o, p. 243- 55Ibid., p. 244. 56Ibid., p. 36. 31 other hand, there is a gradual increase in time devoted to this medium, until by the end of the high school years almost twice as much time is

given to radio as in the second grade.

An interesting comparison can be made between the two Canadian

towns included in the Schramm, Lyle, and Parker survey. As was mentioned

earlier, only one of the two towns, which the investigators dubbed "Tele-

town", had access to both television and radio, while the other, called

"Radiotown", had only radio. In "Teletown" the first, sixth, and tenth

graders watched television about an hour and 40 minutes a day, two hours

and 5^ minutes, and one hour and 36 minutes, respectively. The "Radio-

town" first graders listened to the radio 56 minutes a day, but the

children in the same grade in "Teletown" listened only 21 minutes a day.

The influence of television on children's radio listening in the middle

and upper grades is equally pronounced. The sixth graders in "Radiotown"

averaged three hours and nine minutes a day listening to the radio, in

contrast to those in "Teletown", who listened only 57 minutes daily.

The corresponding figures for the tenth grade children were three hours

and five minutes in "Radiotown" and one hour and 57 minutes in "Tele- 57 town." The effect of television here is obvious.

Other comparisons can be made between a television and non-television

environment. Among the "Radiotown" first graders, 89 per cent attended

the motion picture theatres regularly, but this figure dropped to 5^ per

cent among the "Teletown" children in the first grade. The children with

radio but no television read four comic books a week, while those who had

57Ibid., pp. 17, 18. 32 access to TV averaged only 1.5 comic books a week. The "Teletown" first grader stayed up an average of 13 minutes later at night than his counter­ part in "Radiotown The latter played for an average of three hours and

25 minutes a day, but the "Teletown" first grader had time for only two 58 hours and 52 minutes of play.

Concerning movie-going, the sixth-graders in "Radiotown" saw an average of 4.8 movies a month and those in "Teletown" an average of only 0.9 movies a month. On the tenth grade level, the figures on movies seen in a month were 4.4 in "Radiotown" and 1.3 in "Teletown."

Apparently, the children who had television available needed to depend less on attending the movies for recreation. The same was true for the

children in the San Francisco Bample, since the average number of movies

seen by them during the month preceding the survey was 1.0, 1.6, and 1.2

for grades two, six, and twelve, respectively. 59

Schramm, Lyle, and Parker warn about the complexity of the problem

of attempting to estimate accurately the amount of time that children

of all ages spend in watching television. They stress the fact that some

researchers try to arrive at sin average figure for week-day viewing,

others get figures for the week-end, and still others an average per day

for the entire seven-day week. The authors also remind us that few

children are "average," and hence a mean figure for the number of hours

of television watching does not carry with it the implication that all

instances were clustered about the mean. On the contrary, there may

well have been a wide spread in the amount of viewing time among the

58Ibid., p. 1 7. 59Ibid., p. 3 6. 33 various children. Furthermore, these researchers stated that they dis­ trusted the children's own estimates of viewing time for any grades 60 earlier than the sixth.

A great deal of attention in the Schramm, Lyle, and Parker survey was devoted to the amount of reading of various kinds done by the child­ ren. More than half of the children were reading the newspaper every day by the time they reached the sixth grade, and two-thirds of the

twelfth graders reported daily reading of the newspaper. Magazine read­ ing, the investigators found, increases steadily through high school.

Although older high school students seem to read fewer books outside school, the authors point out that the high school students probably read more books in school and have a heavier load of homework.^

At the seventh and eighth grade levels, the girls in the survey

were reading the newspaper more regularly than the boys, but by the

tenth grade 90 per cent of the boys reported regular reading of the newspaper, compared to only 8l per cent of the girls. There was little

difference in the twelfth grade. 62 Also, it is interesting to note that

in the Canadian town with radio only, 34 per cent of the sixth graders

and 44 per cent of the tenth graders read the newspaper daily. However,

where the children had television available, 45 per cent of the sixth

graders and 57 per cent of the tenth graders reported that they read the

newspaper every day.. 63

6°Ibid.. pp. 29, 215-16. 6lIbid., p. 35-

Ibid., p. 248. 65Ibid., p. 1 9. 34

It appears also that there was a significant difference in the type of magazines read by children in "Radiotown" from that read in "Teletown"*

In the former town 34 per cent of the children reported that they fre­ quently read confession, detective, screen, or adventure pulp magazines, whereas this type of magazine was read by only 20 per cent of the "Tele­ town" children. On the other hand, such general magazines as Life,

Saturday Evening Post, and others were read regularly by 65 per cent of

"Teletown" children and by only 52 per cent of those in "Radiotown".

The authors comment that television probably meets some of the needs formerly met by the pulp magazines, but does less to replace the general magazines. The children in "Radiotown" read magazines a little more ex­ tensively than did those in "Teletown", especially the brighter children.

But there was no significant difference in the number of books read by 64 the "radio only" children and those having television.

Schramm, Lyle, and Parker found that among the children covered by their survey, the reading of books increased generally from the first through the sixth grade, the children averaging about one or two books a month during the school terms, aside from those read in school. From the seventh grade through the twelfth, however, the amount of reading gradually decreased until it was less than a book a month, probably because of the increased pressure of school assignments. In general, then, the higher the grade, the fewer books read. At first the boys read more than the girls, but from the fifth or sixth grade on, the

trend was reversed and the girls did more reading than the boys. Also,

^ I b i d ., pp. 19, 20 and 246. 35 the children with higher mental ability tended to read a little more than the less able ones* with some exceptions. Six per cent of the brighter children, from the eighth grade on, read nine or more books each month, while 30 per cent of the entire sample apparently had not read any books during the preceding month.^

Few studies have dealt with the relative popularity and prestige of the various media among children. Schramm, Lyle, and Parker gave considerable attention to these factors in their survey. They asked the respondents in the different areas which of the mass media they would miss the most. Children in the sixth and eighth grades tended to place television first, the boys in particular. The tenth and twelfth graders' loyalty went much less to television than did that of the younger children. The respondents were also instructed to rate the various media on a prestige scale, assigning relative prestige to each.

There was little agreement among the several groups of children, but, according to Schramm and his associates, some general conclusions can be drawn. The prestige of television and movie-going decline, while that of the newspaper rises, in the high school years, the lat­ ter being higher with boys than with girls. Comic book reading has little prestige among high school students. Radio was rated highest by children in the tenth grade, especially the girls. "Above all,

65Ibid., pp. 245-46. 36 reading a book is still, even in this age of television, the mass media activity with the most prestige among teen-agers.11,66 The authors of this report add further that:

High prestige ratings for books go with higher mental ability; higher prestige ratings for television go with lower mental ability* These correlations are very high. And in general, high mental ability seems to go with high prestige ratings for the printed media, and lower mental ability to go with high prestige ratings for television and movies.67

Not only did the children in the Schramm, Lyle, and Parker survey express differences in the relative prestige value assigned to the various mass media, but also they showed a variety of tastes in individual television programs and program types. In the lower grades the favorites were Disneyland and Zorro. with Popeye and other cartoons often mentioned.

Other favorites in the early grades were Lassie, Mickey Mouse Club, Bin

Tin Tin, Leave It to Beaver, Captain Fortune, Cheyenne, Topper, Circus

Boy, Amos and Andy, The Real McCoys, Danny Thomas, and miscellaneous westerns.

Children in the middle and upper grades placed Maverick. American

Bandstand, Fury, Father Knows Best, 77 Sunset Strip, Dick Clark, and

Steve Allen among their favorite programs. In the eighth, tenth, and twelfth grades, Maverick was always among the first four favorites of both the boys and the girls. The same was true of the Dick Clark show.

Other programs rating high on the preference lists of children in these grades was Sea Hunt, Rifleman, Nightmare, Science Fiction Theatre, The

66 . Ibid., p. 53* Ibid 37

Real McCoys. Perry Mason, Danny Thomas. Peter Gunn, Wagon Train, Yancey

Derringer, Gunsmoke. Cheyenne, Ozzie and Harriet, Loretta Young, Play- 68 house 90, Bob Cummings. and miscellaneous movieB.

Considering preferred television programs by types, the boys in

both the sixth and tenth grades, for instance, invariably put westerns

in first place, and most of them placed either mystery and adventure sec­

ond. Among the girls, situation comedy and popular music were more

likely to be favorites, although westerns were given first place by five

of the female groups. Also, a category of programs designated as variety-

comedy was mentioned often by the girls. Most of the boys listed situa­

tion comedy among their favorite types. Absent from the lists of pro­

gram preferences were serious drama, discussion and commentary programs, 69 documentary programs, and straight news shows.

Among the eighth and tenth graders, the greatest percentage of

children listing crime programs among their favorites was found in the

high I. Q. group, a fact that may surprise some critics of children's

televiewing. In the twelfth grade, it was the middle I. Q. group who

showed this characteristic in their program tastes. Variations in

preference for crime programs, and also westerns, among children of

different mental ability followed no obvious pattern.

Popular music seemed to appeal most strongly to children of average

mental ability in the sixth, eighth, and tenth grades, but to those of

low ability in the twelfth grade. In the sixth and eighth grades,

situation comedy had a slightly greater appeal for children of average

68Ibid., p. 228. 69Ibid., p. 230. 38 mental ability, while in the tenth and twelfth grades the strongest ap- 70 peal of situation comedy was to the students of high mental ability.

Thus, judging from this study, it would be difficult to predict which program types would have the most appeal for children on any particular level of grade-placement or mental ability.

Because of their breadth and evident thoroughness, the Schramm,

Lyle, and Parker surveys of children's use of the mass media deserve considerable attention and respect. Hence, the report on these studies has been given unusual emphasis in this review of the literature in the field. Their usefulness and pertinence will be born out by comparisons

to data assembled in the present study, as will be seen later.

Surveys by Witty and Kinsella, 1930-61

Paul A. Witty conducted a series of twelve studies of children’s

televiewing in the Chicago area covering the period from 1950 to 1961. 71 72 He was joined by Paul J. Kinsella in the 1961 survey. During most

years of the study, 200 pupils in each school grade were used as sub­

jects. The children were from low, medium, and high economic backgrounds,

with boys and girls divided about evenly. Witty considered his respond­

ents to be a representative sample of the public school children in that

7°Ibid.. p. 2352. 71 Paul A. Witty, "Televiewing by Children and Youth", Elementary English, 38:103-13, February, 1961. 72 Paul A. Witty and Paul J. Kinsella, "Report of Televiewing in 1961", Elementary English, 39:2*+-32, January, 1962. 39 area* High school students were added to the sampled group In 1951*

Altogether, more than 2,000 pupils and their parents and teachers were queried yearly through use of questionnaires and interviews.

The average amount of time spent on televiewing by elementary school children was 21 hours a week in 1950, 2k hours in 1955, 21 hours in 1959 and I960, and 20 hours in 1961. High school students watched television an average of Ik hours a week in 1950 and 1951, 13 hours in

1958, 12 hours in 1959, 1^ hours in I960, and 13 hours in 1961., Also, in another survey by Witty, in 1951* of Oak Park and River Forest

(Illinois), the high school students' average weekly viewing time was found to be 15 hours., The amount of viewing was highest among tenth grade pupils, who averaged 2*5 hours a day, and decreased to 1*5 hours 73 daily for students in the twelfth grade.

In studying his group of elementary school pupils in April and May,

1950, Witty found very little correlation between amount of televiewing and either I. Q. or various educational test results. However, in re­ spect to academic attainment, the upper one-fourth in accomplishment watched television 21 hours a week, while the lowest quarter spent about

26 hours a week watching television. Regarding these results, Witty says:

We should point out, however, that some pupils were led to do better work in school, because of interests awakened by TV. Moreover, in the case of an association of TV with poor academic attainment, other undesirable factors, in addition to excessive televiewing were found.7k

73 Paul A. Witty, "Television and the High School Student", Educa­ tion, 72:2^2-51, December, 1951• 7kWitty, "Televiewing by Children and Youth", pp. 110-11. i+0

In the surrey referred to earlier, which he conducted with Witty in 1961, Paul J. Kinsella gave special attention to amount of tele­ viewing in relation to academic attainment. The purpose of the study, from Kinsella's point of view, was to compare the "mass media usage by junior high school pupils of extreme educational achievement and mental 75 ability." The groups hence were divided into categories of clearly differentiated higher and lower academic achievement and mental ability, on the basis of accepted educational tests and measurements. The result­ ing data indicated significant differences in the amounts of time devoted to televiewing by the several groups.

Boys in the upper achievement group spent an average of about 22 hours a week watching television, while those in the lower group put in about 28 hours a week in this manner. The girls in the upper achievement group spent about 17 hours a week and those in the lower group somewhat more than 2k hours a week televiewing. For boys and girls as a group, those of higher achievement averaged more than 19 hours a week watching

TV, in contrast to the 25 hours a week devoted to this activity by the low achievement students.

As for variations in relation to mental ability, Kinsella’s upper

group of boys spent about 22 hours weekly on TV, on the average, while

the lower group averaged 25 hours a week. Girls in the upper mental ability group devoted an average of almost 19 hours a week to watching

television, in contrast to the mentally less able group, for whom the

^Vitty and Kinsella, "A Report on Televiewing in 1961." figure was 25 hours a week. Among all the subjects, the upper group in mental ability averaged approximately 20 hours a week on television and the lower group watched TV a little more than 25 hours weekly.

In respect to both academic achievement and mental ability, the question remains: What is the role of television in this correlation?

Perhaps television demands much less of the children of lower mental ability than would certain other leisure time pursuits, such as reading or creative work of some kind, or many gregarious activities. Likewise, the child who is less able, where academic skills of reading and writing are required, may seek a form of leisure time activity which does little to task his limited intellectual powers.

Finally, in their extensive study of children's televiewing in the

Chicago area between 1950 and 1961, Witty and his co-workers gathered detailed information concerning children's tastes in television programs.

The favorites in 1950, given in order of greatest popularity among all children, were Hopalong Cassidy, Howdy Doody, The Lone Ranger, Milton

Berle, and Arthur Godfrey. By 1952 I Love Lucy was being broadcast and was the children's first choice, as was also true in 1 955 suicl 1 9 5*+•

Disneyland was most popular with both the boys and the girls in 1955, and led the list through 1957 « Then Zorro took first place in the scale of preferences, in 1958, with Disneyland moving to second place and

Shock Theatre taking fourth place. The 1959 favorites, in order of preference, were 7£ Sunset Strip, Huckleberry Hound, Father Knows Best, and Shock Theatre. The preference order for I960 was Dennis the Menace, hz

Dobie GiJJJ-a, the Denny Thomas Show, the Three Stooges, and 2Z Sunset 76 Strip, the latter going from first to fifth place in one year.

All elementary school children, in 1961, put Twilight Zone in first place, with nintstones second. The boys in these grades gave broad­ casts of baseball games as their third choice, but the girls preferred

National Velvet. They agreed on the next two, the Three Stooges and

Way Out. Thus, four of the first five choices were the same for both 77 sexeso The children in the first three grades showed some liking for cartoons and comedy shows, while the fourth, fifth, and sixth graders revealed a taste for mystery and adventure. The junior high school girls exhibited their usual keen interest in popular music and situation comedy, in contrast to the boys in these grades, who cast their votes for action drama.

Senior high school students, in general, shared the partiality of the younger children for the situation comedy, 1^ Love Lucy, in 1952 to

195^, but also liked sports broadcasts and such programs as Toast of the Town (Ed Sullivan), Arthur Godfrey, Fred Waring, Dragnet, the Col­ gate Comedy Hour, and Liberace. In 1955'; George Gobel placed first in their list of favorites, but was displaced by baseball and other sports broadcasts in 1956 and by Steve Allen in 195?- The next year the order had changed to Maverick, Gunsmoke, Steve Allen, Shock Theatre, and Father

Knows Best. In I960 Maverick still led, followed by The Untouchables,

Twilight Zone, Alcoa Presents, and Perry Mason. Other favorites, in

^Witty, "Televiewing by Children and Youth".

77Witty and Kinsella, "Report on Televiewing in 1961". 43 various years, were I Led Three Lives, Jackie Gleason, This is Your Life,

Medic, Perry Como, Cheyenne, Bob Cummings, The 164,000 Question, Red But­ tons, and What1s My Line? Witty and Kinsella reported for these students in 1961 that among all boys and girls in grades nine through twelve, Twi­ light Zone and The Untouchables were in first and second place, respectively 78 in popularity, with The Valiant Years third.

The lists of favorite programs in the Witty surveys of children's televiewing include such types as featured comedians, general variety, musical variety, quiz shows, westerns (both children's and adult), situa­ tion and family comedy, adventure, mystery and suspense, police-detective- courtroom melodrama, miscellaneous drama, "prestige" drama, cartoon shows,

"slapstick" comedy, popular music, and other types. But, like the child­ ren studied by other investigators, Witty*s respondents, as varied as their tastes were, did not list among their preferences discussion pro­ grams, interview programs, documentaries, news shows, religious programs, and those produced specifically by educational stations and organizations.

One of the salient values of the Witty surveys of children's use of the mass media is the extensive period of time covered. No other study cited in this review spanned the first decade of television's real de­ velopment as an accepted and habitual activity in children's lives„ The study showed that the peak viewing period, in amount of time each week devoted to televiewing by the average child, was the middle 1 9 5 0's, with interest in the medium falling off slightly as television began to take its place among other daily activities of the child. The Witty studies,

78 Witty and Kinsella, "Report of Televiewing in 1961", p. 27. kk along with Kinsella*s contribution, provide much useful information about children's program preferences from 1950 to the present. They show that basically children's tastes in programs did not change during this span of years, though individual programs rose and fell in popularity among the youthful viewers.

Survey in England, 1955

One of the most extensive studies of children's use of television and other media was made in England in the mid-1950's by Hilde Hxmrael- 79 weit, A. N. Oppenheim, and Pamela Vince. Himmelweit and her associates gathered information among boys and girls in the British "primary,"

"grammar" and "secondary modern" schools.

Himmelweit and her co-workers found that in 1955 the two age-groups studied (1 0 and 1 1 , and 13 and 1 ^ years of age) spent from 11 to 13 hours a week watching television, or somewhat less than an average of two hours do a day. These investigators came to the conclusion that "children with 8 l access to television listen very little to radio." The British re­ searchers found, however, that after having television for several years

the children again listened to radio slightly more, but only for sports, discussions, panel games, and music.

One section of this detailed and well-documented report dealt with 82 television and school work. In this study 172 pairs of students were assessed in regard to school performance, by means of ratings on the

79 'Hilde T. Himmelweit, A. N. Oppenheim, and Pamela Vince, Tele­ vision and the Child (London: Oxford University Press, 1958).

8°Ibid., pp. 11-12. 8lIbid., p. 23. 82Ibid., Ch. 25. 45 part of their teachers, based upon school marks and test results. Of each pair of students one was the viewer and the other the non-viewer or control. The teachers were not told which was which. Himmelweit and her associates report:

The results suggest that, on the whole, school per­ formance of viewers was level with, or slightly lower than that of the controls ...... Altogether 47 per cent of the controls were doing better than the viewers matched with them, and 36 per cent of the viewers were doing better than their controls. There was a trend, not statistically sig­ nificant, toward better school performance on the part of the controlso^3

Among children 10 and 11 years of age and the 13 and 14 year olds, a higher percentage of the controls than of the viewers showed adequate concentration in school, but the difference was small. On the other hand, the viewers tended to show slightly more initiative. In "school performance relative to estimated intellectual ability," the viewers were slightly behind the controls, but again the difference was not great. Thirty per cent of the heavy viewers among the 13 and 14 year olds were "working below estimated intellectual capacity," while only

24 per cent of the light viewers were in this category. Among the 10 and 11 year olds the figures were 26 per cent for the heavy viewers and 84 13 per cent for the light viewers.

Himmelweit and her colleagues found that 33 per cent of the heavy viewers and 2 3 per cent of the occasional viewers had either read no book or only part of a book during the previous four weeks. In addi­ tion, they found that 75 per cent of the heavy viewers and only 48 per

83Ibid.. p. 302. 84Ibid., pp. 501-302. 46

Qc cent of the occasional viewers often read the comics. In tabulating the number of books read during the preceding four weeks of the survey, the British investigators noted that among the 13 and 14 year old child­ ren the viewers had read an average of 2.2 books and the controls 2.5 books per child. The girls among both the viewers and the controls had averaged 2.6 books during this period. In relation to the boys, how­ ever, the viewers had read 1.9 books and the controls 2.5 books in this time.+ • 86

The figures for the 10 and 11 year old children were not far dif­ ferent from those for the older group, the controls having some slight advantage in number of books read, except among the children on the I.Q. level above 115* Himmelweit and her colleagues found that the presence of television in the home at first affected the amount of book reading done, but later the children were once again reading at a normal level.

Also, the better children's papers and magazines were not affected, but the reading of comic books declined and remained at a lower level after 87 televiewing became a part of the children's regular activities.

In considering the television program preferences of these British children, we find that at least for the ages included in the survey there are many similarities with the program tastes of American children. It is noteworthy that three-fourths of the programs named as favorites by

Himmelweit's respondents were adult programs, especially crime thrillers.

Westerns were favored by the younger children. However, even the top favorites in programs and program types were named by no more than about a third of the children, in any instance.

85Ibid.. p. 502. 86Ibid., p. 486. 8?Ibid., p. 335* 47

The British reae&rchera atreaaed the fact that age and intelligence of the individual child affected hia program preferencea. Also, the girls' program taatea differed from thoae of the boys, but the girla eeemed to have aa much intereat in crime and detective ahowa aa the boys. Even the more intelligent grammar achool children were not par­ ticularly intereated in adult political programs. The moat popular programa among the 10-11 and 13-1*+ year old children were crime ahowa and weaterns. Fabian of Scotland Yard, a detective series, waa a "uni- 88 versal favorite, irrespective of age, sex, or intelligence".

Among the children who had access to the offerings of commercial television, as well as the programs of the BBC, the favorite programs were all of American origin, except Robin Hood. The 13 and 14 year old boys of the British grammar schools listed most often as their favorite program Highway Patrol, while the girls in these schools chose I Love

Lucy, by a generous margin. Other preferences of the boys were, in the order of popularity, Dragnet, 1^ Love Lucy, and Rin Tin Tin. The girls in this group listed a preference order of Robin Hood, I Married Joan, 89 Rin Tin Tin, and Gun Law.

Boys 13 and 14 years of age in the secondary modern schools, the undifferentiated high schools similar to those in the United States, chose television program favorites in this order: Highway Patrol, Rin

Tin Tin, Gun Law, Dragnet, and Robin Hood. The list for secondary modem girls was Gun Law, Rin Tin Tin, I Love Lucy, Dragnet, and Highway

Patrol. The 10 and 11 year old children from all schools had about the

DO Ibid., p. 115. ^ Ibid., p. 449. 48 same list of favorites, except that Rin Tin Tin and Robin Hood were the leaders for both sexes, Roy Rogers, as well as I Love Lucy, appeared in the girls1 list, and Gun Law was missing. It is plainly evident that ad­ venture, action, and comedy made up a large part of the television pro­ gram fare of these British children, as well as that of their American counterparts, * Himmelweit, Oppenheim, and Vince found that on the whole, children's 90 tastes in television "reflect their tastes in other mass mediaWhen only one channel is available, children will sometimes watch programs not ordinarily interesting to them, rather than not watch at all. After the introduction of independent or commercial television into Great

Britain, in competition with the BBC, the more popular types of pro­ grams, such as westerns, crime shows, and variety shows, retained their large audiences. It was the educational and informative programs that suffered. The absence of the latter types of programs on the preferred lists of American children tends to confirm this observation.

In regard to movie-going, the findings of the Himmelweit group agreed with those of American investigators in suggesting that the older children make more use of this activity in a social way. For the younger children television makes "an effective substitute for the cinema," but the older children need the movies as a place to meet their friends.

As a result, the 13-14 year olds were found to continue their movie- 91 going even after having television in the home.

^°Ibid., pp. 14-15. 91Ibid., p. 344 *♦9

Comparing the heavy viewers with the occasional viewers, Himmelweit and her associates found that *tl per cent of the heavy viewers and 21 per cent of the occasional viewers attended the movies two or three 92 times weekly, in addition to Saturday mornings* The researchers con­ cluded, however, that "children are not insatiable spectators of screen drama; given enough of one medium, they will want less of the other*" 93

The report by Himmelweit, Oppenheim, and Vince in England in 1955 was well documented and apparently handled in a scholarly manner. The findings and conclusions of the study are of considerable interest and significance in comparing with the data assembled in the various American surveys of children's use of the mass media. It is evident that British children do not differ greatly from those in America in their attitudes toward and use of radio and television in relation to other media of communication. Each medium has its special place and importance, and none entirely supplants another in the life of the average child, in spite of individual differences.

Later studies of children * s use of the mass media

In addition to the American surveys and the British study discussed in the preceding pages, several other investigations of children's use of the communications media were made in the United States between the years 1953 and I960. By the mid-1950's most investigators were still re­

porting average daily TV watching of three hours or more for children on

9^Ibid., p. 5 0 2 . 9?Ibid., p. 3^5 50 all educational levels of the public schools. Based on a survey of 1500 students in 11 secondary schools in Missouri, Donald Tarbet reported in

1955 that children with television sets in the home were watching TV on 3.4 hours a day.7 In 1956 Tarbet reported, in relation to 260 sixth grade children in North Carolina, an average of three hours a day of 95 televiewing during the school week.

As a part of a wide application of audience measurement techniques in Iowa in 195^, Forest L. Whan found an over-all average of more than three hours a day of TV watching for a large group of children, includ- 96 ing some on farms and some in cities and towns. Arnold Lazarus, in gathering data on southern California children in various grades in

1956, reported that the median televiewing time for elementary pupils was 20 hours a week, or close to three hours a day. High school stu- dents put in more than two hours a day, average, in watching. 97

Other researchers recorded shorter average viewing times. Goldberg found, in a limited study on Long Island, that the children from 9 to 15 98 years of age were giving a little less than two hours a day to television.

Q ii Donald Tarbet, "TV Watching: Help or Hindrance?," The Clearing House. 27:*+89-91, April, 1955. 95 , "The Televiewing Habits of Pupils," The Clearing House, 50:485-87, April, 1956. 96 Forest L. Whan, 1954 Iowa Radio-Television Audience Survey, (Des Moines: Central Broadcasting Company, 1954). 97 Arnold L. Lazarus, "Pupils' TV Habits," Educational Leadership, 15J241-42, January, 1956. 98 Herman D. Goldberg, "Television Viewing and Children's Leisure Time," (Ph.D. dissertation, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, 1954), pp. 20-21. 51

Lloyd F. Scott reported am average of somewhat more than two hours a day on TV watching for 478 children In the second grade through the eighth 99 grade in East San Francisco Bay area schools in 1953* John R. Thayer,

in Columbus, Ohio in 1957 found that children from 8 to 13 years of age averaged only about two hours a day watching television, although one- 100 fourth of the children viewed for more than three hours a day. During

the same year the Cunningham and Walsh survey in New Brunswick, N. J.

indicated that children under ten years of age were watching television

a little more than two hours a day and the teen-agers were putting in an

average of two hours and 23 minutes daily in this manner.

The weekly televiewing figure for children, from Clara T. Appell's 102 study of 130 middle class urban families in 1958-39 was 16 hours.

Nina T. Flierl reported in I960 that the average daily televiewing time

for pupils in an elementary school in Demar, N. Y. was a little more than 103 two hours. Joseph K. Balogh's 1959 investigation of television view­

ing habits of boys in a metropolitan high school in Ohio showed a decline

in daily hours spent watching television in the upper grades of high

99 Lloyd F. Scott, "A Study of Children's TV Interests", California Journal of Educational Research. 4:162-64, September, 1953* 100 John R. Thayer, "Supervision by Parents of the Television Viewing Activities of Young Children in Columbus, Ohio", (Dept, of Speech, The Ohio State University, 1957) (Mimeographed).

Video town, 19^8-57t (New York: Cunningham and Walsh, 1958). 102 Clara T. Appell, "An Exploration of Television's Impact Upon Mid­ dle Class Family Life: As Measured by an Opinion Questionnaire of 150 Families",(Ph.D. dissertation, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, 1959), p. 165. 103 Nina T. Flierl, "Favorite TV Programs — A Springboard for Pupil Reading", Senior Scholastic, Vol. 77, No. 4, October 5, I960. 52 school, as follows; tenth grade, two hours and 24 minutes; eleventh grade, one hour and 42 minutes; and twelfth grade, one hour and seven . . 104 minutes.

Comparing the foregoing figures with the data of other researchers such as Siudzinski, Wolfe, Hopf and Bedwell, Schramm, Lyle, and Parker,

Witty, and others, it would be reasonably accurate to conclude that the elementary school children covered by these surveys averaged considerably more than two hours a day, and probably closer to three hours a day, watching television. An average figure for daily viewing on the part of high school students would be approximately two hours. On the whole, the statistics on children's use of the mass media indicate that the younger children spend more time televiewing than do the older boys and girls. But in general, more radio listening is done by the high school students than by those in the elementary grades and the junior high school years.

Burrows Study, 1958

The final study to be considered here is a survey of children's listening, viewing, and reading made by the author of this dissertation in several selected schools of Monongalia County, West Virginia, in May, 105 1958. Included were three senior high schools, with the remainder made up of junior high schools and elementary schools. Some of the

104 Joseph K. Balogh, "Television Viewing Habits of High School Boys", Educational Research Bulletin, 38:66-71, March 11, 1959- 105 Robert B. Burrows, "Radio and Television Listening and Reading Habits of Children in Monongalia County, West Virginia". (Mimeographed report on a survey conducted under the supervision of Harrison B. Sum­ mers, Professor of Speech, The Ohio State University, 1958) 53 schools Included the first nine grades. Among the total of nine schools, one high school and one elementary school were parochial institutions.

The children were given questionnaires to complete; about 3,000 were re­ turned, by approximately 1,450 boys and 1,550 girls in grades one to twelve, inclusive. By grade-groups the distribution was as follows:

Grades one to three, 331; grades four to six, 363; grades seven to nine,

788; and grades ten to twelve, 1,314* All data were compiled on the basis of the foregoing groupings. The children were further divided into three levels of mental ability and academic achievement: above average, average, and below average.

This study showed children to be listening to radio less than an hour a day and listeningto television about two hours a day. The boys spent an average of 45 minutes on week-days listening to radio and the girls 57 minutes in this way. The boys had a tendency to devote more time to televiewing than the girls gave to it. For both sexes the amount of time devoted to radio listeningincreased with grade level, but the time given to televiewing decreased as the children advanced in school.

In general, among high school students, those of highest academic achieve­ ment spent less time watching television. This group also gave more time to reading newspapers, magazines, and books. In almost every instance, the children who did the most radio listening and televiewing on the day preceding the survey were also the group who spent the most time in read­ ing of various kinds.

Other facts were brought out by the study. For instance, in regard to the reading of comic books, it was the boys of higher mental ability who gave the most time to this activity, while the opposite was true of 5^

the girls* However, the boys of lowest academic achievement led in time

devoted to the comics. Furthermore, children from "non-television homes" had read more books in the past six months than had those with television

available (the number was nine or ten, as against six or seven).

Bespondents were asked to indicate some of their favorite television

programs, that is, the ones that they liked to watch whenever possible.

Regardless of mental ability or achievement, boys and girls had about

the same number of favorite programs. However, the senior high school

students of higher mental ability and academic achievement named fewer

late-hour movies (those shown after 11 P.M.) among their favorite pro­

grams than did those of the lower grade levels.

Overall, there was no consistent pattern in regard to amount of

time devoted to listening to radio and watching television by children

on various levels of mental ability and academic achievement.

Summary of the literature

The earlier investigations, to which references were made at the

beginning of this chapter, show that before television became popular

and widespread children were giving two to three hours a day to radio

listening. Later, the younger children tended to devote more time to

television than to radio. The senior high school students retained a

greater interest in radio than did the younger children. However, there

was considerable range among various groups and individual children in

the amounts of time given to the different media. By the end of the

1950's most children were watching television anywhere from two to three

hours a day. Obviously, some would be watching less and some a great

deal more than these amounts. 55

In regard to program preferences, the types of radio shows most popular with children of all ages were those featuring comedians, sus­ pense, or adventure* The older children also liked popular music pro­ grams. Boys had more preference for sports broadcasts than did the girls, although this depended somewhat on the particular kind of ath­ letic contest being broadcast* The girls, on the other hand, were partial to quiz programs, family comedies, and dramatic programs with a love interest.

Younger children read more books than did the older ones, but spent

less time on newspapers and magazines. Few children averaged more than

four or five movies a month seen in a motion picture theatre. The older

the child the less time spent with comic books. Children having access

to television devoted less time to reading comic books and attending the movie theatres* Also, these children read fewer adventure and sensa­

tional magazines and more general magazines.

The types of programs all children liked included situation and

family comedy, adult westerns, mystery and suspense, action and adven­

ture, police and detective stories, and sports broadcasts of various kinds. Younger children liked the cartoons and "slapstick" comedy, as

well as certain programs produced specifically for them. The girls in

grades four to six were beginning to show a liking for popular music

programs and "jazz detective drama," such as Route 66 and 77 Sunset

Strip, an interest which increased as the girls grew older. The boys

in the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades were still more interested in

drama with plenty of action and suspense, but were beginning to show

an interest in programs of popular music. Senior high school students 56 favored comedians, popular music, family and situation comedy, adult westerns, police and detective drama, and (boys in particular) sports broadcasts.

Among all children of all ages, probably the four most popular program types, as indicated by the data of the several surveys, were adult westerns, police and detective or "cops and robbers" drama, situation and family comedy (as well as featured comedians), and popu­ lar music programs such as Perry Como and Dick Clark. The formula seemed to be one that could be described as thrills, laughter, and rhythm, the latter appealing more to the older children.

As has already been noted, the findings of the British investiga­ tors did not indicate any great variance between British and American children in their use of the mass media, considered in relation to mental ability and school achievement.

The study by Burrows (Monongalia County, West Virginia, 195$) of

3,000 children in grades one through twelve showed that boys and girls were listening to radio less than an hour a day and watching television about two hours a day. Older children used radio more and television less than did the younger pupils. The children who gave most time to radio and television also reported the most time spent on reading of various kinds. There was little or no correlation between mental and academic ability, on the one hand, and time devoted to the broadcast media on the other. CHAPTER III

METHOD OF INVESTIGATION

Surveys upon which this study was based

The findings of the present study were obtained from two surveys of children's radio listening, televiewing, reading, attending motion pic­ tures, and doing homework, the last two activities being included only in the second survey. For the first survey, made in the spring of 1958, the children in representative schools in the city of Morgantown and its environs in Monongalia County, West Virginia, were chosen as typical groups for study. Public schools included were four combined elementary and junior high schools, one junior-senior high school, one elementary school with the first six grades, and one senior high school containing grades ten, eleven, and twelve. In addition, the survey covered one parochial elementary school, with grades one through eight, and a paro­ chial high school with grades nine through twelve. The private schools were added in order to broaden the sample.

The second survey, conducted in March, 1961, included all of the schools covered in the first survey (the Morgantown area), as well as a

public elementary school and a public junior-senior high school in ad­

joining Preston County. The Monongalia County public schools that were

included in the study were chosen by the County Superintendent of Schools as typical of the entire school population of the county. Those in

57 58

Preston County ware more representative of the area in the vicinity of

Kingwood. Both schools in Preston County and four of the schools in

Monongalia County were located in the county seats; the others in the latter county were in nearby communities or rural areas* It was con­

sidered by the school authorities that the total sample was a good cross

section of the area's school population, at least in the Morgantown and

Kingwood areas. The children in the Monongalia County portion of the sample were about 25 per cent of the total county school enrollment of

11,000* For Preston County the representation was much smaller — about half of this percentage.

Through the cooperation of county superintendents in schools,

school principals, and teachers, questionnaires were circulated among

the children in the schools chosen for the sample in each survey. In

the 1958 survey, questionnaires were completed by approximately 3*000

children, slightly less than half of whom were boys. Of the children

queried, almost 900 were in the first six grades, close to 800 in

junior high school, and a few more than 1300 in senior high school.

The second survey brought in usuable returns from 4135 respondents in

both counties together, 2107 of whom were boys and 2028 of whom were

girls.1

The total distribution by grades was as follows: 1351 boys and

girls in the first six grades, 1234 children in grades seven through

nine, and 1550 senior high school students. The Preston County schools

accounted for 852 of the returned questionnaires, 282 of which were

^ e e Appendix B. 59

from the elementary school and 570 from the junior-senior high school.

The differentiation between boys and girls in both counties was about

even, but unlike the first survey, slightly more than half of the county

totals were boys* The entire sample in both surveys represented more

than 80 per cent of the enrollment of the schools included in the study.

Both questionnaires (1953 and 1961) were given to the children in

the classrooms during the same week, avoiding Monday, since this would

have provided information about Sunday listening and viewing, which was

not desired. The teachers were given instruction sheets containing in­

formation on how the questionnaires were to be administered. The children

in the first three grades were told to take a copy of the questionnaire

home, so that their parents could help them in answering the questions

and indicating television program preferences. These forms were to be

returned on the following day.

The older pupils were given time in class to work on the question­

naire. The teachers were asked to caution all children to strive for

accuracy in estimating the time given to the various media and to use

care in answering all questions and in checking television program pre­

ferences. All estimates of time devoted to various activities applied

to the day immediately preceding the completion of the questionnaire,

on the assumption that this would make it easier for the respondent to

recall the necessary information. As mentioned in Chapter I, throughout

this report the amounts of time devoted by the children in the sample to

various activities will be referred to as per "midweek" day. 6 0

Form and content of the questionnaires

In general, the questionnalrea used In the two surveys were similar

In content and fora, with certain differences. In 1958 the children were asked to indicate the number of radio sets in the home and in family automobiles, as well as the number of television sets in the home. In

1961 only the number of television sets was requested.^ The 1958 ques­ tionnaire had questions about children's bedtime on school nights and week-ends, which were omitted from the later survey. Both questionnaires asked how much time was devoted to such activities as listening to the radio, watching television, and reading newspapers, magazines, "library" books, and comic books.

In the 1958 questionnaire, the respondent was asked to indicate time spent on reading "library" books and comic books not on the basis of "quarter-hours" on the preceding day, as in 1961, but by number of hours a week. Therefore, it was not possible to compare the figures on the amount of time devoted to these kinds of reading in the two respec­ tive years. In both years, however, the respondent was instructed to give information concerning the number of books (not comics) read during the preceding six months.

The 1961 questionnaire added questions pertaining to time spent in going to the movies and time devoted to homework (doing school lessons at home). Also, some information was obtained in both questionnaires in respect to the kind of programs that the parents of the respondents en­ couraged their children to listen to or watch and the kind that they

2 See Appendix A. ■'’See Appendix C. 6 1 discouraged their children from hearing and viewing. The children in the

193^ survey were asked whether they were allowed to hear any radio pro­ gram or watch any TV program they chose, provided that the program was broadcast before their usual bedtime.

It was in the area of television program preferences that the 1938 and 1961 questionnaires differed most. The earlier survey asked the re­ spondents to check, on a list of 130 miscellaneous television programs,

"the programs that you like well enough to watch whenever you can." No attempt was made to rate the individual programs as to popularity among

the various groups of children. However, some comparisons were made in relation to number of programs indicated as favorites. In addition, several tabj.es were presented in the report of the 1958 survey showing

which categories of children checked as favorites one or more of the

three late-hour movie programs and also The Jack Paar Show, all scheduled

for 11 P.M. or after. The purpose was to show which groups of children

were in the habit of sitting up late watching television.

The 1961 questionnaire, on the other hand, was designed to uncover

more detailed information concerning children’s tastes in television

programs, as well as which family members were the usual "program selec­

tors." The list of programs in this questionnaire included 70 titles

representing programs of almost all types, but arranged alphabetically,

as in the first questionnaire, in order to avoid influencing the child­

ren’s choices. For the purpose of gathering and tabulating data on the

kinds that children in various categories preferred, the 70 programs

(About 85# of the children claimed that they were not restricted by their parents in their radio listening and televiewing.) 62 were later grouped according to 17 types, such as situation comedy, news 5 programs, adult western drama, mystery-and-suspense drama, and so on.

The division of the 70 programs into types made it possible to ar­ rive at some conclusions concerning what kinds of television fare were preferred or disliked by children in various grade-placement groups and on different levels of mental ability and academic achievement. The programs were selected so that each of the 17 types was represented among the programs available on the TV channels received in the geo­ graphical area of the survey. All three national television networks were also available in the two counties. Thus, when considering the data in relation to type, it is reasonably safe to assume that suffi­ cient examples of each television type could be seen by every child covered in the survey.

Arbitrarily placing each of the 70 programs in one of the 17 pro­ gram types caused no difficulty in some cases, such as the eight adult western series. Here there was no question of similarity in type.

However, since it was necessary to choose representative programs avail­ able on channels that could be received in the area where the survey was conducted and to restrict the total number of programs to 70, because of limited space on the questionnaire, the examples in some "type-groups" did not have optimum uniformity. This is evident from a study of the list of programs by types, in Chapter IX. Such program types as audience

participation-and-quiz, children's programs, and variety, to name a few,

contain specific programs that would not be liked equally by all

5 See List in Chapter IX. 63 respondents* Under drama* for instance* are two dramatic programs quite different in nature. Yet* in order to come to some conclusions of a general nature regarding children's program preferences, some arbitrary grouping had to be done. Valid comparisons of preferences among the various groups of children were still possible* in a relative sense.

It should be kept in mind that the children were not asked to rate the programs on the basis of type, but only the specific titles. Hence no response by program type was suggested* and the respondent could not be confused by the terminology applying to program types. Also, the re­ spondent did not have a chance to register a prejudice against any par­ ticular type as such. The grouping by type did not become a factor un­ til after the questionnaires were collected and the data were entered on IBM cards. Only then did our information reveal what specific pro­ gram types the children's likes and dislikes fitted into. Furthermore, because the programs were listed in alphabetical order* the random ar­ rangement resulting from this distribution precluded the possibility of the respondent's tendency to overstress one kind of program partly be­ cause he saw several listed together which he could check very quickly as a unit. Thus* for the most part the respondent had to consider each program separately and make up his mind as to whether it was a favorite* or otherwise. This method of indicating program preferences, then, re­ moved to some degree the elements of suggestibility* casual association of program titles, and fortuity from the child's response. 6it

A glance at the questionnaire form^ will indicate that considerable information about children's television program preferences was obtained by providing four columns to the right of the list of 70 program titles, where the respondent could check degrees-of-liking for various programs*

The columns were headed as follows: 1) That is one of my favorite pro­ grams; 2) Watch sometimes, but not a favorite; 3) I do not like this program; and 1+) Don't know or don't watch. In addition, a space was included to allow the respondent to indicate whether he or some other member of the family usually tuned in the program.

Grouping of the respondents

In compiling data from both surveys, the children were arranged in four grade-placement groups, namely, grades one to three, four to six, seven to nine, and ten to twelve, each inclusive. These groups will be designated throughout this paper as grade-groups 1-3, 4-6, 7-9* and

10-12. All respondents were divided not only on the basis of grade- placement and sex, but on three levels of mental ability and academic achievement — low, average, and high. The necessary information for assigning individual children to each of these categories was obtained from school records furnished by the school principals.

Mental ability and scholastic achievement levels were determined in the elementary grades by the official academic grouping of the pu­ pils in each school. In the high schools this information was obtained by referring to recorded I. Q. data and average grades earned, taken

See Appendix A. 65 fron each student's reoord. In each case, it was not difficult to place the student in the proper category, since this was done regularly by the schools as a part of the noraal procedure. Where the I. Q. was obtain­ able, it was assumed that an average I. Q. rating was between 90 and 110 points. A grade of "C" was considered to be average in academic work.

Children above and below the foregoing limits were categorised accordingly.

In 1956, certain data pertaining to children from "non-television" homes were compared with that of the entire sample. The results are summarized briefly as part of the material in Chapter VIII. This type

of comparison was not made in respect to the 1961 survey, because of the

very small percentage of children in this category in either year.

Reference will be made later to the findings reported in other

studies, treated in Chapter II, as well as to the Trendex Program Re­

ports for January >-9, 1961, in relation to the program preference data

derived from the 1961 audience survey. Comparisons will be made also

pertaining to all other data compiled in the present study in reference

to earlier and more recent studies of children's use of the various media

of communication.

All data obtained in both the 1958 and the 1961 surveys were pro­

cessed on IBM computors by the West Virginia University Processing Cen­

ter. Frequency distributions on various classifications of information

were run, with the usual verifications and other careful checks on ac­

curacy in compiling the figures. By the use of electronic computors,

it was possible to handle the vast amount of data derived from the *+135

questionnaires returned in the 1961 study and the smaller but still sub­

stantial amount of data from the 1958 survey. 66

Limitations of the study in West Virginia

All studies of this type are likely to have some limitations and weaknesses. These may be in relation to the sampling process, the form of the questionnaire, the handling of the data, or other factors, singly or in combination. No doubt this study is no exception to this possi­ bility; therefore, some of these problems will be discussed In the fol­ lowing pages, with some comments on the degree of confidence that reason­ ably may be placed in the findings.

The total sample was representative of the general area around Mor­ gantown and Monongalia County, but with limited application to Preston

County, as mentioned earlier in this chapter. For both counties a bigger proportion of .the group was composed of children in the upper six grades.

The higher the grade level of the children, the greater the percentage that particular grade-group made up of the total sample. Thus, there were more high school students (average number per grade) than those in junior high school and considerably more than in the elementary grades.

Therefore, in the tables which give percentages of all boys and girls the figures will be biased in favor of the older children. However, in most of the tables the data has been broken down into percentages of children in each of the four grade-placement groups.

Within the foregoing limitation, the sample of children studied in this survey can be considered a fair representation of the school children in the two counties covered, the latter having a population that is largely rural and small town. Furthermore, since there are no large cities in West Virginia and few of even moderate size, it is the opinion of the writer that the children in the sample are broadly typical of 67 those in the entire state. Also, judging from the results of other studies of children's radio listening, televiewing, reading, and so on, conducted in other parts of the United States, there are many similari­ ties between the children in the West Virginia sample and those in other parts of the country. Agreement of some of the data in various studies conducted in different years suggests that some conclusions about child- *■ ren's use of the communications media would have application not only over a wide geographical area but also over a long period of time, possi­ bly including future years.

As to the questionnaire itself, an average of more than 80 per cent of the children in the schools involved returned the completed form.

Since the children in grades four through twelve worked on the question­ naire in school, practically all who were present filled out the form more or less completely. There is no reason to believe that those child­ ren who happened to be absent on the day of the survey were greatly dif­ ferent from the remainder in characteristics important to this study.

However, the portion of the sample from the first three grades was not only considerably smaller but also probably a less reliable source of data. Children in these grades took the questionnaire home, to be com­ pleted with the parents' help. The latter may, in some cases, have sup­ plied information with the thought of making a good impression, rather than giving an accurate picture of the child's use of the media. But, of course, it is also possible that many children in more advanced grades did the same thing in completing their own questionnaires. 68

The five to ten per cent of the children, in both years of the sur­ veys, not having regular access to television no doubt spent less time watching It and more In reading books, If data from the 1958 survey Is any Indication. In 1961 no separate figures were obtained for children from "non-TV" homes; In both years these children were Included generally

In tables showing percentages. But many of the children with no tele­ vision sets in their own homes were still able to watch it at the homes of friends or relatives. Also, considering the small number of children

from "non-television" homes, the data resulting from the survey would not be greatly affected in the general results.

The accuracy of the findings of this study depends in part on the reliability and competence of the respondents in supplying the informa­

tion asked for. No doubt there were minor errors, misunderstanding of

details on the questionnaire, and wrong estimates of time devoted to various activities. Some respondents may have been careless or hasty in going over the check-list of 70 television programs on the questionnaire.

Regarding this factor, the average percentages for the children's TV

program preferences are based upon response from an over-all average of

about two-thirds of the respondents, with considerable variation in re­

spect to each program title.

In checking the list of 70 television programs on the questionnaire,

some of the children may have had a tendency to respond to favorite ti­

tles and ignore those disliked or not well known, or toward which they

felt indifferent. The children had been asked to rate every one of the

70 programs — to put a check in one of the columns following the list

of titles. However, since the lowest percentage of response was almost 69 invariably in relation to the program types that later proved to be the

least popular, it is hardly likely that the children who failed to check

certain programs would have marked them as favorites.

It is possible that some children misinterpreted the instructions

in regard to supplying information about time spent on various activi­

ties in terms of number of 15-minute segments. However, since the

phrase, "quarter-hours," was repeated many times, few students would

have failed to note what was wanted. This particular phrase was used

in order to avoid getting a mixture of hours and minutes in the answers

to the questions involved, thus making possible more convenient handling

of the resulting figures. Later, the periods of time spent on the

various activities were expressed in minutes, and in this form they ap­

peared on the tables.

Other children may not have taken the questionnaire seriously or

have been completely honest in supplying information. Still others may

have been in error in their estimates of time spent in various ways

with which the study was concerned, or in number of books read in the

past six months, for instance. In giving the amount of time spent in

reading books, some children may have included school text books. But

these discrepancies would not weigh heavily in the general conclusions

of the study.

Also, the fact that only about half of the respondents answered

the questions relating to parental approval and disapproval of certain

television programs may indicate that many students failed to notice 70 these it•iH# on the questionnaire. Others any simply have not cared to take the trouble to answer. But the response to these questions pro­ vides sons indication of parental attitudes toward their children's televiewing.

In the design of the television program-preferences part of the questionnaire, the choice of programs and program types was arbitrary, but the total number of programs had sufficient variety and coverage of current offerings at the time of the 1961 survey to give the respond­ ents a wide choice in expressing their preferences. Not all persons would agree on the selection of programs; however, assurance was made that all of the titles listed were of programs that could be received in this area. Some selection had to be made, because of space limita­ tions on the questionnaire, hence the omission of some titles that pre­ sumably would have been appropriate to include.

As to program types, again there would not be complete agreement among researchers in the field of audience measurement, although most of the 17 types used are generally accepted, or are least logical classifications. Perhaps too much diversity was incorporated into the type designated as "variety". This type could have been broken down into general variety, musical variety, and popular-and-concert music, according to the programs that were classified in this type on the questionnaire. However, none of the examples of individual programs under the heading of "variety" were named as favorites by more than a little over a fifth of the respondents, and most by considerably less than this proportion. 71

There v u also much diversity present in the examples of children's programs and of situation comedy, some having great popularity and others very little. Among the three examples of religious programs, one was considerably more popular than the other two. The adult western dramas were uniformly in the favorite class, however. Nevertheless, it is doubtful that the selection of other titles as examples of program types would have brought substantially different results on the preference scale. Altogether, the selection of television program types, and the examples of each necessarily required some compromise and were hence im­ perfect, but it is the judgment of the writer that at least a rough ap­ proximation of children's program preferences was achieved in the recorded data of the study.

It is possible that a few children may have had a tendency to check more freely the program titles placed early in the alphabetical list on

the questionnaire, or to check adjacent titles without due consideration of the respondent's real opinion of the program. A study of Tables 18 and 19, however, will show that the percentages of children who marked various programs as favorites varied greatly, even for adjacent pro­

grams on the list. High and low percentages did not seem to cluster.

Therefore there is reason to believe that the rank order of the programs

on the questionnaire caused little or no bias in the results.

Finally, the information of this study is presented as a reasonably

accurate picture of the behavior and program "likes and dislikes" of a

specific group of some J+,000 children living in two northern counties

of West Virginia in the spring of the year 1961. It is not the conten­

tion of this researcher that the findings of this study are accurate in 72 every detail or necessarily are applicable to wide areas of the United

States. They do provide a basis, however, for some broad generaliza­ tions, to be made in later chapters of this report, in respect to cer­ tain characteristics of children relating to their use of various media of communication. CHAPTER IV

TIME DEVOTED TO RADIO AND TELEVISION

The data presented in Table 1 are striking evidence, as far as this sample of children is concerned, of the sharp decline in time devoted to radio, compared to the data of ten years ago and earlier. The boys in

Monongalia County averaged only 30 minutes of radio listening, and the girls kO minutes, on the midweek or school day preceding the answering of the questionnaire used in this study.^ Only three years earlier, an equivalent group of children in the same schools were listening to radio an average amount of time that was almost 30 per cent greater than that of the children in 1961. The average figure for the boys in 1958 was

43 minutes, and for the girls almost an hour, on a midweek day. The high school students in 1961 gave more time to radio than did the younger

children, but the average amount was still only three-fourths of the 1958

listening.

If the figures obtained in these surveys in West Virginia had in­

cluded week-end listening, the weekly average would have been higher

than that based upon the time given to radio in the middle of the week.

It would still be found, however, that children listen to radio much

less than they did before having television available. Surveys in the

^The term, "midweek”, in this paper refers to any day other than Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.

75 74

TABLE 1

AVERAGE DAILY MINUTES OF RADIO LISTENING BY BOYS AND GIRLS IN VARIOUS GRADE-PLACQffiNT, MENTAL ABILITY, AND ACHIEVEMENT GROUPS8-

Grade- No. of All Mental Ability Achievement Placement Respond­ child­ Groups ents^3 ren High Avg. Low High Ayg. Low

Monongalia County min. min. min. min. min. min. min. Boys— All grades 1663 30 32 30 27 31 26 33 Grades 1-3 239 13 19 13 9 13 10 20 4-6 345 20 16 21 20 17 19 23 7-9 432 25 22 26 25 27 23 25 10-12 647 45 50 42 45 51 46 42 Girls-All grades 1620 40 39 44 30 36 43 40 Grades 1-3 195 13 8 15 12 8 17 9 4-6 290 16 12 22 9 13 23 8 7-9 471 39 43 39 34 41 40 35 10-12 664 59 59 63 42 53 67 55 Preston County Boys— All grades 444 28 27 22 40 21 29 31 Grades 1-3 48 7 5 5 10 8 4 9 4-6 95 15 15 10 28 13 10 24 7-9 180 32 50 20 45 28 39 27 10-12 121 41 31 48 45 29 44 45 Girls-All grades 408 25 23 24 31 17 25 32 Grades 1-3 56 4 6 4 2 6 4 2 4-6 83 14 12 14 18 9 15 15 7-9 151 26 19 26 35 15 30 29 10-12 118 41 43 40 41 33 40 49 Both Counties Boys— All grades 2107 30 31 29 30 29 27 32 Grades 1-3 287 12 15 12 9 12 9 19 4-6 440 19 16 18 22 16 17 23 7-9 612 27 28 24 31 28 28 26 10-12 768 44 47 43 45 47 45 43 Girls-All grades 2028 37 36 41 31 33 39 38 Grades 1-3 250 11 7 13 10 8 14 8 4-6 373 16 12 20 11 12 21 10 7-9 623 36 38 36 34 36 37 33 10-12 782 56 56 60 41 50 63 54

jq Average number of minutes on a midweek day in March, I96I0

No mental ability and/or achievement data available for some of the children in the groups below» 75

,fpre-television" days, such as those of Clark^ and Guth^, showed that the children were listening to radio 2.5 and more hours a day. The figures given by Quth were definitely in respect to radio listening on a school day. Clark presumably took an average for a seven-day week, but there is still a substantial difference in the amount of time his subjects gave to radio listening, in comparison to that given by the children in the West Virginia study.

In 1950, Lyness found many of the children in his study spending it as much as 3-0 or *f.O hours a day on radio listening. By 1959, ac­ cording to Hopf and Bedwell, children were still listening to radio from 1.0 to about 2.0 hours or more a day, with the older children listening for approximately twice as much time as the younger.^ Many of these studies, however, were made in different type of communities than those of the present study, though Clark included some small New

England towns in his survey. As would be expected, children without

2 Herbert Arnold Clark, "A Study of Adolescent Radio Listening," (Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University, 1950), 3 Raymond Edward Guth, "A Survey of the Radio Listening Habits and Preferences of Students in the Junior and Senior High Schools of a Mid­ western City", (Master's thesis, State University of Iowa, 19^9)*

Paul I. Lyness, "Reading, Listening, and Viewing Behavior of Young People in Grades 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11, in the Des Moines Public Schools," (Ph.D. dissertation, State University of Iowa, 1950). 5 Howard E. Hopf and Raymond T. Bedwell, Jr., "Listener Availability and Radio News and Music Preferences in Columbus, Ohio - April 1959," (unpublished report, Department of Speech, The Ohio State University). 76

TV used radio more than did those with television. Various researchers have referred to this fact, including Qessleman^ and Schramm, Lyle, and 7 Parker.

Table 1 shows plainly the pattern of increased amount of radio listening as the child advances in grade level. The amount of listen­ ing for all boys in Monongalia County, for instance, increased from

15 minutes on a midweek day for children in grades 1-5 to k5 minutes

for those in the 10-12 grade-group. The corresponding group of girls started at the same amount, but were giving 1.0 hour a day to radio in

the high school years. This general pattern was evident also among

the children in the Preston County sample. These results confirm those

of other studies in emphasizing the fact that the younger children no

longer have the interest in radio that children of this age-level once

had. Instead, as Table 2 indicates, television has become the object

of their main interest in the broadcast media. The high school stu­

dents, however, still prefer the radio as background noise, while en­

gaged in some other activity. In addition, no doubt many children of

high school age and younger still give some attention to the good

radio programs that are yet available. Furthermore, teen-agers, and

even younger children, often have their own personal radios, increasing

considerably their listening opportunities. The teen-agers' interest

in popular music strengthens the appeal of radio for them.

^Daisy B. Gessleman, "Reading Activities of Third Grade Children From Television Homes as Contrasted With Children From Non-Television Homes," (Master's thesis, University of Utah, 1951)* 7 Wilbur Schramm, Jack Lyle, and Edwin B. Parker, Television in the Lives of Our Children (Stanford University Press, 1961). 77

Among the children in the first nine grades, on the basis of mental ability and academic achievement, there seems to be no clearly definable

pattern of radio listening. This is evident from the data on Table 1,

in the section referring to the entire sample. However, in grades 10-12,

the boys on the higher level of mental ability and achievement gave more

time to radio than did those on average and lower levels. Among the

girls, those of average mental ability and achievement listened the most,

followed by the high group in mental ability and the low group in achieve-

ment. It was the top-ranking groups among the Junior high school girls

who gave the most time to radio listening.

Radio was used less by the children in the Preston County portion

of the sample, as Table 1 shows, and among both the boys and the girls

it was those in the low mental ability and achievement groups who spent

the most time listening. Combining the data from both counties mini­

mized the differences in time given to radio by the various mental

ability and achievement groups but stressed the increase in its use by

older children. In the entire sample there was a tendency for children

of low achievement to spend more time with radio than was given to it

by those of high achievement. In 1933, it was the middle achievement

group who devoted the greatest amount of time to radio. As in 1961,

however, the older children as a whole did the most listening.

In contrast to radio listening, televiewing has become a major

leisure time activity of all children, with few exceptions, especially

the younger ones. In the sample used for this study, the average amount

of televiewing on a midweek day, as indicated in Table 2, was a little

less than 2.0 hours for the boys in the 1961 survey and more than 1.5 78 TABLE 2 AVERAGE DAILY MINUTES OF TELEVISION VIEWING BY BOYS AND GIRLS IN VARIOUS GRADE PLACEMENT, MENTAL ABILITY, AND ACHIEVEMENT GROUPS*

Grade- No. of All Mental Ability Achieverneat Placement Respond- child- Groupe ents*5 ren High Avg. Low High Avg. Low

Monongalia County min. min. min. min. min. min. min. Boys— All grades 1663 114 112 113 117 Ill 119 110 Grades 1-3 239 101 97 94 1 20 81 96 128 if—6 3^5 125 132 127 112 135 130 113 7-9 432 1^3 140 144 143 149 141 142 1 0 -1 2 64? 93 90 93 92 80 106 90 Girls-All grades 162 0 94 1 00 9^ 81 94 101 83 Grades 1-3 195 85 86 86 67 93 88 63 4-6 290 120 125 116 112 118 127 108 7-9 471 127 134 134 102 129 131 117 1 0 -1 2 664 62 61 63 55 57 68 62 Preston County Boys— All grades 444 112 112 123 91 105 113 113 Grades 1-3 48 122 110 132 107 126 118 120 4-6 95 107 115 115 72 125 112 86 7-9 180 129 128 144 107 114 122 137 1 0 -1 2 121 86 99 88 69 70 100 78 Girls-All grades 408 93 95 101 73 87 101 87 Grades 1-3 56 98 90 108 88 105 86 1 20 4-6 83 104 141 97 70 111 111 83 7-9 151 114 102 132 93 95 123 114 1 0 -1 2 118 55 63 57 39 53 61 50 Both Counties Boys— All grades 2107 113 112 115 111 110 118 110 Grades 1-3 287 105 100 101 118 92 99 127 4-6 440 121 128 124 104 132 126 108 7-9 612 139 137 144 131 142 136 140 1 0 -1 2 768 92 92 92 86 78 105 89 Girls-All grades 2028 94 99 95 79 93 101 84 Grades 1-3 250 88 88 90 71 96 87 74 4-6 373 116 128 111 102 117 123 102 7-9 623 124 128 134 99 123 129 116 1 0 -1 2 782 61 61 62 51 56 67 60

aAverage number of minutes on a midweek day, March 1961.

No mental ability data available for some children in groups below. 79 hours for the girls. Since about five per cent of the total sample in­ cludes children from "non-television" homes, these estimates are probably conservative. The high point in quantity of television watching, some­ what more than 2.0 hours, was reached among the children in junior high school, with the least amount of watching being done by senior high school students. On this grade level the average amount of televiewing

on a midweek day was 1.5 hours for the boys and 1*0 hour for the girls*

Besco, Schramm, Lyle, and Parker, and others found this same decline in Q televiewing by high school students*

There was little change from the figures of the 1958 survey, except

that it was the children in the grade-group who viewed the most in

that year, with a decline in viewing through the remaining years of

school. In 1958 there was not much variation in the quantity of tele­

viewing on the basis of mental ability and academic achievement.

Among the boys in both counties in 1961 there was little difference,

on the basis of mental ability, in time spent watching television, nor

was there a consistent pattern in televiewing among the various groups*

Children of low mental ability and achievement were not invariably found

among the groups giving most time to television. On the contrary, they

were quite often the group watching the least, with the high-level groups

watching the most. This could well be related to the fact that the child­

ren of high mental ability and achievement are more likely to come from

homes with a middle or high economic status, generally with a greater

degree of TV set ownership. Hence, as a group, the children referred

to here might have had more opportunity to watch TV. g See Chapter II. 80

Thus, there is no evidence in this date to support any claim that children of low aental ability and achievement consistently spend more time with television than do the more able and industrious students*

This, however, Is in contrast to the findings of Paul J. Kinsella among children in the Chicago area, who discovered that his respondents with low mental ability and academic achievement were definitely the groups o who spent the greatest amount of time watching television*

The figures on amount of televiewing by children in the 195® and

1961 surveys used as a basis for the West Virginia study were considerably lower than those compiled by other researchers, when television was still a novelty* Philip Lewis, in South Shore High School, Chicago, in 19*+9 found the children watching television an average of 3*5 hours a day.

Other researchers reported, in the early 1930's, from 2*0 to 3*0 hours a day, and in some cases almost 4*0 hours, of children's televiewing.

It will be recalled from Chapter II that Siudzinski1s high school stu­ dents in New York in 193*+ averaged more than 2.0 hours a day of tele­ viewing. The children in Frances Wolfe's Mansfield, Ohio, sample, as late as 1933, were watching TV for 2.0 to 4.0 hours a day.

No doubt, in all of these studies with which comparisons are being made here, the figures for average amounts of viewing are based on data only in respect to children from "television" homes, excluding those with no regular access to television. The percentages in the West Vir­ ginia study are of all children who completed questionnaires, and hence include a few from "non-television" homes. However, this would make

9 Paul A. Witty and Paul J. Kinsella, "Report of Televiewing in 1961," Elementary English* 39s24-32, January, 1962. 8 l only * slight difference in the comparative percentages. But the fact that other surveys were made in environments somewhat different from that of the Vest Virginia study would also account for some variation in the resulting figures*

Additional investigations during the late 19501s, among them those of Hopf and Bedwell, Schramm, Lyle, and Parker, Witty, and Kinsella, produced data indicating that children of various ages watched tele­ vision anywhere from 1*5 hours to as much as hours a day* However, some of the "heavy viewing" that accounted for the higher daily averages was no doubt done on week-ends* Hore time was spent on this activity by the younger children than by the high school students. Balogh's small sample of senior high school boys showed half the amount of televiewing on the part of the twelfth graders as compared to that of the tenth grade students.William A. Northey found, presumably during a survey period in 1961 in the Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, Area Junior High School, that among 21+8 seventh grade students the average daily viewing time was an hour and 53 minutes.^

We can conclude from the evidence presented in this chapter and in

Chapter II that the use of radio has declined to a comparatively minor activity among the younger children, while the high school students continue to give a substantial amount of time to radio listening. Tele­ vision, on the other hand, although no longer a novelty crowding out

^Joseph K. Balogh, "Television Viewing Habits of High School Boys," Educational Research Bulletin, 38:66-71, March 11, 1959*

^William A. Northey, Does-Television Affect Homework?" The Clear­ ing House, 3 6:2 8 3, January, 1962* 82 other interests, still takes up a considerable amount of all children's time, especially that of the younger boys and girls. Nevertheless, the average child, according to his own estimates — as far as the area of the West Virginia survey is concerned — does not watch television for anywhere nearly the five or six hours total time that the set is said to be turned on daily in the typical American home* Apparently, not all of the family watch television at the same time. CHAPTER V

TIME DEVOTED TO READING NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES

Compared to their use of the broadcasting media, children's reading of newspapers and magazines is clearly not a time-consuming activity„

In both the 195$ and the 1961 surveys, on a midweek day the children gave about a quarter of an hour to reading the newspaper and still less to magazine reading. Tables 3 and in this chapter, show the perti­ nent data. The children in the sample were not asked whether the news­ paper was available in their homes, but Morgantown and Pittsburg papers have a wide circulation in both counties.

In regard to newspaper reading, the average figure for boys and girls in Monongalia County in 1961 was l*t minutes. The boys had de­ voted one more minute to newspapers in 1958 but the figure for the girls was the same as in 1961. This approximate amount of time for newspaper reading, then, had become established among these children, at least for the three-year period. The range for boys in 1938 was from four to twenty minutes average, for grade-groups 1-3 through 10-12.

For the girls this range was from five to seventeen minutes. Table 3 shows about the same variation among the different grade levels in

1961, newspaper reading increasing proportionately as the child ad­ vanced in school.

83 TABLE 3 AVERAGE DAILY MINUTES OF READING NEWSPAPERS BY BOYS AND GIRLS IN VARIOUS GRADE-PLACEMENT, MENTAL ABILITY, AND ACHIEVEMENT GROUPSa

Grade- No. of All Mental Ability Achievement Placement Respond­ child­ Groups ents^ ren High Avg. Low High Avg. Low

Monongalia County min. min. min. min. min. min. min. Boys— -All grades 1663 14 16 14 14 16 12 15 Grades 1-3 239 4 2 5 3 3 3 8 4-6 3^5 10 11 9 10 12 10 8 7-9 432 14 20 13 14 21 12 14 10-12 647 19 21 18 21 21 20 19 Girls-All grades 1620 14 16 14 12 15 14 13 Grades 1-3 195 2 3 2 3 2 3 1 4-6 290 11 14 8 11 13 11 5 7-9 471 15 19 15 11 18 15 12 10-12 664 18 19 18 17 19 18 18 Preston County Boys— All grades 444 11 13 12 9 12 11 11 Grades 1-3 46 5 2 5 3 3 4 4 4-6 95 6 9 3 7 11 4 4 7-9 180 12 17 14 8 12 12 12 10-12 121 18 18 21 14 16 20 17 Girls-All grades 408 9 12 9 8 10 9 9 Grades 1-3 56 4 9 0 0 8 1 0 4-6 83 7 10 5 5 7 4 12 7-9 151 11 12 12 8 11 12 9 10-12 118 12 14 12 12 13 14 10 Both Counties Boys— All grades 2107 13 16 13 12 15 12 14 Grades 1-3 287 4 2 5 3 3 3 8 4-6 440 9 11 8 10 12 9 8 7-9 612 14 19 13 12 19 12 13 10-12 768 19 21 19 19 20 20 18 Girls-All grades 2028 13 15 13 11 15 13 12 Grades 1-3 250 3 5 2 2 4 3 1 4-6 373 10 13 8 9 12 9 7 7-9 623 14 17 14 10 17 14 11 10-12 782 17 18 17 16 18 18 1? gL Average number of minutes on a midweek day in March, 1961.

^No mental ability data on hand for some children in groups below. 85

Table 3 also shows in most instances, some increase in time spent with the newspaper by children of average and high mental ability in contrast to low mental ability, but the difference is not appreciable.

It was slightly more pronounced in 1958. Also, usually the children of greater academic accomplishment gave more time to the newspaper in 1961, with a few exceptions, than did those of average and low achievement.

As a whole, there was surprisingly little difference between one group and another in time devoted to reading the newspaper. In 1961, however, the children in the lower grades reported less time on this activity than in 1958. Probably some of the minutes of newspaper read­ ing reported by the younger children particularly were devoted mainly to the comic strips. It will be noted, too, from Table 3 that the children in Preston County, especially the girls, gave somewhat less time to news­ paper reading than did those in Monongalia County. The two schools which represented the Preston County portion of the total sample were in a small town somewhat isolated from larger towns and cities, but as was said earlier, the Morgantown daily newspapers have wide circulation in that area. It is possible, however, that since many of the Preston

County children live on farms, they may depend more on the radio for current news than on the daily paper. As Table h indicates, the Pres­ ton County children spent almost 50 per cent more time on magazine reading than did the children in Monongalia County.

It is difficult to make comparisons between the time spent on the newspaper by children today and those of ten years or more ago, because the data on the available studies of that time were based upon different methods of computing. In 1950 Lyness found that among 1400 boys and 86 girls in Des Moines, Iowa, the tine spent on the newspaper varied fron five to ten minutes a day on the part of third-grade girls, and five to twenty minutes for the boys in this grade, up to fifteen to thirty min­ utes for the older children, the boys as a whole spending more time on newspapers than the girls gave to this activity

Wolfe, too, found that newspaper reading was greater among the older 2 than among the younger children and also most extensive among the boys.

More than a fourth of the children in grades one through seven, a still larger proportion of the Junior high school years, and almost half of the senior high school students read the newspaper two hours or more a week. Six per cent of the elementary school children and more than 20

per cent of the high school group read the newspaper for more than four hours a week.

Schramm, Lyle, and Parker reported, in the late 1950's, that more

than half of the 6,000 children in their western sample were reading the

newspaper every day by the time they reached the sixth grade and two-

thirds of the twelfth graders read the newspaper daily. Children who

had no television available spent less time reading the newspaper than did

those who had TV. This would suggest that television stimulates, rather

than dampens, the child's interest in newspaper reading.

Paul I. Lyness, "Reading, Listening, and Viewing Behavior of Young People in Grades 5* 5, 7, 9, and 11, in the Des Moines Public Schools," (Ph.D. dissertation, State University of Iowa, 1950). 2 Frances Bond Wolfe, "Television: A Study of Its Effects Upon the Reading Habits of a Group of Mansfielders," (Master's thesis, The Ohio State University, 1958)* 87

Somewhat less time was spent on the reading of magazines than on newspapers, in both 1958 and 1961, by the children covered in these sur­ veys. In the latter year, in Monongalia County, the boys read magazines eight minutes on a midweek day and the girls read them nine minutes, as shown on Table k. This was somewhat less than in 1958, when the boys averaged 15 minutes and the girls 12 minutes of reading magazines on a week-day.

In Preston County the corresponding figures were 11 and 15 minutes, respectively, almost 50 per cent more. A comment was made on this fact on the preceding page, with the conjecture that the Preston County children, being more isolated, may not have daily papers so readily available to them or they may lack interest in reading daily papers from other towns. The most interesting fact about this particular por­ tion of the data is that in both counties the boys, in addition to the

Preston County girls, gave exactly the same amount of time — 22 min­ utes — to the reading of newspapers and magazines totaled together, and the girls in the Monongalia County sample devoted 25 minutes to this form of reading. Thus, the average amount of time spent by all children on a midweek day on current or periodical literature was about the same in both counties.

Among all boys in both counties as a whole there was a tendency for those of higher mental ability and achievement to give more time to maga­ zine reading them did those of the lower levels. There was not this difference among the various categories of girls. In Monongalia County in 1958 both the boys and the girls of higher mental ability and achieve­ ment spent more time in reading magazines than the children did in 1961. 88 TABLE 4

AVERAGE DAILY MINUTES OF READING MAGAZINES BY BOYS AND GIRLS IN VARIOUS GRADE-PLACEMENT, MENTAL ABILITY, AND ACHIEVEMENT GROUPS*

Grade- No. of All Mental Ability Achievement Placement Respond­ child­ Groups ents^ ren High Avg. Low High Avg. Low

Monongalia County min. min. min. min. min. min. min. Boys— All grades 1663 8 10 9 5 9 8 7 Grades 1-3 239 2 2 2 1 3 2 1 4-6 3**5 7 8 8 5 8 8 5 7-9 432 8 11 9 5 10 6 11 10-12 647 10 12 11 8 11 11 9 Girls-All grades 1620 9 10 9 8 9 8 10 Grades 1-3 195 2 3 3 0 3 2 3 4-6 290 7 8 7 5 9 5 9 7-9 471 10 10 11 9 10 11 10 10-12 664 11 12 9 11 11 10 11 Preston County Boys— All grades 444 11 11 13 8 1 5 12 8 Grades 1-3 48 4 10 3 0 10 3 0 4-6 95 7 7 10 1 10 9 2 7-9 180 12 13 14 10 27 13 8 10-12 121 15 13 21 9 13 20 12 Girls-All grades 408 13 15 10 16 13 10 18 Grades 1-3 56 3 7 1 0 6 2 0 4-6 83 12 18 6 16 7 6 30 7-9 151 16 19 16 17 23 13 17 10-12 118 14 14 10 20 13 12 16 Both Counties Boys— All grades 2107 9 10 9 6 10 9 7 Grades 1-3 287 2 4 2 1 5 2 1 4-6 440 7 2 8 4 8 9 5 7-9 612 9 12 10 7 14 10 7 10-12 768 11 12 12 8 12 13 10 Girls-All grades 2028 10 11 9 10 10 9 11 Grades 1-3 2 5 0 2 4 2 0 4 2 2 4-6 373 8 10 7 8 8 6 14 7-9 623 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 10-12 782 11 13 12 13 11 10 12 £ Average number of minutes on a midweek day in March, 1961.

^No mental ability data on hand for some children in groups below. 89

This was ©specially true of the boys and is consistent with the tendency of most hrlghter children to do more reading than is done by their less able schoolmates. The girls in the entire sample, in grades four to nine inclusive, devoted an average of 10.9 minutes to reading magazines on the midweek day preceding the survey, in contrast to eight minutes for the boys in these grade-groups. The difference in Preston County was even greater.

Lyness also found the girls in his sample in Des Moines, Iowa, 3 giving more time than the boys to magazine reading. Frances Wolfe reported that most of the subjects in her 1938 Mansfield, Ohio, study devoted less than six hours a week to magazines, but in most grades there was not much difference in time spent on magazines by boys in contrast to girls. The Cunningham and Walsh survey in New Brunswick,

New Jersey, showed that magazine reading was reduced somewhat after 5 the introduction of television in the community.

It is not surprising to find that the children in the first three grades gave very little time to the reading of newspapers and magazines, actually an over-all average of three or four minutes on the newspaper and only two minutes to magazines on the day preceding the completion of the questionnaire.

3 Paul I. Lyness, "The Place of the Mass Media in the Lives of Boys and Girls," Journalism Quarterly, 29:^3-5*+» 1952.

Wolfe, op. cit.

^Cunningham and Walsh, "Videotown, 191+8-57«" Report of a study by the advertising firm of Cunningham and Walsh, New York, 1938 (Mimeo­ graphed) . 9 0

Summarizing this chapter, we find that newspaper reading occupied generally about a quarter of an hour daily of the average child's time.

This was considerably less time than was given to reading books but more than was given to magazines. The children in the West Virginia sample increased their newspaper reading as they advanced in school grade-level. There was a slight tendency for children of higher mental ability and academic achievement to give more time to the newspaper than was given by children of lower ability and achievement.

For all children in the sample as a whole, nine or ten minutes of magazine reading was about the average on a midweek day. Boys, but not girls, of higher mental ability and achievement devoted more time to magazine reading than did those on the lower levels. CHAPTER VI

TIME DEVOTED TO READING BOOKS AND DOING HOMEWORK

Time given to "free reading"

The children who were the subjects of this study were asked how much time each spent reading books other than comic books on the day preceding the circulation of the questionnaire. The assumption is that the respondents would not include time spent on school textbooks in their estimate but only "free" reading of "library" books or books that they owned. Since the children were asked in another question to determine the amount of time spent on homework, there was probably very little confusion about what was wanted in regard to the question on the reading of books. However, it is possible that, in answering this ques­

tion, some respondents did include the time spent in reading textbooks.

It is evident from the data on Table 5 that the children included in this study devoted a great deal more time to books than to reading newspapers and magazines, judging from their response to the question­ naire. For a midweek day in March 1961 the average time spent on reading books was 32 minutes for all boys in the sample and 39 minutes

for the girls. Considering the children in Monongalia County alone,

the over-all average amount of time given by the boys to book reading

was 3 0 minutes on a midweek day, with the girls averaging *+0 minutes or one-third more time on this activity. In Preston County the

91 92 TABLE 5 AVERAGE DAILY MDfUTES OF BEADING BOOKS, BY BOYS AND GIRLS IN VARIOUS GRADE-PLACEMENT, MENTAL ABILITY, AND ACHIEVEMENT GROUPS*

Grade- No. of All Mental Ability Achievement Placement Respond- child- Groups entafc ren High Avg. Low High Avg. Low

Monongalia County mln. mln. mln. mln. mln. mln. mln. Boys— All grades 1663 30 36 30 24 37 29 27 Grades 1-3 239 16 22 18 12 21 17 13 4-6 345 29 42 27 19 44 30 20 7-9 432 27 29 29 22 28 31 23 10-12 64? 36 39 36 36 44 35 35 Girls-All grades 1620 40 44 40 32 45 39 34 Grades 1-3 195 26 32 27 11 28 29 10 4-6 2 90 40 49 33 41 52 29 42 7-9 471 34 36 36 26 36 34 31 10-12 664 48 51 48 39 52 54 37 Preston County Boys-All grades 444 39 28 47 37 35 41 39 Grades 1-3 48 37 25 39 32 2 9 39 21 4-6 95 33 32 39 23 28 42 25 7-9 180 49 34 54 50 65 49 45 10-12 121 32 24 45 24 23 32 36 Girls-All grades 408 38 39 33 47 38 36 40 Grades 1-3 56 29 33 22 37 30 23 45 if—6 8 3 42 53 34 54 51 35 49 7-9 151 43 49 40 46 51 46 36 10-12 118 32 26 27 48 24 30 40 Both Counties Boys— All grades 2107 32 34 33 27 36 32 30 Grades 1-3 287 20 23 21 15 23 20 14 4-6 440 30 39 29 20 40 33 21 7-9 612 33 30 36 31 35 36 31 10-12 768 36 36 37 33 40 34 35 Girls-All grades 2028 39 43 39 36 44 39 35 Grades 1-3 250 26 32 26 17 29 2? 17 4-6 373 4l 49 33 44 52 30 44 7-9 623 36 38 36 33 38 36 32 10-12 782 45 47 46 42 48 50 38

aAverage number of minutes on a midweek day in March, 1961.

No mental ability data on hand for some children in groups below. 93 corresponding averages were 39 minutes and 3& minutes, respectively.

However, a study of Table 5 will show that on the basis of mental ability the girls in the high and low groups in Preston County devoted a sub­ stantially greater amount of time to book reading than did the boys.

The same differentiation was true on the basis of achievement, but to a lesser degree. AIb o , these girls claimed to have read more books in the past six months.^

It will be noted, from a look at Table 3* that for the entire sample the reading of books increased with the advance in grade level, except for the girls in grades 7-9* who actually read less than the girls in the 4-6 grade-group. The same was true of the 7-9 grade girls in Monon­ galia County alone, as well as of both boys and girls in Preston County on the senior high school level. The total range of time devoted to reading by individual grade-groups varied from 16 minutes to 49 minutes, on a midweek day. Considered on the basis of differentiation in mental ability and school achievement, the spread in time ranged from 11 to 65 minutes for various groups and categories. Most groups of children gave an average of about half to three-quarters of an hour a day to the read­

ing of books.

In general, the total sample in the 1961 survey revealed a greater amount of reading by the more able and academically industrious children, as Tables 5 and 6 indicate. In the Preston County portion of the sample,

however, there were several instances of more reading being done by the

lower mental ability group than by the average or high group. There were

^See Table 6. 94 TABLE 6 AVEBAQE NUMBER OF BOOKS READ IN THE PAST SIX MONTHS BY BOYS AND GIRLS IN VARIOUS GRADE-PLACEMENT, MENTAL ABILITY, AND ACHIEVEMENT GROUPS*

Grade- No. of All Mental Ability Achievement Placement Respond-* child­ Groups ents ren High Avg. Low High Avg. Low

Monongalia County Boys— All grades 1663 7.3 10.7 6.7 5.8 1 0 .9 7.2 6.0 Grades 1-3 239 5.0 6.5 4.5 4.0 8 .7 4.5 3.8 4-6 345 13.5 20.1 11.4 11.3 2 0 .1 12.7 10.8 7-9 452 6 .2 8.4 6.3 4.8 7.8 6.0 5.8 1 0 -1 2 647 5.7 7.4 5 .6 4.0 7 .6 6.4 4.8 Girls-All grades 1 6 2 0 9.6 12.9 8.8 6.7 1 2 .6 8 .9 7.2 Grades 1-3 195 7.0 7.0 8.5 2.9 8 .0 7.7 3.3 4-6 2 90 1 7 .0 23.6 13.9 9.6 2 2 .7 14.5 11.6 7-9 471 9.2 11.7 8.7 7.1 1 2 .7 8.2 6.9 1 0 -1 2 664 7.4 8.5 7.1 6.4 8.3 7.1 6.8 Jreston County Boys— All grades 444 1 2 .0 13.9 12.8 8.9 14.4 1 3 .0 9.7 Grades 1-3 48 18.9 25-7 17.6 10.1 26.2 17.8 8.9 4-6 95 12.7 1 7 .0 11.7 7.8 17.5 13.7 7.5 7-9 1 80 11.5 12.6 12.3 10.1 1 3 .0 13.5 9,8 1 0 -1 2 121 9.4 7.8 12.5 7.3 6.7 9°4 10.9 Girls-All grades 408 14.3 20.1 12.5 10,6 21.4 13 = 1 9.6 Grades 1-3 56 24.6 35.5 21.0 9.8 34.9 19.4 13.3 4-6 83 1 6 .6 24.2 14.5 8.9 26.1 15 0 5 6.8 7-9 151 1 3 .2 16.9 12.3 11.8 19.0 12.3 11.0 1 0 -1 2 118 9.0 10.8 7.3 9.8 11.3 8.0 8.2 3oth Counties Boys— All grades 2107 8.3 11.4 7.9 6.6 11.6 8 .5 6.8 Grades 1-3 2 8? 7.3 11.7 6.8 4.7 12.9 6.6 4.4 4-6 440 13.3 19.3 11.5 10.7 19.5 1 3 .0 10.2 7-9 612 7.8 9.3 7.9 6.6 8.8 8 .0 7.2 1 0 -1 2 768 6.3 7.4 6 .3 4.8 7.4 7 .0 5.5 Girls-All grades 2028 10.5 14.4 9.4 7.8 14.1 9.7 7.7 Grades 1-3 250 10.9 17.4 10.8 4.4 1 5 .6 1 0 .0 5.1 4-6 373 16.9 23.7 14.1 9.5 2 3 .2 14.7 10.4 7-9 623 10.2 12.7 9.5 8.6 13-9 9.2 8.1 10-12 782 7.6 8.9 7.1 7.2 8.7 7.3 7.1 aExcluding comic books and text books.

^No mental ability and/or achievement data available for some of the children in the groups below. 95 also three such instances in relation to Bchool achievement, in Preston

County. Among the children in the Monongalia County sample those of superior mental ability and achievement invariably reported more time spent in reading books, vith the data of course being considered only in relation to grade-groups and not individual respondents. In Borne instances the amount of time in book reading recorded for children of average mental ability or achievement was the same as for either the high group or the low group. Generally, however, the amount of book reading was in direct proportion to mental ability and achievement.

In order to make still another check on children's reading of books, the respondents to the questionnaire were asked to estimate the number of books which they had read in the past six months. Since this is a comparatively long period of time, many children may have made a very rough and possibly inaccurate guess. Others may have been prone to exaggerate. But if we accept their estimates, the children in the Monon­ galia County sample apparently had increased their reading substantially in the three years since the 195& survey was made. For all boys as a whole the average number of books read in the preceding six months was

5«9 in 1958 and 7*3 in 1961. The corresponding figures for the girls were 7.1 and 9-6, respectively. This represents a 24 per cent increase for the boys and a 35 per cent increase for the girls.

In the earlier survey the children estimated the number of hours and minutes a week that they devoted to reading books. It averaged about 23 minutes a day for all boys and 2? minutes daily for all girls, in contrast to the 30 and 40 minutes for boys and girls respectively in 96

1961. In spite of television and other supposed distractions, reading among the Monongalia County portion of the sample of children in the survey apparently had increased between 1953 and 1961.

Tables 5 and 6 show that the children in grades four to six gave the most time to reading books, by a generous margin, according to their own figures, which may have been exaggerated. The same was true in the

1953 group of Monongalia County children, selected from the same schools.

It will be observed also from reference to Tables 5 and 6 that while there was a decrease in the number of books read by high school students during the preceding six months, in contrast to the children in the lower grades, the number of hours devoted to this activity was greater among the older children.

Qoing back as far as 1948, however, we find that in one rather limited Btudy, as far as number of subjects in the sample is concerned, the quantity of books read by junior and senior high school students was double that read by most of the respondents in the West Virginia surveys of 1958 and 1961.^ Henry E. Luker's data relating to 240 re­ spondents to a diary and questionnaire in Qrapeland, Texas, showed that junior high school boys averaged from about two to four books read in the preceding month. The girls on this grade level had read from about two to a little more than three books, on the average, during this period. This would work out to sin average of almost 17 books in six months. On the same basis the senior high school boys would have read an average of 15 books in six months and the girls on this level

^Henry E. Luker, 11 An Analysis of the Reading and Listening Habits of 240 Texas Junior andSenior High School Students,” (Master's thesis, State University of Iowa, 1949). 97

14 books in six months. At least in this sample, the facts suggest that children were doing more reading of books before television became popu­ lar as a leisure time activity.

Anna Fitzhugh Bell, in a 195*+ study of more than 1800 homes in Palo

Alto, California, also found evidence that the presence of television in the home affected the amount of time given to reading.'* One of her con­ clusions was that 53 per cent of the children in the sample did less reading after having television available to them. Gessleman, in her study of third grade children, commented as follows: "TV seemed to have no appreciable effect on the reading of library books, magazines, news­ papers, and comics in this particular study of the group of children

chosen."**

Paul A. Witty, who made extensive studies of children's use of tele­

vision in relation to academic achievement and other factors, made the

following statement:

Our recent studies show too that relatively few pupils now believe that TV had influenced their reading adversely. Many point out that televiewing has led to an increase in reading. . . . In 1959 it became clear that the average amount of read­ ing may have increased somewhat since the advent of TV. In 1961, it appeared that the amount of voluntary reading outside school had increased a little compared with the amount engaged in ten years ago."5

x Anna Fitzhugh Bell, "Television Viewing Habits of Palo Alto Fami­ lies," (Master's thesis, Stanford University, 195*0 •

ii Daisy B. Gessleman, "Heading Activities of Third Grade Children From Television Homes as Contrasted With Children From Non-Television Homes," (Master's thesis, University of Utah, 1951)*

^Witty and Kinsella, "Report of Televiewing in 1961," Elementary English, January, 1962, pp. 50-31. 98

Himmelweit and her collaborators In England obtained estimates of the number of books read in the preceding month by the children sampled in their survey.^ They found that among the boys the television viewers had read 1.9 books on the average during the preceding month and the non­ viewers 2.5 books. Among the girls both groups had read 2.6 books during this period. Projected to a six-month period, for comparison with the

West Virginia study, the figures for the boys would be 11.4 books for the viewers and 15*0 for the non-viewers. On the same basis the girls would have read 15*6 books.

This is substantially more reading than than done by Monongalia

County's boys, who read an average of 7*3 books in six months, and by the girls, who read 9*6 books. The local figures would have been still lower for the junior and senior high school students alone. The Preston

County children, however, came close to the average for the British child­ ren, with 12.0 books for all boys and 14.3 books for all girls. As was observed earlier in this study, Himmelweit and her British colleagues concluded that television did not permanently affect the amount of book reading done by children.

In summary, then, the children who were the subjects of this study devoted substantially more time to reading "library" books than to read­ ing newspapers and magazines on a midweek day during the survey. The older students reported reading fewer books during the preceding six months than the younger children, but claimed to have given more time

to reading books on the preceding day. In general, the mentally more

^Hilde T. Himmelweit, A. N. Oppenheim, and Pamela Vince, Television and the Child, (London: Oxford University Press, 1958). 99 able and academically superior children spent more time in reading books than the other children. There was an increase in book reading in 1961 in the Monongalia County sample over the amount recorded in the 1958 survey. In most instances, the girls did more reading than the boys.

Comparing amounts of reading with the data of earlier studies re­ sults in no conclusive evidence, on the whole. In some cases more read­ ing was done before television became popular. But it was the opinion of many investigators that television does not greatly affect the read­ ing habits of children who have the capacity and liking for it. There is further evidence of this in Chapter VIII.

The children in this study gave more time to reading books than did

the high school children in the New York study, referred to previously,

but less time than that given by the British children in the study by

Himmelweit, Oppenheim, and Vince. As Schramm, Lyle, and Parker have as­ serted, book reading is still an activity with high prestige among child- 7 ren, particularly the more intelligent boys and girls.

Time given to doing homework

The 1961 survey in Monongalia and Preston Counties, West Virginia

included data concerning the amount of time spent on doing "homework,"

or lessons prepared out of school, by children in the four grade-groups

and various levels of mental ability and academic achievement. Next to

watching television, more time was devoted to doing homework than to any

other of the activities on which the respondents reported. Table 7 shows

7 Wilbur Schramm, Jack Lyle, and Edwin B. Parker, Television in the Lives of Our Children (Stanford University Press, 1961), p. 53 • 100

TABLE 7 AVERAGE DAILY MINUTES SPENT ON HOMEWORK BY BOYS AND GIRLS IN VARIOUS GRADE-PLACEMENT, MENTAL ABILITY, AND ACHIEVEMENT GROUPS4

Grade- No. of All Mental Ability Achievement Placement Respond- child­ Groups ent8*> ren High Avg. Low High Avg. Low

Monongalia County min. mln. min. min. min* min. min. Boys— All gradeB 1663 63 73 66 53 74 60 62 Grades 1-3 239 34 42 37 33 31 33 37 4-6 345 45 40 53 37 37 56 39 7-9 432 54 62 54 48 63 58 45 1 0 -1 2 647 90 10 6 88 82 125 84 84 Girls-All grades 1620 8 3 90 84 72 90 8 0 79 Grades 1-3 195 30 45 28 26 33 26 37 4-6 290 48 47 45 56 46 48 50 7-9 471 72 81 74 55 78 78 53 10-12 664 121 134 119 108 137 122 107 Preston County Boys— All grades 444 62 66 66 54 78 63 55 Grades 1-3 48 18 15 22 10 27 15 11 4-6 95 48 43 57 36 49 54 40 7-9 180 67 99 66 59 140 64 55 10-12 121 84 84 99 66 84 95 72 Girls-All grades 408 73 66 77 62 67 73 81 Grades 1-3 56 16 11 15 32 8 19 30 4-6 83 51 46 57 50 39 53 63 7-9 151 86 61 89 67 60 87 99 10-12 118 101 118 107 69 133 102 74 Both Counties Boys— All grades 2107 63 71 66 53 75 61 61 Grades 1-3 287 31 35 34 30 30 31 34 4-6 440 46 41 54 36 40 56 39 7-9 612 57 70 57 51 78 60 48 10-12 768 89 102 89 78 117 87 82 Girls-All grades 2 028 81 85 83 69 86 79 79 Grades 1-3 250 27 32 26 27 26 25 35 4-6 373 49 47 48 55 45 50 53 7-9 623 75 77 78 59 75 8 0 67 10-12 782 118 131 118 99 136 119 101

Average number of minutes on a midweek day in March, 1961.

bNo mental ability and/or achievement data available for some of the children in the groups below. 101 that all of the boys as a whole averaged 63 minutes and the girls 8l min­ utes doing homework on the day preceding the answering of the questionnaire.

The children in the sample devoted roughly twice as much time to do­ ing homework as they gave to reading books and many times that given to reading comic books, newspapers, and magazines. The amount of time spent

on homework increased substantially with the rise in grade level. The

range for boys in Monongalia County was from about half an hour to an hour and a half, and for the girls in this county up to two hours, on a midweek day. There were some differences in the amounts of time recorded

in the two counties. The children in grades one through three in Monon­

galia County put in almost twice as much time doing homework as did those

in Preston County. The junior high school students in the latter county,

however, gave considerably more time to doing homework than did their

counterparts in Monongalia County. High school students in Monongalia

County devoted a few more minutes to homework than was given by students

on this level in Preston County.

The least amount of time devoted on a midweek day to homework was

the eight minutes recorded by the high achievement girls in Preston

County's grade-group one to three. The largest amount, in contrast,

was 137 minutes given to this pursuit by the high achievement girls in

senior high school in Monongalia County. Time given by the boys to

homework ranged from about ten minutes for the low mental ability and

achievement groups in grades one to three in Preston County to IkO min­

utes for high achievement boys in grade-group 7-9, Preston County.

With some exceptions, it will be noted from Table 7, the children

achieving at higher levels were giving generally more time to doing 102

homework. This was invariably true among the children in all grades in

Monongalia County but also among senior high school girls in Preston

County.

In both counties the girls spent less time than the boys did in

watching television and more time doing homework. Junior high school

children gave much more time to TV and substantially less time to doing

homework than did the senior high school students. To make a comparison,

in a random sample of 103 high school boys in a metropolitan area in

Ohio, Joseph K. Balogh found that sophomore boys devoted 15 hours, junior

boys 10 hours, and senior boys 8 hours to home study in a seven-day week.

This would make an average of about one and a half hours daily for all

senior high school boys, which is roughly the same amount of time given

to homework by the boys in grade-group 10-12 in the West Virginia study.

William A. Northey commented, regarding the 248 seventh grade stu­

dents in his study in the Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, Junior High School,

that "no significant trend was noted that students in the lower sections

(which in general have less outside homework) spend more time watching g television." He found that the average seventh grader in his sample

spent 49 minutes daily on homework. Table 10 indicates that the average

amount of time devoted to homework by all boys and girls in grade-group

7-9 in the West Virginia survey would figure out at 66 minutes. The

average time for the seventh grade children alone in the latter study

would no doubt be very close to that of the seventh graders in the

Pennsylvania school.

g William A. Northey, "Does Television Affect Homework?" The Clearing House, 36:283, January, 1962. 103

Doing homework, then, is a major activity of the cMldren in this sample of boys and girls in Monongalia and Preston Counties, West Vir­ ginia, judging from the amount of time they reported devoting to it in comparison to most other activities except televiewing. CHAPTER VII

TIME DEVOTED TO READING COMIC BOOKS AND ATTENDING THE MOVIES

Time spent on reading comic books

If we take the child's own estimate of the time he gives to this activity, it cannot be considered a serious contender for his attention, compared to other reading and radio and television. The average amount of time given to the reading of comic books on the day preceding the

1961 survey was only 5*1 minutes for all boys and 2.9 minutes for all girls.

The period of heaviest comic book reading appears to be that of grade levels four to six, as can be observed by a glance at Table 8.

For this grade-group, the time spent on the "comics" is two or three times that put in by any other group of children. The boys in grades

4-6 gave an average of 13-3 minutes to reading comic books and the girls

7«5» the latter figure still much greater than the time put in on this pastime by most other grade-groups. The seventh to ninth graders were second in the amount of time given to comic books. The boys generally spent more time with the comics than did the girls, with a few exceptions.

Also, the time devoted to this activity declined sharply among the senior high school students, who would be expected to have outgrown the habit of comic book reading.

What may be more surprising is that in both counties as a whole more time was spent on comic books by boys of high mental ability than

104 105 TABLE 8 AVERAGE DAILY MINUTES OF COMIC-BOOK READING BY BOYS AND GIRLS IN VARIOUS GRADE-PLACEMENT, MENTAL ABILITY, AND ACHIEVEMENT GROUPS*

Grade- No, of All Mental Ability Achievement Placement Respond- child- Groups ents1* ren High Avg, Low High Avg. Low

Monongalia County min, min. min. min. min. min. min Boys— All grades 1663 5.0 5.6 4.8 5.4 5.3 6.6 3.6 Grades 1-3 239 3.8 3.9 5.7 2.0 4.2 4.8 1.7 4-6 345 14.5 1 3 .0 13-7 18.3 14.1 17.9 11.4 7-9 432 3.7 5.1 3.9 2.6 3.6 5.0 2.4 10-12 647 1.3 1.6 1.1 1.1 0.8 1.4 1.5 Girls-All grades 1620 2.9 2.9 2.4 4.1 2.7 2.0 4.5 Grades 1-3 195 2.6 2.3 3.2 2.4 4.2 1.7 2.9 4-6 290 7.3 7.2 7.2 9-3 6.9 3.9 15*5 7-9 471 3.1 2.3 2.7 5.3 1.8 2.6 5.7 10-12 664 0.8 0.8 0.5 1.4 0.6 0.5 1.4 Preston County Boys— All grades 444 5.3 8.3 5.1 2 .7 9.3 4.5 4.2 Grades 1-3 48 4.7 9.6 3.9 0 .0 9.3 4.2 0.0 4-6 95 9.2 14.1 6.9 6.6 21.2 7.2 3.2 7-9 1 8 0 5.4 9-6 5.7 3.2 5-0 3.8 6.8 10-12 121 2.0 2.1 3.0 0.8 1 .8 3.3 0 .6 Girls-All grades 408 2.9 6.2 1.8 1.2 5.4 1.8 2 .1 Grades 1-3 56 1.9 4.5 0 .0 0.0 3.9 .6 0 ,0 4-6 8 3 8.0 22.2 3.3 0.0 2 2 .2 3.2 3.3 7-9 151 1.6 1.4 2 .6 0 .3 0 .5 2.0 1 .8 10-12 118 1.4 1.7 0 .0 3.5 0.5 1.1 2.6 Both Counties Boys— All grades 2107 5.1 6.2 4.8 4.7 6.2 6.2 3.6 Grades 1-3 287 3.9 5-6 5.4 1.7 5.4 4.7 1.5 4-6 440 13.3 1 3 .2 12.2 1 6 .2 1 5 .8 15.3 9*9 7-9 612 4.2 6.2 4.4 2.9 3-9 4.7 3.9 10-12 768 1.4 1.7 1.2 1.1 0.9 1.8 1.4 Girls-All grades 2028 2.9 3.6 2.4 3.3 3.2 2.0 4.1 Grades 1-3 250 2.4 3.2 2.6 1.8 4.2 1.5 2.3 4-6 373 7.5 9.8 6.2 7.1 9.3 3.8 12.6 7-9 623 2.7 2.1 2.7 3.8 1.5 2.4 4.5 10-12 782 0.9 0.9 0.5 1.8 0.6 0.6 1.5

Average number of minutes on a midweek day in March, 1961.

^No mental ability and/or achievement data available for some of the children in groups below. 106 by those of average and low ability. On the scale of achievement the high group equalled the average students in time given to comic book reading and considerably exceeded the children of low achievement. The girls followed the same pattern in relation to levels of mental ability but not in achievement. Here the low group led among the girls. There were exceptions to this tendency, but on the whole the comics are seem­ ingly indulged in by the superior child as well as the less able, especially on the part of the boys.

In Preston County this trend followed through for all grade levels, among the boys, but the older girls in the high achievement group aver­ aged considerably less time on the comic books than the average or low group. Also, the senior high school girls of high mental ability in the Preston County sample gave half as much time to comic book reading as was given by those of low mental ability, but those of average mental ability gave no time at all to this activity, according to the data on

Table 8.

The 1958 Monongalia County survey brought forth somewhat similar re­ sults on time given to the reading of comic books. The time given by the boys was in direct proportion to level of mental ability and achieve­ ment, but with the girls it was in inverse proportion. The 1958 data were related to weekly totals in hours and minutes devoted to comic book reading. Translated to a daily figure, the data includes week-end read­ ing of comic books, which would be heavier than that of a midweek day.

But even allowing for this, there was still a substantial decrease in the amount of time spent on reading comic books in 19&1 , compared to

1958. The figures for all boys in 1958 were 11 minutes, as a daily 10? average, and for the girls 9 minutes. In 1961, on a midweek day, the boys as a whole gave 5.1 minutes to the reading of comic books. The amount for the girls was 2 .9 minutes.

In both years the children in grades four to six were the heaviest users of the comic books. The daily average for a full week in 1958 was 20 minutes for the boys and 17 minutes for the girls, against lb and 7 minutes, respectively in 1961. This was of course in Monongalia

County. The figures for the Preston County sample were 9 minutes for the boys and 8 minutes for the girls. There was an even greater dif­ ference in the data for the two years as applied to the tenth to twelfth grade level. In 1938 the boys in this group put in 5 minutes as a dally average in reading comic books. The girls in the group read comic books for an average of 5*7 minutes. The 1961 Monongalia County figures for the corresponding grade levels were 1 .3 and 0 .8 minutes, respectively.

In general, then, the children in the 1961 survey sample spent less time on reading comic books than did those in the 195& sample.

Perhaps, to a certain extent, television fills the need formerly supplied by comic book reading. Gessleman found that the children in her sample who had television averaged 3-2 comics a week, while those without television averaged 3*7 comics a week.^ Similarly, among the children studied by Schramm, Lyle, and Parker a group without television read four comic books a week in contrast to 1 .5 for the children with television. According to a report by Paul A. Witty regarding the children

^Daisy B. Gessleman, "Reading Activities of Third Grade Children From Television Homes as Contrasted With Children From Non-Television Homes," (Master's thesis, University of Utah, 1931)9 P® 33® 108 in one of his studies in the Chicago area, more than a third of the pu- 2 pila polled claimed that they read less since having television* Pre­ sumably, this included comic book reading. Anna Wolf, writing in Parents

Magazine, stated that the output of the comic book industry had dropped from 70 million copies in 1953 to 35 million in 1961.^ The influence of television may have had something to do with this.

Raymond Guth, in 1948, found seventh grade boys reading an average 4 of six comic books a week. Among the boys there was a sharp decline in the reading of comic books through the higher grades, but a less drastic reduction among the girls. Lyness learned that among the children in his survey sample, comic books were read most by the fifth and seventh grad­ ers.^ There were more boys than girls and more younger children reading comic books, in the Mansfield, Ohio, survey conducted by Frances Wolfe.^

Reference has been made to the amount of time given to the reading of comic books on the part of the superior students in the West Virginia sample in contrast to the less able children. Based upon his own studies

2 Paul A. Witty, "Comics, Television, and Our Children", Today?s Health, 33;18-21, February, 1955*

■^Anna W. M. Wolf, "TV, Movies, Comics — Boon or Bane to Children?", Parents Magazine, 3 6s46-48, April, 1961. (P. 47) i

Raymond Edward Guth, "A Survey of the Radio Listening Habits and Preferences of Students in the Junior and Senior High Schools of a Mid­ western City", (Master’s thesis, State University of Iowa, 1949). 5 Paul I. Lyness, "The Place of the Mass Media in the Lives of Boys and Girls," Journalism Quarterly, 29;43-54, 1952.

Frances Bond Wolfe, "Television: A Study of Its Effects Upon the Reading Habits of a Group of Mansfielders," (Master's thesis, The Ohio State University, 1958). 109 and those of other researchers, Paul Witty had this to say on the sub­ ject: "Several studies show that the amount of comic book reading, too,

Is unrelated to marks In school and to attainment as revealed by standard 7 tests. Our own studies lend support to these investigations

Time devoted to attending the movies

The respondents to the questionnaire were asked to indicate how much

time they spent, on the day before, in attending the movies. The figures

were later averaged to obtain percentages of time for boys and girls in

each grade-group and other categories, for the purpose of comparison.

These percentages are given in Table 9, on the following page. Another

question asked the respondents how many movies they had Been in the "past

four weeks." Again, the figures were averaged for the various groups,

with the results presented in Table 10, on one of the following pages.

The data thus show which groups of children devoted time on a school

day — and how much time — to attending movies, as well as how frequently

various groups of children in the sample engaged in this activity.

Movie-going occupied, on the average, very little of the weekday

time of the children in the West Virginia study in 1961. As Table 9

shows, an over-all average of even less time was given on a midweek day

to attending the movies them to reading comic books. For the entire

group, boys in both counties as a whole averaged 3«5 minutes, and the

girls minutes, attending the movies. The children in the Preston

County seunple devoted less time to this activity on the day preceding

the survey. The figures in relation to this group were 2.5 minutes

^Witty, ibid., p. 19. 110 TABLE 9 AVERAGE DAILY MINUTES OF ATTENDING MOVIES BY BOYS AND GIRLS IN VARIOUS GRADE-PLACEMENT, MENTAL ABILITY, AND ACHIEVEMENT GROUPS11

Grade- No. of All Mental Ability Achievement Placement Respond- child- Groups entsb ren Hifih Avg. Low High Avg. Low

Monongalia County min. min. min. min. min. min. min Boys— All grades 1663 3.8 2.9 3.8 5.1 2.0 4.2 4.1 Grades 1-3 239 4.2 0.0 6.3 5.3 0.0 5.9 3.5 4-6 345 5.0 5.9 3.6 7.4 3-6 4.5 6.3 7-9 432 1.8 1.8 2.0 1.7 0.8 2.4 1.7 10-12 647 4.2 2.1 4.2 7.2 2.6 4.8 4.4 Girls-All grades 1620 2.4 2.7 2.6 1.8 1.7 3.2 2.3 Grades 1-3 195 5.1 0.0 8.0 5-7 0.0 7.7 6.6 4-6 290 3.7 4.1 4.7 0.3 1.1 6.6 2.6 7-9 471 2.8 4.8 2.0 2.3 4.5 2.3 1.8 10-12 664 0.8 1.1 0.8 0 .6 0.3 0.2 1.8 Preston County Boys— All grades 444 2.5 2.6 1.4 4.4 2.7 1.2 3.8 Grades 1-3 48 3.8 4.4 2.6 6.6 4.7 2.4 7.5 4-6 95 4.3 6.8 3 .9 0.9 6.8 2.7 4.7 7-9 180 0.8 0.0 0.0 2.4 0.0 0.0 1.7 10-12 121 3.0 0.0 0 .6 8.7 0.0 0.6 7.1 Girls-All grades 408 2.1 1.4 0 .8 4.7 0.6 1.8 4.1 Grades 1-3 56 1.1 2.6 0 .0 0.0 2.6 0.0 0.0 4-6 83 2.2 0.0 0 .0 1 3 .8 0.0 0.0 10.1 7-9 151 1 .6 0.0 1 .8 0.0 0.0 1 .7 2.4 10-12 118 2.1 2.4 0.6 9 .0 0.0 5 .0 4.4 Both Counties Boys— All grades 2107 3.5 2.7 3.3 5.0 2.1 3.6 4.1 Grades 1-3 287 4.1 1.2 5.7 5.4 1.2 5.3 3.9 4-6 440 4.8 6.0 3.6 6.2 4.4 4.1 6 .0 7-9 612 1.5 1.4 1.5 2.0 0 .6 1.8 1.7 10-12 768 4.0 1.8 3.8 7.5 2 .1 3.9 4.7 Girls-All grades 2028 2.4 2.4 2.3 2.6 1.4 2 .9 2.7 Grades 1-3 250 4.2 0.9 6.6 4.4 0.8 6.2 5.4 4-6 373 3.4 3.5 3.5 3.6 0.9 5.0 4.4 7-9 623 2.5 3.8 2.0 1.5 3-8 2.1 2.0 10-12 782 1.2 1.2 0.8 2.6 0.3 0.9 2.3

Average number of minutes on a midweek day in March, 1961.

^No mental ability and/or achievement data available for some of the children in the groups below. Ill average for the boys and 2,1 for the girls, while in Monongalia County the corresponding figures were 3-8 minutes and 2,.k minutes respectively.

Among the boys, the amount of movie-going increased as mental ability and level of academic achievement lowered. It will be noted that the dif­ ferences were substantial, although in regard to the girls the differences in time devoted to movie-going were insignificant between levels of mental ability. On the basis of academic achievement, however, the girls on the high level spent about half as much time seeing movieB as did those on

the low level. The variations followed no inflexible pattern, but gen­ erally students who were doing better in school were spending less time

attending the movies. This was particularly true of the boys and very

definitely characteristic of the boys in senior high school, in both

counties.

Table 10 indicates the average number of movies seen in the four

weeks immediately preceding the survey. The pattern here was not identi­

cal with that of the amount of time given to movie-going on the preceding

day. However, considering all children as a whole with the figures for

boys and girls averaged, the number of movies seen by the high, average,

and low levels of school achievement were 1 .2 8, 1.3**-, and 1 .5 2 respect- g ively. In Monongalia County the fewest movies were seen by children in

grade-group 1-3 and the greatest number were seen by those in the grade-

group ^-6, as reported by the respondents to the questionnaire.

Preston County figures were similar except that the largest number

of movies were seen by children in the 7-9 grade-group. Junior and

These figures were computed from the data on Table 10 and do not appear on the table itself. 112 TABLE 10

AVERAGE NUMBER OF MOVIES SEEN IN PAST FOUR WEEKS BY BOYS AND GIRLS IN VARIOUS GRADE-PLACEMENT, MENTAL ABILITY t AND ACHIEVEMENT GROUPS*

Grade- No. of All Mental Ability Achievement Placement Respond­ child­ Groups ents^ ren High Avg. Low High Avg. Low

Monongalia County Boys— All grades 1663 1.29 1 .2 8 1.32 1.32 1.19 1.21 1.42 Grades 1-3 239 .5^ .84 .62 .37 .65 .57 .42 4-6 345 1.94 1.50 1.71 2.86 1.64 1.56 2.50 7-9 432 1.01 1.34 1.00 .84 1.23 -99 .94 10-12 647 1.41 1.22 1.54 1 .2 8 1.05 1.61 1.41 Girls-All grades 1620 1.20 1.29 1.15 1.10 1.07 1.24 1 .2 8 Grades 1-3 195 .77 .55 .48 1.69 .54 .69 1.53 4-6 290 1.44 1.34 1.57 .67 1.17 1.64 1.52 7-9 471 1.01 1.29 •96 .84 .99 1.11 .86 10-12 664 1.34 1.45 1.31 1.34 1.23 1.39 1.41 Preston County Boys— All grades 444 2.09 2.11 2.07 2.11 2.10 1.90 2.29 Grades 1-3 48 1.12 1.57 1.04 .44 1.46 1.16 .25 4-6 95 1 .6 0 1.65 1.72 1.22 1.86 1 .8 2 1.07 7-9 180 2.67 3.59 2.62 2.49 3.33 2.16 2.93 10-12 121 1.99 1 .8 1 I .89 2.29 1.76 1 .9 8 2.13 Girls-All grades 408 1.78 1 .8 7 1.58 2 .0 8 1.75 1.62 2 .0 8 Grades 1-3 56 .55 .43 .59 .78 .39 .72 .43 4-6 83 1.33 2.09 .78 2.00 2 .3 8 .65 1.72 7-9 151 2.2? 1.59 2.29 2.71 1.63 2.29 2.63 10-12 118 2.05 2 .8 9 1.75 1.57 2.39 2.02 1.83 Both Counties Boys— All grades 2107 1.46 1.46 1.46 1.52 1 .3 8 1.36 1.59 Grades 1-3 287 .64 1.04 .70 .38 .85 .66 .40 4-6 440 1.86 1.54 1.71 2.57 1.69 1.62 2.25 7-9 612 1.50 1.85 1.45 1.39 1.64 1 .3 0 1.65 10-12 768 1.50 1.33 1.57 1.54 1.19 1.69 1.50 Girls-All grades 2028 1.32 1.41 1.23 1.36 1.19 1.32 1.46 Grades 1-3 250 .72 .51 .50 1.49 .50 .70 1.33 4-6 373 1.41 1.47 1.37 .98 1.37 1.39 1.57 7-9 623 1.31 1.35 1.26 1.45 1.10 1.40 1.40 10-12 782 1.45 1.70 1.36 1.39 1.39 1.48 1.48

Movies seen in theatres.

No mental ability and/or achievement data available for some of the children in the groups below. 113 senior high school students In Monongalia County saw, respectively, an average of about one and somewhat less than 1.5 movies during the pre­ ceding four weeks. The children in the Preston County sample were much more avid movie-goers, according to their estimates averaging 2.6? movies for junior high school boys and 2.27 for junior high girls. The senior high school boys and girls in tnls county averaged about two movies dur­ ing the period of four weeks.

The smallest number of movies seen in the entire sample by any in­ dividual group among all levels of mental ability and academic achieve­ ment was .2 5 and the largest number was 3»33» according to the estimates of the children who answered the questionnaire. Striking an average for the more than **,000 children sampled, the over-all figure would be less than 1.5 movies seen in four weeks. A generation ago almost any child who did not live in an extremely remote area would attend the movie theatres this often in a week and perhaps would see two or three or more movies a week. Judging from the data collected in this study., attending the movies 10 no longer an activity that consumes much of the average child’s time, while televiewing occupies much of the time formerly spent in movie-going..

Larlier studies indicated « fairly wide range in number of movies seen in a month by children In various grades.. Luker's 2**0 subjects in

Grnpelond, Texan, In 1 9 ^ varied from about 1.9 movies seen in a month by junior high school student./; to approximately 2.0 a month seen by 9 senior high school students. In the same year Guth’s larger sample

9 Henry L. Luker, "An Analysis of the Reading and Listening Habits of 2^0 Texas Junior and Senior High School Students," (Master’s thesis, State University of Iowa, 19^*9). ll*t of 1276 children in Davenport, Iowa, in grades seven through twelve aver­ aged more than five movies a month.10 Most of the children in his sample saw at least four movies in this period of time. Among the children studied by Lyness, the average number of movies seen was about one each week.11

Schramm, Lyle, and Parker reported that among the first grade children having no access to television, 89 per cent attended the movies regularly, while among those with television available only 5^ per cent were steady 12 goers. The children with television saw about one movie a month in movie theatres but those with no television available saw four or five in this time. Children in the San Francisco sample of the survey con­ ducted by these researchers saw almost the same number of movies in a month as were seen by children of similar ages in the West Virginia study.

The respondents in grades two, six, and twelve saw 1.0, 1.6, and 1.2 movies, respectively, in the preceding month. The corresponding figures for approximately the same grades in the West Virginia study were 0.7,

1.6, and 1.5 movies in the month’s time, according to average figures for boys and girls.

In their western study, Schramm, Lyle, and Parker also found that when the children in the survey sample were asked to rate the various

10Guth, op. cit., pp. 77-78o

11Paul I. Lyness, "The Place of the Mass Media in the Lives of Boys and Girls," Journalism Quarterly, 29si*3“-5iK 1952. 12 Wilbur Schramm, Jack Lyle, and Edwin B. Parker, Television in the Lives of Our Children (Stanford University Press, 1961)* p. 8. 115 mass media on a prestige scale the high school students assigned a lower place to movies (as well as television) than that accorded by the younger children.^

The Himmelweit British study suggested that younger children were substituting television for some of their movie-going, while the older children still found motion picture attendance important socially as a 14 place to meet and associate with their friends. The British re­ searchers also found that twice the percentage of "heavy viewers" than

"light viewers" of television attended the movies two or three times weekly. Apparently, the children in this English survey considered television an unusually attractive leisure time activity and perhaps

for the same reason liked to attend the movies. Certainly both forms of entertainment would appeal strongly to the child who derived less pleasure from reading.

■^Wilbur Schramm, Jack Lyle., and Edwin B. Parker, Television in the Lives of Our Children (Stanford University Press., 1961), p. 55* 14 Himmelweit, Oppenheim, and Vince, op. cit., p. CHAPTER VIII

CHILDREN’S TELEVIEWING IN RELATION TO OTHER ACTIVITIES

A variety of data concerning some of the interests of children has been presented so far in these pages. By consulting Table 11, signifi­ cant comparisons can be made among the relative amounts of time devoted by children to the eight activities listed on the table. Arranged across the table, the average periods of time spent by all grade-groups in both counties on radio listening, televiewing, reading of various kinds, at­

tending movies, and doing homework stand out clearly. It is also possi­ ble to compare the data from the two counties, in larger aspects but without reference to either mental ability or school achievement.

One can readily see that the four activities to which these children reported giving the greatest amount of time are watching television, do­ ing homework, reading books, and listening to the radio, in that order.

It is also interesting to note that the boys in both counties, in all grades as a group., came within two minutes of giving exactly the same total amount of time to the eight activities listed. For all students, an average of about 4.5 hours on a midweek day was given to these pur­ suits. The girls in Monongalia County put in about one-half hour more in these activities them, did those in Preston County. It should be kept in mind that some activities were probably carried on simultaneously, such as radio listening and reading. In general, the higher the grade level the more time was devoted to all of these activities together, with the exception of senior high school students in Preston County. 116 117 TABLE 11

AVERAGE NUMBER OF MINUTES SPENT ON VARIOUS ACTIVITIES ON A MIDWEEK DAY BY ALL CHILDREN, GROUPED ACCORDING TO SEX AND GRADE-PLACEMENT

GRADE- Tele­ News­ Tot. All Maga­ Com. Mov­ Home­ PLACEMENT Radio vis­ pap­ Bks. Read Activ­ zines Bks. ies work GROUPS ion ers -ing ities

Monongalia County All Boya 50 114 14 8 30 5 57 4 63 268 Grades 1-3 13 101 4 2 16 4 26 4 34 178 4-6 20 125 10 7 29 14 60 5 45 255 7-9 25 143 14 8 27 4 53 2 54 277 10-12 45 93 19 10 36 1 66 4 90 298 All Girls 40 94 14 9 40 3 66 2 83 285 Grades 1-3 13 85 2 2 26 3 33 5 30 166 4-6 16 120 11 7 40 7 65 4 48 253 7-9 39 127 15 10 34 3 62 3 72 303 10-12 59 62 18 11 48 1 78 1 121 321 Preston County All Boys 28 112 11 11 39 5 66 2 62 270 Grades 1-3 6 122 5 4 37 5 51 4 18 201 4-6 15 107 6 7 33 9 55 4 48 229 7-9 32 129 12 12 49 5 78 1 67 307 10-12 4l 86 18 15 32 2 67 3 84 281 All Girls 25 93 9 13 38 3 63 2 73 256 Grades 1-3 4 98 4 3 29 2 38 1 16 157 4-6 14 104 7 12 42 8 69 2 51 240 7-9 26 114 11 17 43 2 73 2 86 501 10-12 4l 55 12 14 32 1 59 2 101 258 Both Counties All Boys 30 113 13 9 32 5 59 3 63 268 Grades 1-3 12 105 4 2 20 4 30 4 31 182 4-6 19 121 9 7 30 13 59 5 46 250 7-9 27 139 14 9 33 4 60 2 57 291 10-12 44 92 19 11 36 1 67 4 89 296 All Girls 37 94 13 10 39 3 65 2 8i 279 Grades 1-3 11 88 3 3 26 2 34 4 27 164 4-6 16 116 10 8 41 7 66 3 49 250 7-9 36 124 14 12 36 3 65 3 75 303 10-12 56 6i 17 11 45 1 74 1 118 310 118

The tremendously greater amount of time given by the younger children to televiewing than to any other of the eight activities listed is ap­ parent from a look at Table 11. This continues generally through junior high school, although no doubt with much variation among individual stu­ dents. However, by the time senior high school has been reached, the student must necessarily devote as much or more time to homework as to

television in order to maintain satisfactory scholastic standing and to meet academic competition from other students.

A comparison of the amount of time devoted to televiewing and that

given to all reading reported on this table shows that the children in

the sample put in vastly more time on television than on reading (not

counting homework). The boys in grades 1-3 in Monongalia County devoted almost four times as many minutes to television on the day preceding the

survey than on reading of various kinds. In grade-groups k-6 and 7-9,

the boys gave about twice as much time to TV as to reading. High school

boys as a whole spent about 50 per cent more time before the TV set than

in reading, as reported by the respondents to the questionnaire. This

was generally true of all girls from first grade through the junior high

school group. But the senior high school girls actually reported more

time devoted to reading than to televiewing.

So few of the children in the 1961 survey were apparently without

access to television that no attempt was made to compare the activities

of children from non-television homes with those having television avail­

able. In the 1958 survey in Monongalia County, however, it was found

that the amount of time devoted to reading newspapers and magazines was

about the same regardless of whether the child had television available 119 at hone. But the children without television read almost 50 per cent more books and devoted much more time to this activity than did the children with television at hand.

The Monongalia County "Non-TV" children in 195® also got to bed earlier than did those who had television available. Generally, among the children in 1953 the students on the highest mental ability level had the earliest bedtime hour. Senior high school boys with the highest average grades stayed up longer on school nights than did those having a lower grade average, but on Friday and Saturday nights their bedtime was earlier.

In both the 1958 survey and the 1961 study the children of each sex were divided into two groups, as nearly equal in size as possible, one containing the respondents who reported the largest amount of teleview­ ing and the other those who reported the least* In 1958 a division was made also in relation to radio listening. The 1961 groups consisted of those children who claimed to have watched television for 75 minutes or less on the preceding day and those who had watched for more than this amount of time. For 1961, Table 12 shows how much time the heavy viewers, in contrast to the light viewers, gave to seven other activities the same day.

A fact that stands out immediately is that in respect to both the boys and the girls in the first six grades, the heavy viewers of tele­ vision reported spending more time listening to radio than was spent by the light viewers. However, regarding the junior and senior high school students, just the opposite was true. On these levels the margin of radio listening on the part of the light viewers is substantial, except 120 TABLE 12

AVERAGE NUMBER OF MINUTES ON A MIDWEEK DAT DEVOTED TO RADIO LISTENING, READING, AND OTHER ACTIVITIES BY HEAVY TV VIEWERS COMPARED TO LIGHT VIEWERS*

ALL BOYS ALL GIRLS Grade Levels: 4-6 7-9 10-12 4-6 10-12 No. of Respondents: (TO) cfef) (250) (373) (782)

MINUTES PER DAY DEVOTED TO: Radio listening- by heavy viewers 16.7 20.9 22.7 41.0 14.4 16.2 33.0 55.2 by light viewers 5.2 15-7 33.8 47.3 7.4 15.0 40.5 56.4

Reading newspapers- by heavy viewers 4.4 7.9 13.1 20.7 2.6 10.3 13.9 19.0 by light viewers 3.8 10.3 14.6 17.9 2.9 8.9 14.0 16.6

Reading magazines- by heavy viewers 3.2 8.4 8.6 11.5 1.7 9.5 11.4 12.9 by light viewers 1.0 5.0 10.3 10.7 3.2 6.5 12.8 10.2

Reading booka- by heavy viewers 22.0 30.5 33.2 34.3 28.9 43.1 35.8 44.4 by light viewers 16.3 29.5 33.9 37.0 24.0 37.3 36.2 45-7

Reading comic books- by heavy viewers 5.6 16.2 3.9 1.7 2.8 8.2 2.4 1.3 by light viewers 1.7 9.5 4.7 1.1 2.0 6.6 3.2 0.7

Attending movies- by heavy viewers 4.1 2.0 1.3 4.0 4.5 3.4 1.4 2.2 by light viewers 4.1 8.6 1.9 4.0 3.9 3.3 4.2 0.7

Doing homework- by heavy viewers 36.6 50.4 54.3 84.8 2 5 .2 53.0 78.2 118.3 by light viewers 24.4 40.1 62.6 93.3 2 8 .6 43.2 71.2 118.3

£ Children of each sex were divided into two approximately equal groups numerically for both counties combined, one group containing those who had watched television for 75 minutes or less, on the pre­ ceding day, and the other group made up of those who had watched tele­ vision for more than this amount of time. 121 in the case of the senior high school girls, where the radio listening, figure is about the same for both the heavy and the light televiewers.

It will be noted further that, in most instances, the heavy viewers of both sexes in the various grade-groups also gave the greatest amount of time to reading of various kinds, attending the movies, and doing homework.

In only a few of the groups were the differences significantly in favor of the light viewers. Apparently, then, television was not inter­ fering appreciably with most other indoor activities. The variations in time given to reading books were either very slight or showed that the children who prefer the inactivity of watching television are also the ones who like to read.

Table 12 shows, furthermore, that as far as homework is concerned the heavy viewers among the boys in grade-group 1-3 spent 30 per cent more time and those in group *+-6 spent 25 per cent more time doing home­ work than did the children who watched television the least. It would appear, however, that junior and senior high school boys who gave less time to television put in more time doing homework. The same was true to a slight degree for the girls in the first three grades.

That the heavy viewers of television also reported reading more books in the six months preceding the 1961 survey is shown on Table 1 3 .

Also, as indicated on the table, the heavy viewers attended the movies more times in the preceding four weeks than were reported by the light viewers. It will be noted that where the opposite was true, in both cases, the differences were slight. 122

TABLE 13

BOOKS READ IN PAST SIX MONTHS AND MOVIES SEEN IN PAST POUR WEEKS BY HEAVY TELEVISION VIEWERS COMPARED TO LIGHT VIEWERS*

ALL BOYS ALL GIRLS

Grade Levels: 1-3 4-6 7 ~ 2 10-12 1-3 4-6 7-9 10-12 No. of Reepondeate; (2 8 7) ( T O ) (612) (76b) (250) (373) (623) (7b2)

Books read in past six months: by heavy viewers — 8 .7 13-4 8.0 6.2 12.4 16.5 10.1 7.1 by light viewers — 5.4 13.1 7.4 6.4 9-5 17.4 10.3 7-9

Movies seen in past four weeks: by heavy viewers — 0.8 2.1 1.7 1*7 0.9 1.6 1.2 1.5 by light viewers — 0.4 1.6 1.2 1.3 0.5 1.2 1.5 1.4

£ Children of each sex were divided into two approximately equal groups numerically for both counties combined, one group containing those who had watched television for 75 minutes or less, on the pre­ ceding day, and the other group made up of those who had watched tele­ vision for more than this amount of time.

Most American researchers in children's use of the mass media did not consider comparisons of the time spent on radio or television with that devoted to homework. Only two — Balogh and Northey — were cited in Chapter VII of this study. To this can be added the comment of

Eleanor E. Maccoby, who thought from her investigation of children's televiewing that television interfered very little with homework.^ The

British research team of Himmelweit, Oppenheim, and Vince discovered that among grammar school children television did not cut down on time

^"Eleanor E. Maccoby, "Television: Its Impact on School Children," Public Opinion Quarterly, 15:421-444, 1951* P. 438. 123 devoted to homework. The children with TV who were attending the secondary modern and primary schools, however, spent an estimated six to eight min- 2 utes less on TV than the "non-TV” children.

Undoubtedly, excessive time devoted to television is preventing cer­

tain children from giving sufficient attention to homework. Probably

it is also reducing the amount of time that some children give to read­

ing and to a few other activities. But as the data on Tables 12 and 13

show, when this particular sample of more than ^,000 children is con­

sidered, the 2,000 who are spending the most time watching television are, in general, not the group who are neglecting other activities of

the kind included in this study. The non-readers, for instance, or at

least those children who are reading less, are also spending less time

on television. Apparently, then, with some exceptions the light viewers

are spending their time in activities other than reading, radio listen­

ing, attending movies, and doing homework. The children as a whole who

devote the most generous share of their time out of school to television

also find time for other "non-active" pursuits. And the idea again

comes to the fore that television very possibly stimulates further read­

ing on the part of many children.

The foregoing data coincide generally with those of the 195$ Monon­

galia County survey. In the earlier study it was found that the groups

of children who gave most time to both radio and television also did the

most reading of newspapers, magazines, and books, with few exceptions.

Thus, the evidence is very strong in supporting the conclusion that

^Hilde T. Himmelweit, A. N. Oppenheim, and Pamela Vince, Television and the Child (London: Oxford University Press, 1958)* Pp* 305-6. among these children the light users of the broadcast media were not, as a consequence, giving more time to reading, but were devoting their leis­ ure time to some other pursuits. This tends to refute, to some extent,

the argument that radio and television interfere with most children's

reading. CHAPTER IX

CHILDREN'S PREFERENCES FOR PROGRAMS OF CERTAIN TYPES

Not only is It useful to know how much time children spend in lis­

tening to radio and watching television, as well as in certain other ways, but it is important to gain some idea of what types of programs

children like to watch on television. To this end, a portion of the

1961 questionnaire provided an opportunity for children to indicate various "degrees-of-liking" for 70 representative television programs

available in the Morgantown-Kingwood area of West Virginia.

Every commonly seen type of program was listed, except "spectacu­

lars" and other special one-time programs and daytime serials. The

latter were omitted because most are scheduled for hours when children

are still in school or on the way home. The programs were selected so

that some of each general type were available on each TV channel that

could be received in the two counties. Most of the programs could be

seen by all children, on one channel or another; at least, a broad

selection of programs was provided for the respondents to check. The

programs were listed in alphabetical order, so that children were less

likely to be influenced in their choices by any special grouping of

program types on the questionnaire.

From this portion of the questionnaire, information was derived con­

cerning the proportion of children in each grade-in-school category (1-3,

^-6, etc.), and on each level of mental ability and academic achievement,

125 126 who checked various programs as their favorites. Also, data were gathered concerning which programs were "watched, but not a favorite," which were disliked, and which were either unfamiliar to the child or at least not watched. After each of the 70 program titles listed on the questionnaire, columns were provided so that the respondent could check one of the "degrees- of-liking" or the fact that he was unfamiliar with or did not watch the program•

In order to study the data pertaining to children's program likes and dislikes, the programs later were arbitrarily grouped into 17 types, which are largely self-explanatory. These types are program categories that have been used frequently by researchers studying audience tastes in television programs. In some cases two types were combined, such as

"mystery and suspense" and "discussion and interview." The writer used his own judgment as to what type any particular program would fall into.

Here again, some arbitrary selection had to be made. If a program seemed to qualify for either of two types, a decision was made as to which of the two types the program would best fit into.

The following list shows the 17 program types, with the programs that were placed in each type classification:

Action adventure: Audience participation Aquanauts & quiz shows: Adventures in Paradise Groucho Marx Route 6b I've Got a Secret 77 Sunset Strip The Price is Right . , , What's My Line? Adult western: Bonanza Children1s programs: Cheyenne Captain Kangaroo Gunsmoke Huckleberry Hound Have Gun, WillTravel Lassie Maverick National Velvet Rawhide Shari Lewis Wagon Train Shirley Temple Wyatt Earp Walt Disney 127

Detective-police-courtroom: Religious programs: Hawaiian Eye The Christophers Hong Kong Lamp Unto My Feet Naked City Oral Roberts Perry Mason Situation comedy: Perry Mason Andy Griffith Peter Gunn Angel The Untouchables Bringing Up Buddy Discussion and interview: Danny Thomas Face the Nation Dennis the Menace Meet the Press Father Knows Best The Flintstones Documentary: Hennessey Eyewitness to History My Sister Eileen The Nation's Future My Three Sons Twentieth Century Slapstick comedy: Dramatic shows: The Three Stooges Loretta Young U. S. Steel Hour Sports broadcasts: Baseball games Featured comedians: Basketball games Jack Benny Bowling Red Skelton Football games Late-hour movies: Variety (general and musical) ^miscellaneous, after 11 P.M.) Bell Telephone Hour Mystery and suspense: Ed Sullivan Alcoa Presents Ernie Ford Alfred Hitchcock Garry Moore Thriller Jack Paar Twilight Zone Lawrence Welk Perry Como News broadcasts: Brinkley 11:00 P.M. News

"Adult westerns" were treated as a separate type because of the

great number on the air. An arbitrary distinction was made among pro­

grams classified as "detective-police," "mystery-and-suspense," and

"action-and-adventure," all of which, along with "adult westerns," are

forms of melodrama. In contrast to this, "audience participation" and

"quiz" shows were grouped together, for convenience. The general

classification of "children's programs" included a varied lot of in­

dividual programs appealing to a wide age-span of children. Under

"variety" were programs of the vaudeville type, such as the Ed Sullivan 128 show and the somewhat different Garry Moore program, as well as those of a strictly musical nature, such as the Perry Como and Lawrence Welk shows*

There was some overlapping of types, as that mentioned in respect to action-adventure and adult western, and, of course, detective-police and courtroom drama. Also, late-hour movies, because of the wide variety of story subjects, overlap several other program types. However, the de­

lineation of the types was, in the opinion of this researcher, suffi­

ciently accurate to serve as a basis for broad generalizations concerning

children's television program preferences. The number of programs placed

in each type was somewhat in proportion to the number on the air. To

have used an equal number of each type would have been in the nature of

"loading the dice" in favor of the less frequently scheduled types.

The likelihood that programs of certain types would be overlooked

by the respondent when checking the questionnaire, because there were

very few titles in these type categories, was in part balanced by the

fact that a less popular program might be listed alphabetically next to

a popular title. Thus the respondent’s attention would be drawn to the

more obscure program as well. There were twice as many examples of

mystery-and-suspense programs as of shows built around featured comedians

on the list of 70 programs, but the latter type nevertheless was checked

as a favorite about as often as the former. Furthermore, only one exam­

ple of "slapstick" comedy was given but it was chosen as a favorite by

the biggest percentage of children checking any of the 70 programs.

Grouping programs by type might have caused some children to skip over

entire categories or to check every entry in some groups. It was the

opinion of this researcher that an alphabetical listing of program 129 titles would be more likely to induce the respondent to follow system­ atically down the list, from the beginning to the end, spurred on by his curiosity.

In order to compare the children's reactions to various program types, the percentage figures for individual programs within each type were consolidated into an over-all figure for the type, that is, an average of percentages for all programs representing the particular type. Thus, a kind of "degree-of-liking" score is provided in this study for each of the 17 pre-determined program types.

Table 14, on the following page, indicates the percentages of children in each grade-placement group who checked television programs of certain types as favorites, in completing the questionnaire. It hardly would be expected that all of the respondents would indicate a degree-of-liking for every one of the 70 programs. The response of children in various grade-groups to different program types ranged from

10 per cent to 89 per cent, with an over-all average of 63 per cent of the children rating any one program type. Thus, on the average, the popularity of any given program type, as indicated on Table 14, is based upon the reaction of about two-thirds of the respondents in the total sample.

The program types on Table 14 are listed and grouped in no special order, except that the first four are characterized by much action, sus­

pense, and physical violence. In this sense they are a type of "adventure-

melodrama." Also, the last four on the list are mainly "talk" programs,

offering the viewer little or nothing in the way of action. The remain­

der of the programs are grouped only for convenience in reading the table. 130

TABLE 14

PERCENTAGES OF ALL CHILDREN IN EACH GRADE-PLACEMENT GROUP WHO CHECKED TELEVISION PROGRAMS OF CERTAIN TYPES AS FAVORITES

BOYS GIRLS PROGRAM TYPES Grade Grade Grade Grade Grade Grade Grade Grade 1-3 4-6 7-9 10-12 1-3 4-6 7-9 10-12 No. of Children: 28? 440 612 768 250 373 623 782

Ac tion-adventure 32%® 50# 56% 46% 21% 42% 50% 41% Adult western 45 58 61 48 30 48 48 32 Detective-police 21 40 45 4 5 18 36 42 39 Mystery 8c suspense 9 26 33 33 21 21 28 31

Audience part. & quiz 8 22 18 12 10 22 18 16 Variety (incl. musical) 8 15 13 12 12 16 12 18 Featured comedians 24 44 31 43 22 36 37 30 Children's programs 51 42 31 18 54 51 32 19 "Slapstick" comedy 77 73 66 48 68 64 39 23

Dramatic shows 5 14 14 14 8 18 26 33 Late movies (11 P.M.) 5 26 30 32 2 18 29 31 Situation comedy 36 45 38 27 35 52 47 34 Sports broadcasts 16 41 42 43 4 9 14 11

Discussion & interview 2 7 5 5 2 5 4 5 Documentary 4 15 17 19 4 10 11 12 News broadcasts 6 14 18 26 6 9 11 22 Religious programs 6 11 8 5 9 11 11 8

Percentages given to the nearest whole number. 131

A study of Table 14 quickly reveals that such types as action- adventure, adult western, "slapstick'1 comedy, detective-police, featured comedians, and situation comedy were comparatively popular with both sexes in almost all grade-placement groups. The program with the great­ est over-all popularity was "slapstick" comedy, represented on the ques­ tionnaire by only one example — The Three Stooges. Three-fourths of the boys in the first nine grades and two-thirds of the girls in grades one through six checked this program type as a favorite. Generally, the least popular program types were the "talk" programs, such as discussion- and-interview, documentary, news broadcasts, and religious programs-

There was only a minor interest in audience participation-and-quiz and variety program types, on the part of both boys and girls.

Certain distinctions are apparent on Table 14 between the program type preferences of boys in contrast to those of girls. In general boys had a greater preference than did the girls for the four "violent" pro­ gram types often containing much physical conflict: action-adventure, adult western, detective-police, and mystery-and-suspense. The boys also had a somewhat stronger liking for featured comedians and

"slapstick" comedy, as program types. The boys had a considerably greater interest than did the girls in sports broadcasts and slightly more interest in documentary and news programs. The girls, on the other hand, were more partial than were the boys to dramatic shows, situation comedy, and to a very slight extent, religious programs and variety shows.

Other distinctions in television program preferences are apparent on Table 14 when the children in lower grades are contrasted with those in the upper grade-placement groups. As would be expected, the respond­

ents' interest in children's programs declined with advance in grade 132 level. It dropped off sharply In senior high school. The sane thing was true in respect to "slapstick" comedy. The percentage of children who checked situation comedy as a favorite was greatest in the 4-6 grade- group; from there it declined through senior high school. It was the junior high school students who were most inclined to check as a favorite the action-adventure and adult western program types, with the 4-6 grade- group running a close second in favoring this type of TV fare. By con­ trast, older students showed more interest in mystery-and-suspease, late- hour movies, sports broadcasts, documentaries, and news programs.

Table 15, on the page following, provides a tabulation of the pro­ gram types most frequently checked as favorites by boys and girls in the various grade-placement groups. It will be noted that the adult western type is among the first five favorites of children in every one of the grade-groups. In addition, action-adventure is one of the first five favorites of all children except the girls in the 1-3 grade-group.

"Slapstick" comedy appeared among the first five favorites, usually in first place, of all groups of children except senior high school girls.

The detective-police program type was definitely a favorite with boys and girls in junior and senior high schools. It will be observed,

farther, that the girls in all grade-placement groups included situation comedy in either second or third place among their favorite program

types, a preference not generally shared by the older boys to any such

degree. It is notable, however, that of the 17 program types represented

on the questionnaire, only a very few proved to be prime favorites of

either the boys or the girls. 133 TABLE 15

PROGRAM TYPES MOST FREQUENTLY CHECKED AS FAVORITES BY BOYS AND GIRLS IN VARIOUS GRADE-GROUPS*

ALL BOYS ALL GIRLS Program Types # of Times Program Types # of Times Mentioned** Mentioned Grades 1-3: Slapstick comedy 77# Slapstick comedy 68# Children's programs 31 Children's programs 54 Adult westerns 45 Situation comedy 35 Situation comedy 36 Adult westerns 30 Act ion-adventure 32 Featured comedians 22

Grades 4-6: Slapstick comedy 73# Slapstick comedy 64# Adult westerns 58 Situation comedy 52 Action-adventure 50 Children's programs 51 Situation comedy 45 Adult westerns 48 Featured comedians 44 Ac tion-adventure 42 Children's programs 42 Detective-police 36 Sports broadcasts 41 Featured comedians 36 Detective-police 40

Grades 7-9: Slapstick comedy 66# Action-adventure 50# Adult westerns 61 Adult westerns 48 Action-adventure 56 Situation comedy 47 Detective-police 45 Detective-police 42 Featured comedians 44 Slapstick comedy 39 Sports broadcasts 42

Grades 10-12: Adult westerns 48# Action-adventure 41# Slapstick comedy 48 Detective-police 39 Action-adventure 46 Situation comedy 34 Detective-police 45 Dramatic shows 33 Featured comedians 43 Adult westerns 32 Sports broadcasts 43 Mystery & suspense 31 Late-hour movies 31

^ore than five favorites are listed where there were several additional substantial ratings or two or three close together.

bTPercentages are from Table 14. 13^

Finally, one of the most significant facts obvious to one who studies

Table 13 is that, except for some children's programs popular only with the younger respondents, the top favorites in program types among the children sampled in this survey involve either action and violence or comedy of some sort. This reiterates the point, made earlier in this study, that for the most part children use television not as a formal learning situation but as a means of escape end vicarious participation in a more exciting life than ordinarily is possible for them.

Not only on the basis of sex and grade-placement level, but also in respect to comparative levels of mental ability and academic achievement, it is worthwhile to consider the television program preferences of various groups of the children sampled in this study. As has been indicated earlier, the respondents to the questionnaire were differentiated into three levels of mental ability and also of academic achievement, based upon information furnished by their teachers and school administrators.

For simplification, these levels are designated, in the presentation of the data in this study, as high, average, and low.

Tables 16 and 17 furnish information concerning children's tele­ vision program preferences in relation to mental ability and academic achievement, respectively.^- There was a slight tendency for children of low mental ability and academic achievement to check more programs as favorites, on the questionnaire, as is indicated by the last line of figures on Tables 16 and 17, identified as "Average, all types."

Also, the girls had slightly less tendency than had the boys to desig­ nate programs as favorites.

^Similar information is presented, with t.he children grouped in various grade levels, in Appendix E, Tables 29 and 30, pp. 212-15- 135

Considering first, preferences in respect to mental ability, the

data on Table 16 make it apparent that program types appealing more to

boys on the high level of mental ability than to those on the low level

include mystery-and-suspense, featured comedians, situation comedy,

sports broadcasts, and documentary programs. Boys on the low level of mental ability, contrasted with those on the high level, showed a pre­

ference for action-adventure, adult western, detective-police, audience

participation-and-quiz, variety, children's programs, "slapstick" comedy,

dramatic shows, late-hour movies, discussion-and-interview, and religious

programs. It will be noted that the differences in some cases were

slight. A conspicuous fact revealed by Tables 16 and 1? is that a bigger

percentage of boys, on all three levels of mental ability and academic

achievement checked "slapstick" comedy as a favorite than any other pro­

gram type.

In only two instances did the girls on the high level of mental

ability show a greater preference for a given program type than that

manifested by girls on the low mental ability level, and then only by

one percentage point. These instances were in regard to situation

comedy and documentary programs. The girls of low mental ability, on

the other hand, showed a considerably stronger preference than did those

on the high level for action-adventure, adult western, detective-police,

"slapstick" comedy, dramatic shows, late-hour movies, discussion-and-

interview, and religious programs. In addition, the girls on the low

mentality level had slightly more preference than did those on the high

level for mystery-and-suspense, audience participation-and-quiz, variety,

children's programs, sports broadcasts, and news broadcasts. 136

TABLE 16 PERCENTAGES OF ALL BOYS AND GIRLS IN VARIOUS MENTAL ABILITY GROUPS WHO CHECKED TELEVISION PROGRAMS OF CERTAIN TYPES AS FAVORITES

LEVELS OF MENTAL ABILITY BOYS (2051)a GIRLS (1977)b

High Avg. Low High Avg. Low Number in group; ( W (1079) (512) (57bT (1039) (3^2)

PROGRAM TYPES

Action-adventure 4o% 50% 49% 37% 43% 47% Adult western 45 54 58 33 2 8 48 Detective-police 35 kz 43 32 38 41 Mystery & suspense 31 28 26 25 26 26

Audience part. & quiz 13 15 17 1 6 17 1 8 Variety (incl. musical) 12 12 14 15 1 6 18 Featured comedians 44 41 40 32 33 32 Children* s programs 2 8 31 32 31 33 35 "Slapstick'* comedy 6 0 63 63 36 42 44

Dramatic shows ll 12 1 6 22 25 31 Late movies (11 P.M.) 19 2 8 31 21 25 29 Situation comedy 36 35 33 41 42 40 Sports broadcasts 42 40 35 10 11 11

Discussion & interview 5 4 8 3 5 7 Documentary programs 1 8 1 6 15 11 10 10 News broadcasts 19 17 20 14 14 15 Religious programs 3 7 11 4 11 17

AVERAGE, ALL TYPES: 27 29 30 22 25 27

^oes not include 56 boys for whom no mental ability data were available.

^Does not include 51 girls for whom no mental ability data were available. 137

The boys on the middle or average level of mental ability, in rela­ tion to ten of the 17 program types, were closer to the boys on the low mental ability level than to those on the high level in their preferences.

Their choices in favorite program types were close to those of the high mental ability boys only in respect to variety, dramatic shows, situation comedy, sports broadcasts, and discussion-and-interview. The girls of average mental ability came closer to sharing the program type prefer­ ences of the low group than those of the high in respect to action- adventure, detective-police, "slapstick" comedy, and discussion-and- interview. They were closer to the high group in relation to such types as adult western, variety, and dramatic shows. The girls of average men­ tal ability had much less tendency to check adult westerns as favorites than did either the girls on the high or the low mental ability levels.

In regard to most types, there was little difference in the preferences of the girls on various levels.

No less them in respect to mental ability, the respondents to the questionnaire used in this study showed certain variations in their tele­ vision progreun preferences on the basis of levels of academic achieve­ ment. Boys and girls on the high level of achievement almost invariably had less tendency than those on the lower levels to mark any of the pro­ gram types as favorites, as is apparent from the data on Table 17. The only pronounced preference on the part of high achievement boys was for sports broadcasts, a somewhat higher percentage checking this type as a

favorite than for boys on the average and low levels of achievement.

The high achievers among the girls (as well as those of average achievement) showed slightly more preference for Bports broadcasts than

did the girls on the lower level of achievement. Otherwise, the 138

TABLE 17 PERCENTAGES OF ALL BOYS AND GIRLS IN VARIOUS ACHIEVEMENT GROUPS WHO CHECKED TELEVISION PROGRAMS OF CERTAIN TYPES AS FAVORITES

LEVELS OF ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT BOYS (2102)a GIRLS (2021)b

High Avg. Low High Avg. Low Number In group; (3 6 0) ($35) ($99) (6lb) (8^5) (5^0) PROGRAM TYPES

Action-adventure 4o# 47# 5 236 36# 43# 47# Adult western ^5 53 58 33 40 46 Detective-police 3*+ 39 ^5 32 37 48 Mystery & suspense 27 2 8 28 23 25 29

Audience part. & quiz lit 15 16 1 6 18 1 8 Variety (incl. musical) 11 11 14 14 15 1 8 Featured comedians 41 42 40 32 32 32 Children's programs 29 32 31 30 35 32 "Slapstick" comedy 58 66 61 36 *♦3 43

Dramatic shows 9 11 16 20 25 31 Late movies (11 P.M.) 17 25 31 19 23 32 Situation comedy 35 36 34 40 42 42 Sports broadcasts 44 38 38 11 11 10

Discussion & interview 3 it 7 3 5 6 Documentary programs 16 15 17 10 10 11 News broadcasts 15 16 22 13 13 1 8 Religious programs it 6 9 5 10 15

AVERAGE, ALL TYPES: 26 2 8 30 22 25 2 8

^oes not include 3 boys for whom no achievement data were available.

Does not include 7 girls for whom no achievement data were avail­ able. 139 percentage of high achievement girla checking any one program type as a

favorite was usually considerably below that of the average and low achievement groups, although occasionally about the same.

For both boys and girls, the lower the level of achievement, the

greater the liking for program types such as action-adventure, adult

western, detective-police, mystery-and-suspense, "slapstick" comedy,

dramatic shows, and late-hour movies. But the data on Table 17 also

shows a greater preference on the part of low achievers for the talk

programs, especially religious programs. Furthermore, regardless of

the level of achievement, three program types were found among the

first five favorites of both the boys and the girls, namely, "slapstick"

comedy, adult western, and action-adventure. The next two most popular

types were featured comedians and detective-police, preferred by child­

ren on various levels of achievement.

To summarize, the respondents to the questionnaire used in this

survey were instructed to indicate a "degree-of-liking" for each of 70

representative television programs, all of which were available on one

channel or another in the two counties covered by the study. The data

were later consolidated into average percentages of children reacting

to each of 17 pre-determined program types.

Program types such as action-adventure, adult western, "slapstick"

comedy, detective-police, featured comedians, and situation comedy were

generally liked by boys and girls in almost all grade-placement groups.

The Three Stooges, the only example of "slapstick" comedy included in

the 70 programs listed on the questionnaire, was checked as a favorite

by a greater percentage of children in all groups than for any other l^fO program type. The least popular program types were the "talk" programs, such as diacussion-and-interviev, documentary, news broadcasts, and re­ ligious programs.

The boys had a greater preference than did the girls for action- adventure, adult western, detective-police, mystery-and-suspense, fea­ tured comedians, "slapstick" comedy, sports broadcasts, documentary programs, and news broadcasts. The girls, on the other hand, were more partial to dramatic shows, situation comedy, variety shows, and religious programs.

Children's programs, "slapstick" comedy, and situation comedy were more popular with younger children, interest declining in these types among the junior and senior high school students. But the junior high school students showed more interest than did children in any other grades in the action-adventure and adult western program types. The senior high school students were more interested than were the younger respondents in mystery-and-suspense, late-hour movies, sports broad­ casts, documentaries, and news broadcasts.

Program types appealing more to boys on the high level of mental ability than to those on the low level included mystery-and-suspense, featured comedians, situation comedy, sports broadcasts, and documentary programs. Boys of low mental ability, in contrast to those of high mental ability, showed a preference for action-adventure, adult western, detective-police, audience participation-and-quiz, variety, children's programs, "slapstick" comedy, dramatic shows, late-hour movies, discussion- and-interview, and religious programs. In general, boys of average mental ability agreed more with those of low mental ability on their program preferences. Hfl

Girls in the high mental ability group had a slightly greater liking than did those in the low group for situation comedy and documentary programs. They had less interest than did the girls in the low mental ability group in action-adventure, adult western, detective-police,

"slapstick" comedy, dramatic shows, late-hour movies, discussion-and- interview, and religious programs. But among the girls of lower mental ability, a generally larger percentage was inclined to indicate favorites.

However, there was little difference in program preferences of girls on various levels of mental ability.

Boys and girls on the high level of academic achievement almost in­ variably had less tendency than those on lower levels to indicate any programs as favorites. The only pronounced preference on the part of high achievement boys, in contrast to those of low achievement, was for sports broadcasts. Among the high achievement girls (as well as those of average achievement), there was slightly more preference for sports broadcasts than was indicated by the girls on the low level of achieve­ ment .

For both boys and girls, the lower the achievement level, the greater the liking for action-adventure, adult western, detective-police, mystery- and-suspense, "slapstick" comedy, dramatic shows, and late-hour movies, as program types. But the low-achieving students seemed to check the

"talk" programs more often as favorites than did the students of average and high academic achievement. However, regardless of the level of achievement, the three program types that were always among the first five favorite types of all groups of children were "slapstick" comedy, Ikz adult western, and action-adventure, followed closely in popularity by featured comedians, and detective-police. Thus the pattern of preference was "action, conflict, violence, and comedy." CHAPTER X

CHILDREN'S PREFERENCES FOR SPECIFIC PROGRAMS

In the preceding chapter, children's television program preferences were considered in relation to program types. They will now be dealt with on the basis of specific programs, namely, the 70 programs that were listed on the questionnaire in alphabetical order. It will be re­ membered that the respondents were asked to express a degree-of-liking for each of the 70 programs, by checking the appropriate column follow­ ing each title. Table id summarizes the data concerning program favor­ ites in relation to all boys, compared with all girls. The figures are percentages of the entire group of boys and girls, respectively, who responded to the questionnaire.

It will be recalled from Chapter IX that not all of the children who responded to the questionnaire supplied degree-of-liking informa­ tion in respect to each of the 70 programs. In fact, there was a wide variation in the number of children who checked some of the 7 0 titles, with an over-all average of about two-thirds of the respondents rating the programs. The children who omitted checking a certain program in the degree-of-liking columns of the questionnaire may have done so be­ cause of an oversight, haste in answering the questionnaire, lack of interest in the program title, or for other reasons. A child's failure to indicate his attitude toward a specific program may not be a sign that he disliked it, but neither was it a "vote" in favor of a program.

H+3 TABLE 18

PERCENTAGES OF ALL BOYS AND ALL GIRLS IN TOTAL SAMPLE WHO INDICATED THAT CERTAIN TELEVISION PROGRAMS WERE AMONG THEIR FAVORITES

PROGRAM TITLES All All PROGRAM TITLES All All Boys Girls Boys Girls No. of children: 2107 2 0 2 8 No. of children: 2107 2 0 2 8

Aquanauta 38#* 1 8% The Jack Paar Show 4% 4# Advent. In Paradise 42 41 Lamp Unto My Feet 3 6 Alcoa Presents 32 29 Lassie 35 38 Alfred Hitchcock 17 15 Late movies (11 P.M.) 26 24 Andy Griffith Lawrence Welk 12 21 Angel 1 6 2b Loretta Young 12 33 Baseball games 46 11 Maverick 59 43 Basketball games 49 1 8 Meet the Press 5 5 Bell Telephone Hour 10 11 My Sister Eileen 17 33 Bonanza 45 35 My Three Sons 58 60 Bowling (Berle) 11 7 Naked City 30 22 Bringing Up Buddy 14 23 National Velvet 24 35 Brinkley - News 1 8 15 Nation's Future 5 4 Captain Kangaroo 12 12 News (11 P.M.) 19 14 Cheyenne 59 43 Oral Roberts 14 18 Christophers 5 5 Perry Como 9 12 Danny Thomas 33 43 Perry Mason 2 8 32 Dennis the Menace 44 46 Peter Gunn 32 26 Ed Sullivan 15 1 8 The Price Is Right 1 8 19 Ernie Ford 21 24 Rawhide 44 Eyewitness to History ik 10 Red Skelton 6 3 52 Father Knows Best 36 55 Route 66 5 3 48 Face the Nation 5 4 77 Sunset Strip 5 8 60 The Flintstones 67 59 Shari Lewis 7 9 Shirley Temple 46 Football games 50 7 & Garry Moore 17 21 The Three Stooges 6 2 41 Groucho Marx 11 8 Thriller 2 3 21 Gunsmoke 59 42 Twentieth Century 2 8 17 Hawaiian Eye 53 58 Twilight Zone 41 37 Have Gun, Will Travel 53 34 U. S. Steel Hour 14 17 Hennessey 32 33 The Untouchables 6 1 41 Hong Kong 39 41 Wagon Train 48 46 I've Got A Secret 20 26 Walt Disney (Advent.) 67 52 Huckleberry Hound 48 38 What's My Line 11 15 Jack Benny 19 12 Wyatt Earp 49 27

Percentages are to the nearest whole number (25*5=26?£). 1*»5

This is especially true when one considers that many of the programs were checked as favorites by large percentages of the respondents*

Therefore, degree-of-liking percentages based upon a proportion of the entire group in each category of children are justified.

As is evident from the data on Table 18, many of the programs were liked almost equally well by both sexes. Some of these programs, with a substantial number of respondents checking them as favorites, were

Adventures in Paradise, Andy Griffith* Dennis the Menace, Hennessey,

Hong Kong* My Three Sons* 77 Sunset Strip* Wagon Train* and others. In some instances there were wide variations in the proportions of boys and of girls naming the program as a favorite. Programs appealing much more

to the boys than to the girls included Aquanauts * Naked City* Twentieth

Century * The Untouchables * Wyatt Earp, and all sports broadcasts. There

was also a substantially larger proportion of boys than girls favoring

such programs as Bonanza, Cheyenne, The Flintstones. Gunsmoke* Have Gun*

Will Travel * Huckleberry Hound* Jack Benny* Maverick* Peter Gunn, Raw­

hide* Red Skelton* The Three Stooges* and Walt Disney. The girls, as a

whole, showed a considerably greater preference than did the boys for

Bringing Up Buddy* Danny Thomas * Father Knows Best* Loretta Young* My

Sister Eileen* National Velvet* Shirley Temple * and others to a lesser

degree.

Some programs checked as favorites by an average of about ten per

cent or less of all children were Bell Telephone Hour* Bowling (Berle)*

The Christophers, Face the Nation* Groucho Marx* The Jack Paar Show*

Lamp Unto My Feet* Meet the Press * The Nation1s Future * Perry Como* and Ik6

Shari Lewis. There were no doubt many reasons for the comparative un­ popularity of the foregoing programs, since they represented a wide variety of program types.

Table 19 presents a further breakdown of figures relating to child­ ren's specific program preferences, in this case by school grade-placement groups. Tables presented in earlier chapters differentiated among child­ ren on various levels of mental ability and scholastic achievement. In order to avoid excessive complexity, Table 19 was designed to present data only by categories of grade-groups. It can be seen readily from the table which groups of children, if any, favored each program listed among the 70 on the questionnaire.

Reading across each line of Table 19 yields data on the relative

popularity of an individual program among boys and girls in various

grade-placement groups. Reading down each column makes possible the

selection of those titles most — and least — popular with any one

group of children. An inspection of the percentages following each

program title Cor in some cases, a category) confirms the statements made in Chapter IX of this study concerning the relative popularity of

the several program types. A study of these percentages further indi­

cates which programs were real favorites with different grade groups

and which were something less than favorites. Some of this data may

not be surprising to the reader. In other instances he may find the

results rather unexpected. Children may not always like the programs

that they are presumed to prefer.

For example, Jack Benny, who has been on the air in both radio

and television probably longer than any other comedian as a perennial

favorite with adults, was rated as a "favorite" by only 19 per cent 14?

TABLE 19

PERCENTAGES OF ALL CHILDREN IN EACH ORADE-PLACEMENT GROUP WHO INDICATED SPECIFIC TELEVISION PROGRAMS AS THEIR FAVORITES

GRADE-PLACEMDTT GROUPS Boys Girls PROGRAM TITLES 1-3 4-6 2=2. 10-12 1-3 4-6 7-9 10-12 No. of children: 287 TO 6I2 ~7Z5~ 250 373 633 782“

Aquanauts 28#* 47# 47# 30# 15# 24# 22# 13# Advent, in Paradise 25 41 49 42 17 35 52 43 Alcoa Presents 12 27 38 37 8 24 32 36 Alfred Hitchcock 5 15 18 21 5 12 14 20 Andy Griffith 21 33 37 37 20 3? 32 Angel 12 24 17 13 16 37 y * zK Baseball games 20 51 51 50 4 7 17 11 Basketball games 20 47 55 56 4 13 2 5 1 8 Bell Telephone Hour 4 13 9 10 8 14 9 1 3 Bonanza 35 4Q 33 39 26 41 **3 2 9 Bowling (Berle) 6 14 12 1 0 6 8 7 6 Bringing Up Buddy 13 20 1 6 9 16 34 26 1 6 Brinkley - news 6 14 1 8 24 7 1 1 1 0 22 Captain Kangaroo 51 16 5 2 54 2 1 2 2 Cheyenne 57 6 1 6 7 51 37 5? 32 Christophers 3 9 5 4 6 5 6 5 Danny Thomas 40 48 35 19 44 5 6 45 34 Dennis the Menace 63 6 0 44 26 64 64 47 30 Ed Sullivan 11 16 15 15 14 19 15 21 Ernie Ford 13 18 27 20 , 11 22 24 2 8 Eyewitness to History 4 12 15 1 8 5 9 10 12 Father Knows Best 36 48 35 2 8 47 6 1 6 1 49 Face the Nation 1 7 6 5 2 4 4 4 Flintstones 8 2 83 70 49 72 83 61 42 Football games 20 51 5 8 3 8 8 8 Garry Moore 9 21 1 8 16 11 19 22 25 Groucho Marx 5 15 13 9 5 11 9 7 Gunsmoke 45 63 67 56 32 55 5 0 34 Hawaiian Eye 29 53 6 1 56 23 54 69 6 1 Have Gun, Will Travel 40 6 2 62 51 24 41 2 8 Hennessey 14 32 35 35 11 36 39 31* Hong Kong 25 4l 44 39 26 42 46 42 I've Got A Secret 11 29 24 1 6 14 31 2 8 25 Huckleberry Hound 77 6 2 43 33 75 64 2 8 21 Jack Benny 11 24 20 17 8 18 14 9

Percentages to the nearest whole number (2 5 -5 #=2 6#). 148

TABLE 19— Continued

GRADE-FLACEMENT GROUPS Be PROGRAM TITLES >ys Girls 4-6 10-12 4-6 10-12 No. of children: S§7 VZ SI 768 2 5 0 373 m 782 Jack Paar Show 05*® k% 396 8% 25* 35* k96 65* Lamp Unto My Feet 3 5 3 3 6 6 5 6 Laasie 63 51 37 13 64 59 40 19 Late movies (11 P.M.) 5 26 30 32 2 18 29 31 Lawrence Welk 12 3.9 10 8 25 24 20 19. Loretta Young 6 16 l4 9 11 2 8 35 4i Maverick 46 61 64 59 30 48 55 40 Meet the Press 2 7 5 k 2 6 5 6 My Sister Eileen 12 26 19 12 16 44 43 2 6 My Three Sons 53 7f 66 k6 kl 68 7? 53 Naked City it 2k 34 36 10 18 25 25 National Velvet 25 34 29 13 32 50 40 24 Nation's Future l 7 5 5 1 5 4 3 News (11 P.M.) 6 13 1 8 2 8 6 8 12 21 Oral Roberts 13 1 8 17 8 1 6 20 2? 14 Perry Como 7 14 9 8 . . 12 15 9 12 Perry Mason 17 33 29 2 8 1 8 34 35 34 Peter Gunn 15 34 35 36 14 26 29 27 Price Is Right 11 27 22 12 1 6 2 8 20 1 6 Rawhide 45 57 63 48 32 49 53 3* Red Skelton 37 6k 69 68 36 54 60 5 0 Route 66 31 50 62 55 22 46 55 52 77 Sunset Strip 43 6 1 67 56 31 64 70 58 Shari Lewis 14 13 k 3 17 19 7 3 Shirley Temple 48 38 2k 9 66 71 46 27 Three Stooges 77 73 66 48 68 64 39 23 Thriller 9 22 2 8 2k 6 15 2 6 24 Twentieth Century 6 27 32 35 5 16 19 21 Twilight Zone 11 kl k7 k8 6 32 42 45 U. S. Steel Hour 5 12 13 1 8 k 8 1 8 Untouchables 26 53 68 74 1 6 4o 49 44 Wagon Train 45 53 3k kl 34 53 54 39 Walt Disney (Advent.) 8 0 77 73 52 68 70 57 33 What's My Line? 4 17 12 9 5 1 8 15 16 Wyatt Earp 49 5 8 56 37 26 41 34 15

Percentages are to the nearest whole number (2 5 .5 S*=2 6?*). 149 of the boys and 12 per cent of the girls, and among both he was rated highest by children in the 4-6 grade-group. He was somewhat less popu­ lar with the very youngest group and the senior high school students.

Bed Skelton, in contrast, was rated as a favorite by 63 per cent of the boys and 32 per cent of all girls in the sample. Furthermore, Skelton's heaviest "popularity" vote was among the junior and senior high school boys and, in addition, the girls in the 4-6 and 7-9 grade-groups• Ap­ parently, Red Skelton's clowning was much preferred to Jack Benny's more subtle humor.

Ed Sullivan may be another entertainer who has some kind of record for longevity on the air, but the children in this survey were lukewarm about his program, 15 per cent of the boys and lS per cent of the girls checking it as a favorite. However, none of the examples of variety, including the musical kind, were indicated as favorites by more than a fourth of the children in any grade-group, and most of the groups rated variety considerably lower. Only four per cent of the boys and girls considered The Jack Paar Show a favorite, and less than a fifth of the children gave this rating to the Garry Moore program. Groucho Marx's brand of humor was still less popular than that of any of the enter­ tainers mentioned above, with the exception of Jack Paar, being marked as a favorite by only 11 per cent of the boys and 8 per cent of the girls.

One of the few programs to offer the viewer classical and semi- classical music, The Bell Telephone Hour was checked as a favorite by an average of only about 10 per cent of the children, with those in the

4-6 grade-group rating it the highest of any of the groupB. But the 150

Perry Como Show, with its popular music, rated no higher and it, too, was most favored by children in the 4-6 grade-group. The Lawrence Welk program, supposedly preferred most by middle-aged and older adults, was checked as a favorite more frequently by boys in grade-group 4-6 and the girls in the first six grades, but it was considerably more popular with the girls than the boys. Evidently, whatever kind of music that was available on television was only a minor interest for the children in this sample.

For some reason, I’ve Got A Secret and What's My Line? appealed more to the children in grades 4-6 than to any other group. The persons responsible for these programs probably are definitely not aiming the programs at the younger children and would be surprised at this data.

But only a moderate interest was exhibited in either program by the

children covered in this survey. One might well wonder, however, why such programs as Face the Nation, Meet the Press, and The Nation*s

Future were checked as favorites most often by (or in one case as often as) the respondents in the 4-6 grade-group, rather than by older child­

ren.

A study of Table 19 will show that the senior high school students

had much less inclination to check programs as favorites than did the

younger children, since there were only three titles — Hawaiian Eye,

Red Skelton, and 72 Sunset Strip — which were thus indicated by 50 per

cent or more of the senior high school group. Various researchers have

observed that children of this age have developed new interests and

ordinarily are carrying a greater load of homework, both of which fac­

tors may contribute to their giving less time to watching television. 151

It will be remembered from Table 2 in Chapter IV that senior high school boys watched television about 1.3 hours a day and the girls on this level gave only an hour a day to TV, in contrast to about two hours a day de­ voted to this activity by the children in grades four through nine.

Also, as the children grow older they become more selective in choice of programs. A logical consequence would be having fewer favorite pro­ grams among the television offerings.

Table 20 shows the 12 prograins most frequently checked as favorites, in each instance, by all boys and all girls, as well as those in each of the four grade-groups. Only 29 different titles appear out of the 70 listed on the questionnaire. The five programs appearing most frequently on boys' and girls' lists of favorites were The Flintstones, My Three

Sons, Walt Disney, Cheyenne, and fJJ_ Sunset Strip, the first three appear­ ing seven times each and the last two being listed six times each. Of these five, two are comedy and three are "action" drama. Among the total of 29 programs listed on Table 20, no less than 16 are concerned with action, adventure, or contests in sports. Eight of the programs stress comedy of some type.

It will be noted that The Flintstones is in either first or second place in popularity among all the children in the first six grades and is in second place with the boys in the 7-9 grade-group. The girls in the 7-9 group put this cartoon-situation comedy in fifth place on their list of favorites. Its popularity fell off considerably among senior high school students. The Walt Disney adventure program was another TV show high on the list of favorites of the younger children, being in

first or second place on the lists of all boys from the early grades 152

TABLE 20

THE TWELVE INDIVIDUAL PROGRAMS MOST FREQUENTLY CHECKED AS FAVORITES BY ALL BOYS AND ALL GIRLS AND BY THOSE IN VARIOUS GRADE-QROUPS

BOYS GIRLS Per Cent of Per Cent of PROGRAMS Reapondenta PROGRAMS Reapondenta

All Children

The Flintatonea 67# My Three Sons 60# Walt Disney (Adventure) 67 77 Sunset Strip 60 Red Skelton 63 The FlintBtonea 59 The Three Stoogea 62 Hawaiian Eye 58 The Untouchables 6 1 Father Knows Beat 55 Cheyenne 59 Red Skelton 52 Gunsmoke 59 Walt Disney (Adventure) 52 Maverick 59 Route 66 48 My Three Sons 58 Dennis the Menace 46 77 Sunset Strip 58 Shirley Temple 46 Have Gun, Will Travel 55 Wagon Train 46 Rawhide 54 Maverick 45

Grades 1-3

The Flintstones 8 2# Huckleberry Hound 75# Walt Disney (Adventure) 8 0 The Flintstones 72 Huckleberry Hound 77 The Three Stooges 68 The Three Stooges 77 Walt Disney (Adventure) 68 Dennis the Menace 63 Shirley Temple 66 Lassie 63 Dennis the Menace 64 Cheyenne 57 Lassie 64 My Three Sons 53 Captain Kangaroo 54 Captain Kangaroo 51 Father Knows Best 47 Wyatt Earp 49 Danny Thomas 44 Shirley Temple 48 My Three Sons 41 Maverick 46 Cheyenne 37 153 TABLE 20-— Continued

BOYSGIRLS Per Cent of Per Cent of PROGRAMS Respondents PBOGBAMS Respondents

Grades k-6

The Flintstones 8396 The Flintstones 8396 Walt Disney (Adventure)' 77 Shirley Temple 71 The Three Stooges 73 Walt Disney (Adventure)i 7 0 My Three Sons 71 My Three Sons 6 8 Bed Skelton 6k Dennis the Menace 6k Gunssoke 63 Huckleberry Hound 6k Have Gun, Will Travel 62 77 Sunset Strip 6k Huckleberry Hound 62 The Three Stooges 6k Cheyenne 6 1 Father Knows Best 6 1 Maverick 6 1 Lassie 59 77 Sunset Strip 6 1 Danny Thomas 56 Dennis the Menace 6 0 Gunsmoke 55

Grades 7-9

Walt Disney (Adventure) 7336 My Three Sons 7396 The Flintstones 70 77 Sunset Strip 70 Red Skelton 69 Hawaiian Eye 69 The Untouchables 6 8 Father Knows Best 6l Cheyenne 67 The Flintstones 6 1 Gunsmoke 67 Red Skelton 6 0 77 Sunset Strip 67 Walt Disney (Adventure) 57 My Three Sons 6 6 Maverick 55 The Three Stooges 6 6 Route 6 6 55 Maverick 6k Cheyenne 5k Rawhide 63 Wagon Train 5k Have Gun, Route 6 6 6 2 Rawhide 53

Grades 10-12

The Untouchables 7k% Hawaiian Eye 6196 Red Skelton 6 8 77 Sunset Strip 58 Maverick 59 My Three Sons 53 Football games 58 Route 6 6 52 Basketball games 56 Red Skelton 50 Gunsmoke 56 Father Knows Best k9 Hawaiian Eye 56 Twilight Zone k5 77 Sunset Strip 56 The Untouchables Route 66 55 Adventures in Paradise kj> Walt Disney (Adventure) 52 The Flintstones k2 Cheyenne 51 Hong Kong k2 Have Gun, Will Travel 51 Loretta Young kl 15^ through junior high school. It was also among the first four favorites with the girls in grade-groups 1-5 and 4-6, having slightly more interest for the latter group.

For all children as a whole,, the Red Skelton program is third on the boys* list and sixth among the girls- favorites. It appeals more to the older children, appearing among the boys favorites in grades 4-6 and moving up the popularity list to second place in the favorites of senior high school students. Among the girls, only those in grade-groups 7-9 and 10-12 included the Red Skelton program in their first twelve TV preferences. Mj Three Sons was, surprisingly, more popular with the girls than with the boys, heading the list of 12 most favored programs of all girls as a whole, followed by 77 Sunset Strip and then The Flint­ stones . Table 20 also shows that Hawaiian Eye and Father Knows Best were high on the girls' list, but did not appear among the first 12 favorite programs of all boys as a group. Others appearing on the list of favor­ ites of all girls but not on the boys' list were Route 66.. Dennis the

Menace, Shirley Temple, and Wagon Train. The last-named and Maverick were the only western dramas included among the 12 leading favorites of the girls.

An interesting characteristic of the list of 12 most frequently checked program favorites among the boys is that every one of them con­ tains much action and violence, or broad "slapstick" comedy. The girls’ list, by contrast, puts more stress on situation comedy and the more romantic type of adventure drama, such as Hawaiian Eye and Route 66. 155

The list of 12 main favorites for all boys included five western dramas, am well as the rough-and-tumble The Three Stooges and the violence-filled

crime show, The Untouchables.

Of the ten programs grouped under the category of situation comedy,

the five most frequently checked as favorites were Danny Thomas, Dennis

the Menace, Father Knows Best,, The Flintstones, and Three Sons. . The

Flintstones is, of course, a cartoon comedy but because it is done in a

situation comedy style it has been placed in the latter program category,

I Love Lucy was not included in the list of 70 representative programs,

because at the time of this survey it was no longer on the air except in

daytime "re-runsAs to the crude comedy of The Three Stooges, it is

evident from Table 20 that it holds little attraction for girls beyond

grades 1-3 or for the senior high school boys.

Table 21 singles out the data pertaining to the children's viewing

of movies scheduled on television after 11 P.M. It will be recalled

that this has been treated am a special category among program types.

An outstanding fact evident from the data on Table 21 is that the per­

centage of boys and girls checking late-at-night movies as favorite pro­

grams increased markedly not. only with the decrease in mental ability,

but also with the decline in scholastic achievement of the child. This

was generally true of children in all grade-groups who expressed a degree-

of-liking in respect to this program type. With slight exception, the re­

spondents in the average and high groups of mental ability and scholastic

achievement had less tendency them those in the low groups to favor late-

at-night movies on TV, In the 1958 Monongalia County survey by this

writer, somewhat similar results were found, confirming the present data. 156

TABLE 21

PERCENTAGE OF ALL BOYS AND GIRLS IN EACH MENTAL ABILITY AND ACHIEVEMENT GROUP WHO CHECKED LATE MOVIES (11 P.M.) AS A FAVORITE PROGRAM TYPE*

MENTAL ABILITYACHIEVEMENT

BOYSGIRLS BOYS GIRLS Num- Per Num­ Per Num­ Per Num - Per ber*3 cent ber cent ber cent ber cent LEVELS •

High 460 19% 576 21% 368 17% 616 19%

Average 1079 2 8 1039 25 835 25 865 23

Low 512 31 362 29 899 31 540 32

aSince this was a separate category in program types, the percentages represent actual proportions of the total number of children in each level of mental ability and school achievement.

Number indicates total on each level of mental ability and achieve­ ment .

We know that very few television programs can be considered as favor­ ites of as much as half the children in the survey sample of this study.

Not much more than a third of the 70 representative programs were checked as favorites by 50 per cent or more of the respondents. Only two or three program types averaged out at 50 per cent in the "favorite column" in respect to any grade-group among boys or girls. Regarding senior high school students as a whole, the highest proportion of children checking any one program type as a favorite was 48 per cent, although the figure for younger children went as high as ?7 per cent for a single group. But at the same time, Table 22 shows that few programs were indicated as disliked by any of the groups of children in this study, to a large extent. 157

TABLE 22

PERCENTAGES OF CHILDREN IN EACH GRADE-PLACEMENT GROUP WHO INDICATED THAT THEY DISLIKED TELEVISION PROGRAMS OF CERTAIN TYPES

BOYS GIRLS PROGRAM TYPES Grade Grade Grade Grade Grade Grade Grade Grad< 1-5 4-6 7-9 10-12 1-3 4-6 7-9 10-i; No. of Children: 287 kko 6 1 2 768 2 5 0 373 623 7 8 2

Action-adventure 4%* 7% 5% 5% 5# 8% 7% 6% Adult western 5 6 5 7 5 7 8 11 Detective-police 7 12 11 9 7 13 12 10 Mystery & suspense 10 17 17 13 10 20 17 14

Audience part. & quiz 10 1 8 2k 29 9 1 6 23 26 Variety (incl. musical) 12 23 2 8 27 10 20 2 6 21 Featured comedians 8 12 16 14 6 13 20 22 Children's programs 4 12 19 23 3 9 18 20 "Slapstick" comedy 2 6 6 10 3 8 15 32

Dramatic shows 7 19 2k 20 4 13 12 7 Late movies (11 P.M.) 6 8 9 6 6 8 6 4 Situation comedy 4 8 12 13 4 5 7 9 Sports broadcasts 14 14 15 14 25 40 37 35

Discussion & interview 11 21 2 8 24 9 1 6 23 18 Documentary 6 15 17 12 7 15 1 6 11 News broadcasts 7 1 8 14 8 8 18 14 8 Religious programs 8 17 20 21 5 10 1 6 1 6

Percentages given to the nearest whole number. 158

For rill program types as a whole, an average of 1^ per cent of all child­ ren in the total sample checked the "don* t like" column in the television program section of the questionnaire, compared to an over-all average of

28 per cent of all respondents who checked the "favorite" column. In other words, by comparison, twice as many children expressed a liking for various television programs as indicated a dislike for certain titles on the program list.

While some strong preferences for certain programs and program types were expressed by individual groups of children, as shown earlier in this chapter and in Chapter IX, in no case did as many as half of any one group express a dislike for a program type. The highest average per­ centage was 40 per cent and the highest four "dislike" percentages aver­ aged about 33 P«r cent. In contrast to this, the highest average per­ centage for a favorite type was 77 per cent, with the highest six "favor­ ite" program type percentages averaging about 66 per cent; or roughly two-thirds against one-third for disliking of program types.

As a reference to Table 22 will make clear, some program types con­ cerning which there was notably little expression of dislike by either sex were action-adventure, adult western, and late-hour movies. Only a moderate amount of dislike was expressed for the program types, detective- police and situation comedy. On the other hand, a substantial percentage of boys and girls checked the "dislike" column for programs typed as mystery-and-suspense, audience participation-and-quiz, variety, and discussion-and-intervies, among others.

Some program types apparently more generally disliked by the boys than by the girls were audience participation-and-quiz, variety, dramatic 159 shows, diecuesion-and-interview, religious programs, and to a slight ex­

tent, children's programs. Stronger dislikes were expressed, as shown by percentages on Table 22, by the girls than by the boys concerning sports broadcasts, "slapstick" comedy, and (except for girls in grade- group 1-3) featured comedians.

As mentioned earlier, children on all grade levels shared a dislike

of programs of many types. But there were also some differences in pro­

portions of children in various grade-groups who expressed a dislike for

specific programs of certain types. For instance, average percentages

on Table 22 Indicate that substantial numbers of boys in grade-group 1-3

dislike sports broadcasts and programs of mystery-and-suspense, in addi­

tion to types already mentioned. This dislike they shared with other

respondents. There were no program types disliked by substantial per­

centages of girls on this level only. However, boys and girls in grades

b~ 6 9 in particular, showed a dislike for news programs. Greater per­

centages of boys only, in grade groups 4-6, 7-9 and 10-12, compared with

the remainder of the sample checked a dislike of religious programs.

More junior and senior boys than other groups expressed a dislike

for dramatic shows, a program type represented on the questionnaire by

The U. S. Steel Hour and The Loretta Young Show. As would be expected,

more children on the junior and senior high school levels checked a dis­

like of children’s programs. Finally, greater percentages of senior

high school girls, especially, checked the "dislike" column in respect

to "slapstick" comedy and featured comedians. 160

Thus, children covered by this survey gave evidence of their tele­ vision program preferences negatively, as well as positively, although to a lesser degree and with considerable variation among grade-placement and male and female groups.

The results of earlier research in children's television program preferences agree in general with those of the present study, particu­ larly in regard to program types. There were, however, minor differences in the program tastes of various groups of children. Variations were also present in respect to specific programs, in part because some are no longer on the air and others have taken their places. Lyness, in

1950, found that the boys in his Des Moines, Iowa, sample preferred pro­ grams featuring violence and adventure, while the girls were more in­

clined toward romance in their TV drama, characteristics of the children also in the present study. Both the boys and the girls surveyed by Lyness

liked comedy and mystery as ingredients of television programs.^

Siudzinski's New York City children (195*0 also preferred programs

with action and adventure, but western dramas were not among their top

favorites, the latter fact in contrast to the preferences of the children

in the West Virginia sample.^ Comedy and variety were popular with the

New York City children, however. The boys in the New York sample, in

^"Paul I. Lyness, "The Place of the Mass Media in the Lives of Boys and Girls," Journalism Quarterly. 29:*+3-5**-, 1952. 2 Edward S. Siudzinski, "A Study of Television Interests and Viewing Habits and a Comparison of These With the Interests and Habits in Badio, Motion Pictures, and Reading, as Shown by Students in Selected Senior High Schools in Metropolitan New York," (Ph.D. Dissertation, Fordham Uni­ versity, New York, 1958. 2 Vols.) Pp. 222-26. 161 common with those in the West Virginia study, had a greater liking for comedy than did the girls. Also, almost 2 8 per cent of the children studied by Siudzinski did not indicate a dislike for any program.

As to specific programs, the leading favorite of these New York City children was I Love Lucy, followed by Dragnet, both of which programs were omitted from the West Virginia questionnaire because they were no longer on the air, at least during the evening hours. Other favorites among the children in Siudzinski*s New York City sample were Jackie

Gleason. The Toast of the Town (Ed Sullivan), and The Comedy Hour. The latter program and Jackie Gleason were off the air at the time of the present study. The Toast of the Town (later, and at present, simply called The Ed Sullivan Show) was hardly a top favorite with the children in the West Virginia sample, because only 15 per cent of the boys and l8 per cent of the girls checked it as a preferred program.

Like the West Virginia children in the present study, Hopf and Bed- well* s sample of children in Columbus, Ohio in 1959 placed situation comedy and adult western drama high on the list of favorite program types.^ The girls likewise did not share the boys' keen interest in sports broadcasts. The boys in Columbus also indicated adventure pro­ grams as a preferred type, and the girls, detective drama and musicals.

The children studied in the Schramm, Lyle, and Parker survey in western United States and Canada (1958-60) had many favorite programs

that also were well liked by the respondents in the current West Vir­

ginia study, stressing adventure, comedy, and western drama. The

3 Howard E. Hopf and Raymond T. Bedwell, Jr., "Characteristics and Program Preferences of Television Listeners in Columbus, Ohio - April 1959,” (unpublished report, Department of Speech, The Ohio State Uni­ versity) . 162 younger children included cartoons and certain children's programs in their list of favorites. As in the Vest Virginia sample of children, the boys favored western and adventure drama slightly more than did the girls, who put situation comedy first, but the children of both sexes if were fond of all three of these program types.

Children in the lower grades, in the Schramm, Lyle, and Parker study, had a special liking for Lassie and Cheyenne, both strong favor­ ites of the younger groups in the present study. Maverick, among the first four favorites of the western children, was likewise a popular program with the West Virginia group, but in both studies the program held special interest for upper grade children, especially the boys.

Other mutual favorites were Father Knows Best and 22 Sunset Strip, but the former was much more popular with the girls in West Virginia than with the boys.

An examination of the program titles favored by the children in the continuing surveys by Witty (and later with Kinsella) near Chicago (1950-

61) again shows children preferring programs featuring adventure, western drama and comedy. This is, in general, consistent with the findings of the West Virginia study. 22 Sunset Strip was popular with the Chicago area children in 1959 and I960, with Maverick another leading favorite.

Other preferred programs of these children were Gunsmoke, Steve Allen,

Shock Theatre, Alcoa Presents, Perry Mason, Father Knows Best, Twilight

k Wilbur Schramm, Jack Lyle, and Edwin B. Parker, Television in the Lives of Our Children (Stanford University Press, 1961), p. 230.

^Paul A. Witty and Paul J. Kinsella, "Report of Televiewing in 1961," Elementary English. 39:2^-32, January, 1962. 163

Zone, and The Untouchables. In 1961 the latter two programs were the first and second in popularity, respectively, with all junior and senior high school students in the Witty and Kinsella sample. Among the West

Virginia junior and senior high school students Twilight Zone was less popular especially on the boys' list of favorites, and The Untouchables ranked high with the boys but not with the girls, especially those in junior high school. Similarly to the West Virginia children, those in

Witty*s sample showed a strong preference for The Flintstones and The

Three Stooges. Like the children studied by other investigators, Witty*a respondents, as varied as their tastes were, did not list among their preferences discussion or interview programs, documentaries, news broad­ casts, or religious programs.

It will be recalled from Chapter II that Himmelweit and her col­ leagues in England found that even the more intelligent children were not particularly interested in adult "political programs," an attitude shared by the children in the present study, who rated such programs as

Face the Nation and Meet the Press rather low in the preference scale.

On the other hand, the British children, like those in this country, were fond of crime shows and western dramas, and a detective series,

Fabian of Scotland Yard, which was a "universal favorite."^ The best liked programs among the children in the Himmelweit study were, with the exception of Robin Hood, of American origin and included such titles as Highway Patrol, I Love Lucy, Dragnet, Rin Tin Tin, I Married Joan, and

Gun Law, all popular among American children at one time or another.

^Hilde To Himmelweit, A. N. Oppenheim, and Pamela Vince, Television and the Child (London: Oxford University Press, 195®), p. 115* The television program tastes of most childrent revealed by various

surveys, including that by Himmelweit, Oppenheim, and Vince in England, should surprise nobody who has observed children's preferences in read­

ing. It is only to be expected that children will favor, on television,

stories of action and adventure, of violence, mystery, and intrigue, as

well as comedy programs of all kinds. These are normal interests of the

growing child or youth. But these program tastes are also shared with

most adults, who apparently do not use television primarily as a source

of information and instruction, but for entertainment, as many reports 7 have indicated.

In summary, it may be said that program favorites of children come

and go. An I Love Lucy, that was once on top in popularity, may be re­

placed by something such as The Flintstones. The children may now be

watching The Untouchables instead of Dragnet, or viewing Cheyenne in

place of Maverick. But, in general, the preferences of most children

for the basic television program types remain much the same, over the

years.

n See Gary A. Steiner, The People Look at Television, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963). CHAPTER XI

PROGRAM SELECTION AND PARENTAL RESTRICTIONS

The questionnaire that furnished the data on which this study was based asked the respondents to indicate, for each of the 70 specimen programs, whether the respondent ordinarily tuned in the program or whether it was usually tuned in by others in the family. Table 23 shows, under each grade-group for boys, and separately for the girls, figures that represent the percentage of all the programs of each type that were usually -tuned in by the respondent; in other words, the instances in which he was the program selector, or at least claimed to be.

The data on this table are in themselves a rough estimation of the popularity of each program type among the children in the survey sample.

It will be observed that the larger percentages are associated with the program types that have already been shown to be favorites of boys and girls in various grade-groups. Some of these types are adult adventure, adult westerns, detective-police, featured comedians, childrenJs pro­ grams, "slapstick" comedy, late-hour movies, situation comedy, and sports broadcasts (boys only). The groups which indicated the highest percentage

of program selection for certain types in most cases had also checked more frequently those same types as favorites, as shown on earlier tables

in Chapter IX.

Again, the program types for which the groups of children had the

least amount of liking also revealed the lowest percentages of tuning in

163 1 6 6 TABLE 23 PERCENTAGES OF BOYS AND GIRLS IN EACH GRADE-PLACEMENT GROUP WHOSE ANSWER TO QUESTION: WHO TUNES IN? INDICATED THAT THEY WERE THE PROGRAM SELECTORS FOR CERTAIN PROGRAM TYPES

BOYS GIRLS

Graded 1-3 **-6 7-9 10-12 No. of Respondents: (287) T T O 7 (612) (?68)

PROGRAM TYPESi*

Adult adventure lif% 3056 if 2% if 1% 8# 25% ifl% 35% Adult westerns 20 3 1* ifit 39 10 27 35 25 Detective-poli.ee 8 21 32 38 6 2 0 31 30 Mystery & suspense 4 17 25 30 2 lit 2 if 26

Audience part. & quiz if lit lit 11 5 13 15 lit Variety (incl. musical) 3 9 9 11 5 11 12 15 Featured comedians 11 26 30 33 7 20 27 23 Childrens programs 32 28 23 17 33 36 26 16 "Slapstick” comedy *+5 *+5 **9 39 ifO if it 32 18

Dramatic shows 2 8 11 lit 3 10 if6 29 Late movies (11 P.M.) if 15 25 38 2 10 28 36 Situation & fam. comedy 20 29 30 2 if 19 36 39 29 Sports broadcasts 9 25 35 ifO 2 6 12 10

Discussion & interview 1 7 5 7 1 if if 6 Documentary programs 3 1 0 15 19 3 7 8 12 News broadcasts 3 7 13 22 2 6 9 17 Religious programs 3 9 8 6 3 6 10 8

See grouping of programs by type, pp. 126-27.

Percentages are given to the nearest whole number (2*+.5S6=25%). 167 by the respondents in the group. These types included audience-participa- tion-and-quiz, variety, discussion-and-interview, documentaries, news broadcasts, and religious programs<>

The Trendex Television Program Reports for January 3-9, 1961 gave rather different results from the data in the West Virginia Survey. Of the 53 programs (out of the 70 on the questionnaire) for which Trendex provided data, *+8 were tuned in mainly by adults or "others in family," rather than by children and teen-agers. The teen-agers (13-18 years old) were not the principal tuners or selectors of any of the programs reported on by Trendex. Among the 17 program types of the current study, only

children’s programs — three of the four on which Trendex furnished

data — were tuned in more by children and teen-agers than by adults.

Judging from the data of the Trendex Report, even the types that were

popular with children, according to the West Virginia survey, such as

adult adventure and westerns, "crime" shows, mystery-and-suspense and

situation-and-family-comedy, were selected mainly by others in the family,

rather than children and teen-agers.

Since at least 30 or 40 per cent or more of the respondents did not

supply information on the Program Preference section of the Monongalia-

Preeton County questionnaire, it is possible that more of these children

did not ordinarily tune in even their favorite television programs. Con­

versely, the information in Table 23 was probably volunteered more fully

by those children who did more of the tuning in of programs. This would

make the percentages on the tables somewhat high, if considered in rela­

tion to the entire sample. Nevertheless, the children covered by the

survey in West Virginia probably did not tune in television programs to

the extent that they reported. 168

The Information on tuning In programs furnished by the respondents to the Monongalia-Preston County questionnaire should be compared to that supplied in their answers to questions 12 and 13 on the questionnaire.

These were, resepctively, "List below any programs that your parents pre­ fer that you don't watch (or hear)" and "List below any programs that your parents encourage you to watch (or hear)." The first question was answered by 1705 or about 41 per cent of the respondents and the second by 1997 or about per cent of the respondents.

The proportion of children who indicated that no restrictions were placed on their TV viewing (or listening) was 1^.5 P«r cent of all re­ spondents or about 35 P®r cent of those who supplied the information*

The following tabulation shows the ten programs most frequently mentioned as those about which parents had the strongest objections:

Name of Program Times Listed Name of Program Times Listed

The Three Stooges 229 Thriller 66 Late-hour movies' 170 Alfred Hitchcock 60 The Untouchables 107 Oral Roberts MD Alcoa Presents 100 Lawrence Welk 23 Twilight Zone 77 Naked City 21

Apparently the children did not list any "objectionable" radio pro­ grams, but some additional television programs that the parents did not care to have their children watch (with the number of times listed in parentheses) are as follows: Jack Paar (20), Hong Kong (19)» Adventures in Paradise (14), baseball games (12), Ed Sullivan (12), Bell Telephone

Hour (10), Dennis the Menace (10), and The Price is Right (8). The ten 169 moat frequently mentioned "objectionable" programs listed in order of frequency of mention, in relation to eacb grade-placement level, are tabulated below:

Grades 1-3 The Three Stooges (46), Alcoa Presents (29), The Untouchables (27), Thriller (16), Twilight Zone (15), Alfred Hitchcock (13)» Late-hour movies (12), Oral Roberts (4), The Jack Paar Show (3), Naked City (3)»

Grades 4-6 The Three Stooges (65), Alcoa Presents (32), The Untouchables (31), Late-hour movies (30), Alfred Hitchcock (24), Thriller (20), Twilight Zone (17), Naked City (140, Oral Roberts (9), Lawrence Welk (10).

Grades 7-9 Late-hour movies (76), The Three Stooges (62), Alcoa Presents (3*01 Twilight Zone (30), Thril­ ler (22), Alfred Hitchcock (20), The Untouch­ ables (20), Oral Roberts (12), The Jack Paar Show (8), Lawrence Welk (3)*

Grades 10-12 The Three Stooges (5**), Late-hour movies (50), The Untouchables (29), Alcoa Presents (15), Oral Roberts (15), Twilight Zone (15), Lawrence Welk (14), Thriller (8 ), The Jack Paar Show (6), Alfred Hitchcock (3)®

For grade-groups 7-9 and 10-12 the eleventh program, in order of number of times mentioned, would have been Naked City, but in both in­ stances this program was mentioned only twice. All of the programs listed above were among the 70 on the questionnaire, but the respond­ ents cited many other titles. These programs fall roughly into the types tabulated on the following page. It can be seen from the list that parents evidently are concerned mostly about programs featuring crime and violence. 170

Type of Program No. of Tines Mentioned

Crime, murder, detective (as Checkmate) 85 Western dramas bo General news and weather 37 Children's programs (cartoons, etc.) 36 Band Stand (High school hop, Mitch Miller) 32 Sports broadcasts of various kinds 2b Daytime serials 23 Dramatic shows of various kinds 19 Variety shows 18 "Undesirable" movies 17 Courtroom trials, etc. 12

It is not difficult to understand why parents would object to violence filled programs, such as The Untouchables and Thriller, or others dealing with murder and mayhem. The Jack Paar Show and late-hour movies would be likely to keep the children up too late. But it is not easy to understand why there would be objection to the Lawrence Welk program unless the parents themselves wanted to avoid having to listen to it. Others that would seem at least innocuous are baseball broadcasts, Ed Sullivan, Bell

Telephone Hour, and The Price is Right. Yet all were listed among the programs to which some parents supposedly objected. But there were no doubt a variety of reasons for parental attitudes toward certain programs.

The biggest proportion of the "objectionable" programs were at the same

time popular with most children. Apparently, what the children like is

not always considered good for them.

In listing programs that their parents encouraged the children to

watch or hear, the proportion who indicated that no pressure was used by

parents was 13»8 per cent of all respondents or 28.5 per cent of those

who supplied information. About half of the respondents answered the 171 question. All of the titles given were television programs. Those men­ tioned most frequently are shown in the following tabulation:

Name of Program Times Listed Name of Program Times Listed

Eyewitness to Brinkley - news 37 History 134 Father Knows Best 35 Twentieth Century 125 Bell Telephone Hour 33 Oral Boberts 67 Lassie 50 Walt Disney (Advent.) 63 The Flintstones 29 Face the Nation 50 Lawrence Welk 24 Nswb (1 1 P.M.) 45 Aquanauts 19 Shirley Temple 44

On the basis of grade-placement groups the following tabulation in­ dicates the program titles listed by the respondents as those which they were encouraged by their parents to watch (number of times listed are in parentheses):

Grades 1-3 Walt Disney (36), Lassie (23), Shirley Temple (22)t Oral Boberts (1*0, Father Knows Best (9), The FlintstoneB (9), Twentieth Century (8), Ityewit- ness to History (4).

Grades 4 -6 Eyewitness to History (2?)t Twentieth Century (21), Oral Roberts (19), Brinkley - News (17), Walt Disney (16), Father Knows Best (14), The Flintstones (14), Aquanauts (12), Bell Tele­ phone Hour (12), Shirley Temple (12), Lawrence Welk (12), Face the Nation (7), Lassie (3)»

Grades 7-9 Eyewitness to History (50), Twentieth Century (44), Oral Boberts (23), Face the Nation (22), Walt Disney (10), Shirley Temple (9), Bell Telephone Hour (8), Brinkley - News (7), Father Knows Best (7), Lawrence Welk (7), The Flint­ stones (5 )*

Grades 1 0 -1 2 Eyewitness to History (53), Twentieth Century (52), News (11 P.M.) (45), Face the Nation (18), Brinkley - News (13), Bell Telephone Hour (12), Oral Roberts (11), Lawrence Welk (3)-

It is evident from the foregoing tabulations that Eyewitness to His­ tory and Twentieth Century, both documentaries, stand out as programs 172 that parents encourage their children to watch. Face the Nation, an in­ terview program, Is among the first four In number of times mentioned by the children In grade-groups 7 - 9 and 1 0 -1 2 , as shown on the preceding page. Also, It is apparent that family comedy, children's programs,

"wholesome" adventure, news broadcasts, a situation comedy cartoon, and music of a conservative type meet with the approval of the parents of these respondents, if the children have reported correctly. The fact that the religious program, Oral Rob'erts, was third in number of times mentioned indicates that it must have a substantial following among the people in this television coverage area. Other programs that the re­ spondents said their parents encouraged them to watch are tabulated as follows, by types:

Number of Times Type of Program Mentioned

General news programs 337 Educational programs 233 Current events (speeches, etc.) 110 Religious programs 46 Adventure (Bold Journey, Americans, etc.) 45 Quiz programs (College Bowl. etc.) 35 Children's programs 29 Classical music 21 Other musical programs (Band Stand, Mitch Miller, etc.) 17

It is obvious that the tabulation above puts great stress on news, educational programs, and in general the informational type of program.

But it is also evident, from examination of the data concerning children's program preferences, presented in Chapters IX and X, that there is a great discrepancy between what parents seemingly want their children to watch on TV and what the children actually prefer to see. Yet, if the 173 broadcasters are correct In their estimates of the public taste In tele­ vision programs* the parents, too, are watching many of the children's favorites. As In reading, children frequently reflect the TV viewing habits of their parents. And as Steiner contended^ adults often recom­ mend one type of program as good for the public, while they themselves devote their time to quite another.

^ary A. Steiner, The People Look at Television, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963), pp. 22^249. CHAPTER XII

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Purpose and methodology

One purpose of this study was to gather information and make com­ parisons pertaining to relative amounts of time given by a group of West

Virginia school-age children to radio listening; televiewing; the read­ ing of newspapers, magazines, "library" books, and comic books; attend­ ing the motion pictures; and doing homework (school assignments at home).

Another objective of the study was to learn something about the tele­ vision program preferences of these school children in relation to grade-

placement and levels of mental ability and scholastic achievement.

In order to assemble the necessary data, a questionnaire was circu­

lated by the writer, during the week of March 1961 with the children sup­

plying information concerning their activities on a school day, rather

than the week-end. For the sample, nine schools were chosen in Monon­

galia County and two in neighboring Preston County, both situated on the

northern border of the state. The schools sampled in Monongalia County

were in and near Morgantown, the county seat. Those in Preston County

were entirely in Kingwood, also the county seat. The Monongalia County

portion of the sample was considered by the County Superintendent of

Schools to be representative of the 11,000 school-age children in the

county. The Preston County children in the sample, since they were

17^ 175 enrolled in schools only in Kingwood, were not necessarily typical of the entire group of 7*000 school-age children in Preston County. The entire sample* however, is a good cross-section of school children in the TV listening area surrounding Morgantown and Kingwood.

The sample was made up of *+135 children in grades one through twelve, representing more than 80 per cent of the enrollment of these schools.

The divisions between boys and girls was fairly even in all groups* total­ ing 2107 boys and 2028 girls. The entire sample included 1351 .children in the first six grades, 1 2 3 *+ in grades seven through nine, and 135 0 in grades ten, eleven, and twelve. The Kingwood portion of the sample ac­ counted for 832 of the returned questionnaires•

Some comparisons were made with the data from an earlier survey, conducted in 195® by the writer, in the same schools in Monongalia County only. The two questionnaires were similar in most respects, except for minor differences and the fact that the 1 961 survey obtained information about children's preferences for certain television programs and program types. The 1958 survey covered only a little more than 3*000 children, in contrast to the *+135 respondents of the 1961 study.

In 1961, the children were asked to check a "degree-of-liking" for each of 7 0 television programs which would indicate whether a program was a favorite, whether it was disliked, or whether the child rated it somewhere between these two extremes. Also for each program the respond­ ent was given the opportunity to indicate whether he usually tuned it in or whether selection of the program was ordinarily by others in the

family. 176

The 70 programs listed on the questionnaire were representative of all types available in the Morgantown and Kingwood listening areas on most television channels. All three national TV networks could be re­ ceived on one channel or another. The programs were arranged alphabet­ ically on the questionnaire and the grouping by types was done later, in assembling the data. Therefore, the children were less likely to have been influenced toward favoring or opposing any particular type of program.

In the compilation of the data from both the 1938 and the 1961 studies, the children were grouped into four grade-level divisions

(grades 1-3 * *+-6, 7 - 9 &nd 10- 1 2 , each inclusive) and three levels of mental ability and academic achievement (high, average, and low). All

Information derived from the questionnaire was handled on data process­ ing computers and other equipment by the West Virginia Data Processing

Center, with careful checks made on accuracy in compiling figures. In this way it was possible to assemble and correctly tabulate the vast amount of data produced by the questionnaires.

Limitations of the study

Although the sample in the West Virginia study includes more than

8 0 per cent of the children in the schools covered by the survey, it con­ tains larger proportions of children in junior and senior high school than in the elementary grades. Thus, on the various tables that give percentages for all children in the sample, the resulting data are biased in favor of the upper grades. However, the total sample is fairly typical of the school children not only in the two counties 177 where the study was made, but possibly In many other sections of Vest

Virginia and other states in which the population is predominantly rural and small town in composition.

It was considered by the writer that the small percentage of child­ ren with no television at home would not result in altering the general findings appreciably. No doubt many of these children from "non-tele­ vision" homes nevertheless had some access to television in the homes of neighbors, friends, and relatives. Some children were absent on the day the questionnaire was circulated or did not complete a form for some other reason. It is doubtful that these children, in the main, were greatly different from the remainder of the sample.

The author of this study had to depend upon the reliability and competence of the respondents for the accuracy of the data. Some child­ ren may not have taken the questionnaire seriously. Undoubtedly, there were errors and exaggerations in estimates of time devoted to the various activities concerning which information was gathered. In rating the 70 programs, certain children may have been careless, hasty, or indifferent, to varying degrees.

It is quite likely that a few of the respondents misunderstood the directions for completing the questionnaire, in one way or another.

For several possible reasons, some children did not express a degree-of- liking for some of the programs. The "ratings" represent an over-all average response of about two-thirds of the children. In other words, this proportion of children in the entire sample is the average number expressing a degree-of-liking about any one program. Many programs were rated by a much higher percentage of the children, and others by a considerably lower percentage. 178

Any comprehensive list of 70 television programs is necessarily a compromise between the limitation in number of titles out of the much larger number on the air, and the need for varied representation of all types of programs. The 17 types into which the individual programs used in this study were classified were categories commonly used in television audience research, with some slight variations in terminology. Perhaps not all researchers would have selected exactly these 17 types. One or two of the types possibly were too general, and the programs grouped un­ der these categories could have been further subdivided. Again, space limitations and the desire for simplification were factors. Neverthe­ less, the program preference section of the questionnaire yielded at least a rough approximation of children's tastes in television.

The findings of the West Virginia study are presented not as princi­ ples necessarily applicable to the entire United States, but as character­ istics of a certain group of children. Specifically, the results of the study are limited to a group of 4135 school-age children in two counties in West Virginia as of March 196l, with certain comparisons being made to data assembled in a 1958 survey made in the same general geographic location.

Possibly there have been numerous minor errors that may even limit the complete believability of the findings as regards the children in the survey sample. But it is the opinion of this investigator that the various small errors did not affect the validity of the general conclu­ sions. Therefore, from the data of this research, in many instances supported by the findings of other studies, it would appear that the conclusions set forth in the following pages are justified. 179

So— general conclusions

Children of echool age, at leaat in Monongalia County, West Virginia, are devoting leea tl— to radio liatenlng than children gave to thia activity a few yeara ago.

In 1933, in a survey of school children in Monongalia County, the boys as a group had averaged 45 minutes of radio listening on a day in the middle of the week, and the girls had averaged 57 minutes. The cor­ responding groups of children in these schools in 1 9 6 1, on a midweek or school day, averaged 30 and 40 minutes of radio listening for the boys and the girls, respectively. The decline in the amount of time given to this activity by both the boys and the girls in 1 9 6 1 was especially pro­ nounced among children in junior and senior high school, where the average amount of radio listening for all children in the six upper grades had dropped, in the three-year period, from 60 minutes to 42 minutes.

A decade or more ago children were spending much more time listening to radio. Clark and Guth, respectively, had found in their separate studies of children's listening that the amount of time given to this activity by the average child was likely to be considerably more than two hours a day. Lyness, in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1 9 3 0 , also recorded that the children in the sample were spending several hours a day lis­ tening to radio, even as much as three or four hours. However, in 1 9 3 9 ,

Hopf and Bedwell found among Columbus, Ohio, children that the average amount of radio listening on the part of school-age children was one to two hours.

Allowing for some differences in the type of sample and other characteristics of the subjects studied in the surveys, it would still be reasonable to conclude that children have decreased their radio lis­ tening in recent years. i8o

The behavior of children of school age with reapect to amount of time devoted to radio listening, in contrast to that given to television viewing, seems to follow fairly consistent patterns.

Judging from the data of the Vest Virginia sample, senior high school students devote more time to radio listening, and less to televiewing, than do children in junior high school and the elementary grades. The average amount of time spent in radio listening on a school day by senior high school boys was minutes, and by the girls, 56 minutes. This was in contrast to about 11 or 12 minutes devoted to this activity by boys and girls in grades one to three, inclusive. For the other children, in grades four through nine, the average figures for school-day radio lis­ tening increased with advance in grade level.

In respect to watching television, however, the senior high school boys devoted about 1 .5 hours and the girls approximately an hour, while the junior high school students gave more than 2 .0 hours to the activity, which was a greater amount of time than that given by any other group.

The children in grades k - 6 put in almost 2.0 hours in televiewing on a school day, and the 1-3 grade-group, more than 1.5 hours. Since the average time devoted to televiewing by all children on the senior high school level was 76 minutes on a midweek day, this amount is less than

for any other grade-group as a whole.

However, the boys consistently gave more time to television than did the girls, averaging for the entire group close to 2 .0 hours on a school day, compared to 1 .5 hours as an average figure for all girls in the sample. In contrast to this, the opposite was true of the children in

Siudzinski's survey sample in two private high schools in New York, in

195^* However, the groups would not be strictly comparable. l8l

Researchers In the early 1950's found children watching TV fron 2.0 to 5*7 hours a day, during the week. This comparison suggests the con­ clusion that children are spending less time with TV now than they were ten years ago. Hopf and Bedwell reported somewhat similar findings to those of the West Virginia study, in regard to a group of Columbus, Ohio, children in 1959* These researchers found that the older children gave more time to radio and less to television than did the younger. In addi­ tion, the conclusions of Schraunm, Lyle, and Parker, in western United

States and Canada, and of Witty and Kinsella, in the Chicago area, also agreed substantially with the results of the West Virginia study.

Watching television seems to be a ma.lor leisure time activity of most school-age children. Judging from the data of this study.

Of the eight activities concerning which data were gathered in the

West Virginia study, in 1961, children devoted by far the greatest amount of time to television. The next three activities, in order of the time given to them, as reported by the respondents to the questionnaire, were: doing homework, reading books, and listening to the radio. Compared with major activities, the other four — reading newspapers, magazines, and comic books, and attending the movies — received very little of the

children's time on a school day.

An average of almost two hours was spent on television by all boys as a whole, more than an hour to homework, about half an hour each to

reading books and listening to the radio, 13 minutes to reading news­

papers, 9 minutes to reading magazines, 5 minutes to reading comic books,

and 3 minutes to attending the movies. For the girls as a group, the

average number of minutes devoted to each of these eight activities was 1 8 2 as follows: watching television, 9*+ minutes; doing homework, 8l minutest reading books, 39 minutes; listening to the radio, 37 minutes; reading newspapers, 13 minutes; reading magazines, 10 minutes; reading comic books, 3 minutes; attending the movies, 2 minutes. Host children in the first nine grades gave twice as much, or more, time to televiewing than to general reading (not counting homework). Senior high school boys gave about 30 per cent more time to TV than to reading. Senior high school girls, however, reported devoting more time to reading than to watching television.

The data in this study indicated that children of high mental ability and achievement were just as likely to spend a substantial amount of time watching television as were those of average and low mental ability and achievement. This was in contrast to Kinsella's findings in the Chicago area, where the lower mental ability and achievement groups devoted a greater amount of time to televiewing than did the more able students.

But most children in earlier surveys (referred to in Chapter II of this paper) gave even more time to television than was given by the children covered in the current study in West Virginia. Evidently, as the novelty has worn off, some attention formerly directed to television has since been applied to other interests of the child. In the Monongalia County survey sample, however, the amount of televiewing by school-age children was about the same in 1961 as in 1 9 5 8*

The groups of children observed in this study also followed certain patterns in the amounts of time that they gave to various kinds of reading.

According to their figures, both the boys and the girls in the West

Virginia study spent an average of about 15 minutes reading the newspaper 183 on the day before answering the questionnaire* But the amount of time that these children devoted to newspaper reading increased with advance in grade-level, as well as with mental ability and scholastic achieve­ ment. Those in grade-group 1-3 spent only three or four minutes on the newspaper, but the senior high school students averaged 18 minutes of newspaper reading on a week-day* Children in grades *f- 6 devoted an aver­ age of nine or ten minutes to reading the newspaper on a school day, and those in grades 7 - 9 gave about l b minutes to this activity. Lyness,

Wolfe, and Schramm and his associates also found that older children gave more time to the newspaper than did the younger ones.

A comparison of the Monongalia County data for the years 1958 and

1 96 1 shows that the junior and senior high school children in the latter year devoted about the same amount of time to newspaper reading as did the corresponding groups of children in the same schools in 1958. The elementary school children, however, had decreased their newspaper read­ ing slightly in 1 9 6 1.

Among children in the West Virginia study, time given to magazine reading also increased with grade-level of the child, ranging from an average of only two minutes for the first three grades, seven or eight minutes for the b - S grade-group, to 11 or 12 minutes for the junior and senior high school students, on the day preceding the completion of the

questionnaire. In 1958, the children in the first six grades in Monon­ galia County had put in more than twice as much time on magazines as the

corresponding group reported in 1 9 6 1.

The decrease in time spent on magazines by the junior and senior high school students in 1 9 6 1, compared to that of 1 9 5 8, was not as l8i+ pronounced as in the case of the elementary school children, hut it was still substantial. Among boys as a whole there was a tendency for those of higher mental ability and scholastic achievement to give more time to magazine reading than did those on the lower levels. This was not true of the girls. In 195&, the boys gave slightly more time to magazines

than did the girls, but in 1 9 6 1 the opposite was true.

Frances Volfe, in her Mansfield, Ohio, study in 1938, also noted

that there was little difference in time spent on magazines by boys in

contrast to girls. Lyness, however, in Des Moines, Iowa, found the

girls in his sample giving more time to magazine reading than was given

by the boys to this activity.

Judging from their response to the questionnaire, it is evident

that the children included in the West Virginia study devoted a great

deal more time to books than to the reading of newspapers and magazines.

The time apparently given to this activity on a school day was more than

half an hour for the average respondent to the questionnaire. In gen­

eral, the children of high mental ability and scholastic achievement

spent a little more time in reading books than did the children of aver­

age and low ability and achievement, but this was not invariably true of

each group of children on the various grade levels.

There was also a tendency for older students to spend more time

reading books than was spent by younger children, although the latter

reported reading a greater number of books during the preceding six

months. The girls in the 1961 West Virginia survey sample reported

giving more time to the reading of books and reading a greater number

of books than the boys reported. 185

According to the estimates of the children in the Veet Virginia study, as a group they spent less time on comic books than on any other reading, the boys averaging about five minutes and the girls three min­ utes on a school day. The children in the lower school grades spent considerably more time reading comic books than did the high school stu­ dents. The high point in time given to this activity was reached in grades where the boys averaged 1 3 * 3 minutes and the girls 7 .5 min­ utes on a midweek day reading comic books. The amount of time spent by children on this kind of reading had, in general, decreased in comparison to the figures in the 1958 study. It was not always the low mental ability and achievement groups among the boys in the sample who put in the most time reading comic books, but among the girls the tendency was to devote less time to this activity as the levels of mental ability and scholastic achievement became higher.

Some of these findings were confirmed by the results of other in­ vestigations of children's use of the various media. Guth and Lyness, in separate studies in Iowa, reported a decline in the reading of comic books among the children in the higher grades. In her investigation in

Mansfield, Ohio, Wolfe found more boys than girls reading comic books, and she also found older children spending less time on them. Witty, in his study in the Chicago area, concluded that the reading of comic books was not related to scholastic attainment of the child.

Children seem to be spending less time attending the movies than the children did in former years.

If the total amount of time that all children in the West Virginia sample gave to attending the movies on a school day during the week of the questionnaire is averaged, the resulting figures are even lower than 186 for comic-book reading. For the boys the average time was 3-5 minutes and for the girls 2.4 minutes. Less time was devoted to this activity than to any of the others listed on the questionnaire. No doubt child­ ren attend the movies more on week-ends thdn during the week. In gen­ eral, the children in the middle grades (4—6 and 7-9) had given more time to attending the movies than had the remainder of the children.

For the entire group, the respondents to the questionnaire gave esti­ mates that indicated that the average child had attended the movies only

1.3 times in the preceding four weeks. Among the children in this study, more time was given to movie-going by children with low scholastic achievement records than by those of high achievement.

Earlier studies showed much more movie-going on the part of the sub­ jects studied than was true of the Vest Virginia children. Quth deter­ mined that the students in grades 7-12 in his Davenport, Iowa, study averaged more than five movies a month, with most of the children seeing at least four a month.^ The Guth study was made in 1948, before most children were seeing television, and was conducted in an urban area.

For the entire sample of children in the West Virginia study, the amount of time devoted to doing homework was roughly in direct propor­ tion to levels of mental ability and scholastic achievement.

On the school day preceding the completion of the questionnaire, an average of approximately 14 minutes more time was given to doing homework by the children on the upper levels of mental ability and achievement

than by the children on the low levels. All boys as a group reported an

^Guth gave figures on a weekly basis. The writer has projected these figures to cover a period of a month, for the purpose of comparison with the data of the West Virginia study. 187 average of 63 minutes, and all girls 8l minutes, spent on homework. Com­ pared with the girls, the boys gave proportionately less time, by a sub­ stantial margin, to doing homework than to watching television. This may have something to do with the fact that, on the whole, the girls had a better scholastic achievement record than had the boys. Among the boys in junior and senior high school, those who gave the least amount of time to televiewing devoted correspondingly more time to doing homework. This was not true, however, of the boys in the lower six grades and the girls from the fourth grade up.

The amount of time that the children reported giving to homework in­ creased sharply with the rise in school grade-level of the child, ranging from an average of about half an hour on a school day for the children in grade-group 1-3 to more than 1*3 hours for senior high school students.

Among the children in the West Virginia survey, a great many of those who devoted the greatest amount of time to television also gave more time than did other children in the sample to radio listening, reading, attending the movies, and doing homework.

The children in the 1961 sample were divided into two groups ap­ proximately equal in size, one of which contained the children who had watched television six "quarter-hours" or more on the day before answer­

ing the questionnaire, the other group being made up of those who had watched less than this amount. The first group was referred to as the

"heavy viewers" and the second as the "light viewers." A tabulation

was made of the time given to each of the seven activities (other than

watching television) considered in this study -— by the heavy viewers in

contrast to the light viewers. With four grade-groups for each sex and

seven activities to consider, a total of 56 comparisons were made. 188

In 39 of the 36 comparisons, the heavy viewers had also given the greater — or at least an approximately equal — amount of time to that particular activity. Among the elementary school children in respect to radio listening, for instance, the heavy viewers had given a greater amount of time to radio than had the light viewers. In junior and senior high school, however, it was the light viewers who spent the most time on radio listening. Except for the boys in grades 4-6, the heavy viewers spent as much time on the newspaper, if not more, than the light viewers.

This seems to be consistent with other evidence that television has not affected newspaper reading on the part of most people to an appreciable

extent.

In five instances out of eight, the heavy viewers claimed to be

giving more time to magazine reading than was reported by light viewers.

What was said about radio listening applies also to book reading. The

heavy viewers among elementary school children, according to their esti­

mates, were also the ones doing the most reading of books. But among

the junior and senior high school students, it was the light viewers who

had given the most time to book reading on the preceding day.

As reported on the questionnaire, most heavy viewers spent as much

or more time attending the movies than did the light viewers. Heavy

viewers among elementary school boys and among all girls except those in

grades 1 - 3 gave at least as much, and usually more time to doing home­

work than was given by the light viewers.

The children, then, who were giving the most time to television,

according to their own estimates, were not necessarily neglecting other

activities of the kind observed in this study. 189

The top favorites In television progr«m« of most children in the survey sample were program types that involved either violent action or comedy, or both.

The program types that seemed to have general appeal were action- adventure, adult western drama, detective-police drama, programs built around featured comedians, "slapstick" comedy, and situation comedy. In contrast to this, the children in the West Virginia study were least partial to television programs of such types as audience participation- and-quiz, variety, discussion-and-interview, documentary programs, and religious programs.

Some of the programs that were indicated as favorites by more than

50 per cent of the entire group of boys and girls were The Flintstones

(cartoon situation comedy), Walt Disney (adventure), Mg Three Sons

(situation comedy), 2 2 Sunset Strip (adventure with a romantic element), and Red Skelton (featured comedian). Boys and girls as groups each had their own favorites among the many western and action-adventure dramas on the questionnaire program list, 45 per cent or more of both sexes agreeing only on Maverick, a western drama with a hero who probably had special appeal for the girls.

The findings of other studies of children’s use of television tend to support the foregoing data, in spite of the fact that the individual studies were conducted in widely scattered locations, in different years, and with various age groups. Siudzinski, Hopf and Bedwell, and Schramm,

Lyle, and Parker found that the popular program types with most children were mainly those featuring comedy of different kinds, action and adven­ ture, and mystery and suspense, with the police-detective type of program 1 9 0 always popular. Most studies, such as Witty’s, report that •'talk” pro­ grams, such as documentaries, discussion-and-interview, and others of this type, are not at all popular with most children.

Siudzinski found also, in his study in New York City, that among the senior high school students who made up his sample, western drama was not among the most preferred types, but neither was "prestige" drama.

At least among the children in the West Virginia Study, there ap­ peared to be a relationship between the sex of the viewer and his tele­ vision program preferences.

Boys, especially those in grades 4-12, inclusive, were far more in­ terested in sports broadcasts than were the girls. They also had some­ what more interest than had the girls in programs of types that contain action, physical conflict, and violence, as well as those featuring comedians and "slapstick" comedy.

The girls, on the other hand, liked a "romantic" interest in their action-adventure programs and also showed stronger preference for situa­

tion comedy and serious dramatic shows.

By way of example, the five programs most popular with the boys as a whole were The Flintstones, Walt Disney, Red Skelton, The Three Stooges, and The Untouchables. The first five program favorites of the girls were

My Three Sons. 77 Sunset Strip, The Flintstones, Hawaiian Eye, and Father

Knows Best.

Considering the results of other research in children's television

program preferences, it should be noted that Hopf and Bedwell found in

Columbus, Ohio, in 1959 some variation between the television tastes of

the boys and those of the girls. Unlike the girls, the boys named play-

by-play sports as a favorite and also place western drama higher on the 191 list of favorite types than did the girls. The girls* on the other hand, showed more Interest In "family comedy," musicals with modern music, and

"jazz detective drama." They were also more Interested than were the boys in regular 3 0 -minute drama.

Schramm, Lyle, and Parker, in western United States and in Canada in

1 9 5 8-6 0, discovered that the boys sampled in the survey preferred western drama, mystery and adventure, and situation comedy. The girls liked the situation comedy and "westerns," but also popular music and variety pro­ grams.

Certain differences in the television program preferences of the children in the West Virginia study were related to the school grade- placement level of the child.

Elementary school children expressed stronger preferences than did most other children for children’s programs, "slapstick" comedy, and situation comedy. Of all grade-groups, the children in the junior high school group led in preference for action-adventure programs, and adult western and detective-police drama. Documentary and news programs were favored more by junior and senior high school students than by children in elementary school. In respect to such program types as action-adventure, detective-police, raystery-and-suspense, and featured comedians, interest was about the same for children in the 4-6, 7'9, and 10-12 grade-groups.

The British researchers, Himmelweit and her associates, stressed the fact that age and intelligence of the individual child affected his pro­ gram preferences. In this country the findings of Schramm, Lyle, and

Parker, as well as other students of children’s televiewing, generally agree with the data mentioned above in respect to the West Virginia sample of children. 1 9 2

The TV program preferences of the children in this study also bore some relation*hi p to the child8 b level of mental ability and scholastic achievement.

Boys of high mental ability and scholastic achievement showed more preference for such program types as mystery-and-suspense, featured comedians, situation comedy, documentaries and sports broadcasts than did the boys on lower levels of ability and achievement.

Boys and girls of low mental ability and scholastic achievement favored program types involving action and violence, as well as "slap­ stick" comedy, late-hour movies, and dramatic shows.

Siudzinski found, in his study of children in two private high schools in New York, in 195*** that levels of intelligence among boys and girls had little effect on their program preferences, nor was this factor related consistently to the programs disliked by the children.

In addition, Schramm, Lyle, and Parker found no pattern of children's tastes in television programs that was consistently related to mental ability among children on various grade levels. Their data seemed to support the conclusion that it would be difficult to predict which pro­ gram types would have the most appeal for children on any particular level of mental ability.

Himmelweit, Oppenheim, and Vince, reporting on the study made in

England in 1955* were of the opinion that the intelligence of the child bore relationship to his television program preferences. But apparently most children in the study, regardless of mental ability, had a great liking for programs of action and adventure, as well as comedy, many of

them imported from the United States. Crime and detective stories and western drama of American origin were high on the popularity list of all groups of children studied. 193

In respect to differences in children's television program prefer­ ences on the basis of mental ability and scholastic achievement, there are no strong lines of demarcation. All children seem to be interested in programs of action, adventure,, suspense, and comedy.

As reported by the children in the West Virginia survey, parents tend to discourage the children from watching certain types of television programs, and they encourage the viewing of other types.

Television programs that children in the survey sample frequently listed as those which their parents discouraged them from watching were mainly the kind containing violence and suspense and those dealing with crime.

The program types apparently approved by the parents were documentary, discussion-and-interview, situation comedy, children's programs, and pro­ grams featuring classical and semi-classical or "conservative" dance music. But aside from situation comedy and certain children's programs, the big favorites in television programs among most children in the West

Virginia sample were of the types to which many of them claimed their parents objected. Regardless of parental attitudes, then, the children are watching mainly the television programs containing action, violence, and various kinds of comedy.

Implications of this study

Children as a whole are still devoting more time to television than to any other activity covered in this study, but probably less time than children gave to TV in the 1950’s. Radio listening by children is de­ clining slowly, but is still enjoyed in limited amounts, especially by high school students. Like radio, television does not necessarily and 191* invariably monopolize the time of any particular group of children, re­ gardless of age or levels of intelligence and academic achievement. There is no consistent pattern of viewing that is correlated with special char­ acteristics of the child. On some grade levels it is the high mental ability or achievement group who devote the greatest amount of time to televiewing. On other grade levels the average or low mental ability and achievement groups give the most time to this medium.

Televiewing, for the average child, reaches its high point in quan­ tity during the junior high school years, then declines. Time given to radio increases generally through all grades from early elementary to senior high school. Thus, when the senior high school student finds that homework and various activities make greater demands upon his time, he reduces the amount of his televiewing, and it is made to take its place among other and competing interests. Although the family TV set may be turned on for five or six hours a day, the children as individuals are not watching it for anywhere nearly that much time, on school days. Most of them can Mtake it or leave it." When there is something more interest­ ing to do, they leave it.

Children evidently watch television mainly for entertainment and as a means of escape. Educational broadcasters would do well to consider this. Unless a television program is well produced and entertaining, it is not likely to attract viewers of any age, in this environment of highly competitive broadcasting. The most effective purpose materials are those associated with programs that people like to watch.

On the whole, more time was spent in reading of various kinds by children of higher mental ability and academic achievement than by those 195

of low ability and achievement. As indicated by many researchers, child­

ren are still finding time to read books, in spite of television. In the

West Virginia study, the heavy TV viewers among the elementary school

children also did the greatest amount of book reading. On the junior and

senior high school levels, the differences in amounts of time devoted to

reading by heavy viewers and light viewers were comparatively small. Tele­

vision is not necessarily keeping most children away from books, but on

the contrary is no doubt stimulating many children to widen their reading

interests.

Parents who fear that television will reduce the amount of reading

done by their children should see to it that the children have plenty of

good reading material at hand and should encourage the reading interests

that television may awaken in the child. In addition, teachers can call

attention to the more worthwhile television programs and suggest reading

to go along with the televiewing. Thus, television programs designed

primarily for entertainment can also serve an educational purpose-

Television has not seriously affected the amount of newspaper read-

ing done by most children. Some researchers have found that children

with TV available read the newspaper more than do those without tele­

vision. In the West Virginia study, it was found that more often than

not the heavy TV viewers spent more time reading the newspaper than did

the light viewers. Television makes many children more aware of the

world situation and more alert to their environment than they would

otherwise be.

On the other hand, there is reason to believe, from the evidence in

the data of this study, that television may be interfering with the school 196 homework of some children, and hence hampering their academic achieve­ ment . The girls in the West Virginia study gave more time to homework and less to television than did the boys. On the whole, their academic achievement was greater than that of the boys. But perhaps it would have been anyway, without television being a factor. The junior and senior high school boys (as a group) who gave less time to television put in more time doing homework. However, if these boys had spent less time watching television they would not necessarily have devoted correspond­ ingly more time to their homework. All children who were on the high level of academic achievement were giving more time to homework than were those on the low level. The implication here is that parents should limit their children's TV viewing and see to it that the homework is done first, before the child is allowed to watch television.

Children now spend less time on movie-going and see fewer movies in theatres than in the 1950’s. Those in this study who had low academic achievement records saw more movies in a given period of time than did the children on the high achievement level. No doubt some of the time that children now devote to televiewing is equivalent to the time that similar children once gave to attending movie theatres. With many child­ ren, televiewing has largely replaced movie-going. Considering the sub­ ject matter of many of the motion pictures today, the children are prob­ ably better off watching television.

Apparently, the television programs that parents least want their children to watch are the very programs that the children indicate as their favorites. Evidently the children must be watching these programs or they wouldn't be likely to name them as favorites. The implication 197 here is that most children are watching what they please. Studies of adult televiewing support the conclusion that in most homes the whole family watch very much the same kind of programs. This and other in­ vestigations show that the types of programs preferred generally are those containing physical action and comedy.

At the present time, television serves as a medium of education and information only in a minor capacity, incidental, to that of entertain­ ment. It will probably remain so, for many years to come. Those who wish to use television as a means of conveying enlightenment to the gen­ eral viewer, outside of the classroom situation, should bear this in mind.

Probably the most effective way to educate and inform the public through the medium of television will be to include the educational materials within the framework of the accepted popular entertainment program forms.

Possibilities for further investigation

While a great deal of detailed information was presented in this paper regarding amounts of time that a certain group of West Virginia children gave to various communications media and, in addition, regard­ ing their television program preferences, the results of the study re­ ported here suggest further possible investigations.

There would be some value in studying a much smaller but carefully selected sample of the children in the same schools, with interviews in depth in each home represented. It is possible that in this way more accurate and more varied information could be secured from the respond­ ents. Data concerning the parents could be added to that applying to 198 children of school age. Economic and social factors might be considered.

Possible relationships between children's use of communications media and that of their parents might be discovered.

A study could be made to determine whether, and to what extent, the content of television programs stimulates new interests in reading and in hobbies, for instance, on the part of school-age children- More de­ tailed information about the manner in which children spend their time while not in school might have some bearing on their use of the communi­

cations media.

Researchers could study the extent to which the teachers of these

children use television (viewed in the home) to arouse the children's

interest in reading and in acquiring further information. Many tele­

vision programs deal with areas of human experience that could be studied

profitably by school children. These would include historical periods,

geographic locations, famous men and women, scientific concepts, social

and economic problems, and the like.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine the full extent of

television's influence on children, just as it is to trace the effect of

reading on the child. Whether the material that children see and hear

on television (or hear on radio) is, in any instance, beneficial or harm­

ful cannot really be precisely assessed. Children receive much education

and information from radio and television. Some of it may be harmful,

depending upon the child himself and his environmental influences.

But a great deal that the child takes in through exposure to all of

the mass media benefits him by adding to his knowledge of the world. In

this way, the mass media serve a useful purpose in the education of every 199 child. Perhaps the many hours that children spend in front of the TV set are not entirely the waste of time or undesirable influence that many people would have us believe.

However, the entire effect of the mass media, especially radio, television, movies, comic books, and newspapers, on children needs further study. Television in particular, because it has been vulnerable to much adverse criticism and because so much time is given to it by children, is still a vital area of investigation and worthy of the at­ tention of researchers. APPENDIX A

FORM OF QUESTIONNAIRE

1 9 6 1

200 201

(FRONT)

QUESTIONNAIRE - RADIO AND TV LISTENING, AND READING, ETC. (R. 1 . I w n « i |

A** S fi (Please do NOT write in this space) llowe Room School Grade _ II _____ Number ______(Answer) How many Television sets In good working order are there In your boom ? ...... , ,...... Ilow stoch tine did you spend listening to radio yesterday! (Nunbcr of quarter-hour* or M-minute periods. EXAMPLE: 1 hour equals 4 quarter-hours.) ...... How many quarter-boats did you spend watching television yesterday?...... Ilow nany quarter-hour* did you spend reeding newspapers yesterday?...... How nany quarter-hours did you spendreeding we golines yesterday?...... How wany quarter-hours did you spend rending heelra (NOT conics) ye*t*tdey? ...... How many quarter-hours did you spend reeding conickeeks y e s te rd a y ?...... How nany quarter-hours did you spend going to the nevtes yesterday?...... How nany quarter-hours did you put in on "Hone work” yesterday? ...... How many tines have you gone to a mevle In the past four w eeks?...... How nany keeks (NOT conics) hove you read dining the post sin m onths? ...... List below any programs that your parents prefer that you don't watch (or hear)

List below any programs that your parents encourage you to watch (or hear)

PLEASE INDICATE BELOW YOUR TELEVISION PROGRAM PREPERENCES, etc.

None e? Program Degree of Liking Who Tunes In?

After each program listed below, put a check That is Watch I do not Don’t I usually U sually nark (v3 In one of the three columns under one of my sometimes, like th is know or tunc in tuned in by Degree el Liking. favorite but n et a program don’t this pro- others in If you arc net familiar with the program, check programs favorite watch gram family Coluasn 4. Under Wtie Tunas Inf put a check mark in Column 1 or 2, according to your answer to the q u estio n . (1) (2) (3) (4) (I) (2)

Aeuaasms Ad veermss la Paradise Alcoa Preseats Alfred Hitchcock Aady Griffith Ansel Baseball games Basketball gnaws Bell Tclaphoaa Hoar Boa ansa Bowl lag (Betle Jackpot) Btlag Up Baddy Brinkley - News Captain Kangaroo Cheyoaae Chtiaioeher* Danny Thomas Penels the Menace Ed Sullivan Ernie Ford Eyewitness to History Father Knows Best Face the Natioa (Plciae continue check Inn on OTHER SIDE) 2 0 2

(BACK)

PLtA ftI IMWCATI RELOW YOUR TRLBVtftlOM PROGRAM PRIPRRIHCIft, s ts .

Man* «i P n y m P sfte o s t L lk h tf Whs Tenss In?

After each frofiui listed below, pot t check T hat Is Watch I do not D on't 1 usually Usually nark (/) In one of the three colonies seder owe of my iSM llnti, like this know or tarte in tuned In by Do free of Liking. favorite hot not a p ro g ra . don’t th is pro- other* In If you are n et level tier w ith the progreat, check prograM favorite watch great r . . i i r C o Isohi 4. this one Under Whs Tones In? pet a check saik la Colevn 1 or 2, according to your answer to the q u estion. (1) (I) (3) (4) (1) (Z) Filet at oner Football |ia tl Garry Moot* Groecbo Mare O vaam tv Hawaiian Eye Hare Gsa, Till Trarel Hennessey Hone Kong Pen Got A Sec tat Huckleberry Ho and Jack Beany Jack Pant Shew Laws Unto Mr Feet Lasnla Lets Merle* (After It h a ) Lawrence Walk Loretta Ywai Maverick Meet the Press My Slater Eileen My Three Sons Naked City National Velvet Nation’s Fatnte News (U ’OO p.at.) Oral Roberta Perry Coevo Perry Msaoa Peter Gena Price lo Right Rawhide Red Skelton Reete 66 77 Sennet Strip Shari Lewis Shirley T enf le Three Stooge* Thriller Twentieth Ceatery Twilight Zone U, S. Steel Hour UntonchaMes Wagon Trnla Walt Disney (Adventure) What’s My Line 1 Wyatt Eatp APPENDIX B

Table Zk - Number of Usable Questionnaires Returned From Each Qrade and School

Table 25 - Totals of Usable Questionnaires From Monongalia and Preston Counties Combined

203 TABLE 24

NUMBER OF USABLE QUESTIONNAIRES RETURNED FROM EACH GRADE AND SCHOOL

Grades: 1 2 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 TOTALS Cassville El-Jr Boys 6 17 13 15 9 8 15 14 8 105 Girls 6 11 14 13 13 6 14 14 12 ■■ 103 208

Clay-Battelle Boys u * —— — 21 20 32 33 29 38 173 Girls 22 29 37 30 28 24 170 343 Evansdale Elen. Boys 5 4 7 7 9 32 64 Girls 3 3 6 4 9 30 =■— 55 119 Morgantown H. S Boys — 174 157 158 489 Girls — — __ 201 180 145 526 1015 Osage El-Jr Boys 12 Ik 14 13 20 24 15 14 14 — 140 Girls 10 11 10 9 19 12 16 15 17 — 119 259 Riverside El~Jr Boys 10 17 15 29 23 29 52 43 30 — 248 Girls 14 16 12 31 19 25 52 42 51 — 262 510 Waitman-Barbe Boys 5 9 8 11 13 12 33 32 18 146 - Girls 6 8 13 15 11 10 22 30 19 — —— 134 280

— — St. Francis EJ. Boys 23 2k 36 32 30 29 25 19 — 218 Girls 13 20 19 21 26 17 23 25 — —— 164 382

St. Francis H. S. Boys -■ ------— — 22 24 19 15 80 - - 167 Girls — ---- 31 18 21 17 87

__ -- — 143 Kingwood Elenu Boys 8 18 22 29 36 30 M O ^ Girls 8 32 16 21 30 32 — 139 282 Kingwood Jr^Sen. Boys - - —— 55 54 71 52 40 29 301 Girls - - - 4l 48 62 49 30 39 269 570

TOTALS» Boys 69 103 115 136 140 164 221 196 195 283 245 240 2107 204 Girls 60 101 90 114 127 132 190 203 229 298 259 225 2028 4135 129 2o5 205 250 257 295 5 n 399 525 581 504 555 5135 TABLE 25

TOTALS OF USABLE QUESTIONNAIRES FROM MONONGALIA AND PRESTON COUNTIES COMBINED

Monongalia County Preston County Both Counties Totaled

Boys Girls Total BO£S Girls Total Boys Girls Total

£ Grades 1 to 3 239 195 434 48 56 104 287 251 538

Grades 4 to 6 3^5 290 635 95 83 178 440 373 813

Grades 7 to 9 *02 471 903 180 151 531 612 622 1234

Grades 10 to 12 647 664 1311 121 118 239 768 782 1550

TOTALS? 1663 1620 3283 444 4o8 852 210? 2028 4135

£ Grades 1 to 3* inclusive, etc<> APPENDIX C

Table 26 - Average Number of Television Sets in the Home in 1958 &nd in 1961, as Reported by Children in Various Grade-Placement Groups

Table 27 - Percentage of Children on Each Level of Academic Achievement Who Reported One or More Television Sets in the Home

2 0 6 20?

TABLE 26

AVERAGE NUMBER OF TELEVISION SETS IN THE HOME IN 1938 AND 1961, AS REPORTED BY CHILDREN IN VARIOUS GRADE-PLACEMENT GROUPS®

The figures below represent averages for all children in each group. Since the entire sample of almost *+,000 children who supplied this information included several children from certain families, the data are somewhat skewed in favor of families with more than one child.

1958 Study 1961 Study

Monon. Co. Monon. Co. Preston Co. Both Counties

Grade- No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Placement of of of of of of of of Groups Resp. Sets Resp. Sets Resp. Sets Resp. Sets

All grades 2 9 9 6 1 .0 0 3283 1.05 852 .92 *♦135 1.02

Grades 1-3 331 .89 *+3*+ .9** 10*+ .89 538 .93 *+-6 563 .87 635 1.0*+ 178 .91 813 1.01 7-9 788 .97 903 1.00 331 .96 123** 1.00 10-12 131*+ 1.09 1311 1.10 239 .90 1550 1 .0 7

aIn contrast to the figure of one television set per home, the aver­ age number of radio sets to each home was approximately two sets, ranging from about one and a half sets per home for children in the first three grades to almost two and a half sets in homes of children in senior high school. No doubt many of the older children have their own personal radio sets. In 1958, in Monongalia County, from 9*+# to 98# of the fami­ lies had one or more radios in the home, and from 72# to 80# of the children reported having radios in the family automobiles. The percent­ age of homes with television sets increased from slightly more than 90# in 1938 to roughly 95# 1961, in Monongalia County. For Preston County the average percentage1of homes with one or more television sets was be­ tween 89 and 90 per cent. It should be kept in mind that all of the data above are based upon homes where there are children of school age, and are not representative of the entire population of the two counties. 208

TABLE 27

PERCENTAGE OF CHILDREN ON EACH LEVEL OF ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT WHO REPORTED ONE OR MORE TELEVISION SETS IN THE HOMEa

Monongalia County Preston County

Number of Percentage Number of Percentage Children With TV Children With TV Level of Achievement:

High 781 96#b 182 9*+#

Average 1272 95# 35*+ 90#

Low 1070 9*+# 286 86#

TOTAL 3123 95# 822 89#

^ h e question was answered by 39*+5 children out of a total sample of *+135 children.

^Percentages are approximate (to the nearest whole number).

NOTE: It should be kept in mind that all of the data above are based upon homes where there are children of school age and are not representative of the entire population of the two counties. APPENDIX D

Table 28 - Number and Percentage of All Children in Each Grade- Placement Group on Each Level of Mental Ability and Academic Achievement

209 210

TABLE 28

NUMBER AND PERCENTAGE OF ALL CHILDREN IN EACH GRADE-PLACEMENT GROUP ON EACH LEVEL OF MENTAL ABILITY AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

BOYS - MENTAL ABILITY High Average Low GRADE- PLACEMENT All No. of Per No- £f Per No. of Per GROUPS Boys Boys cent Boys cent BO£8 cent All grades 2051* 460 22.4# 1079 52.6# 512 25.0# Grades 1-3^ 253 52 20.6 129 51.0 72 28.5 4-6 433 121 27.9 213 49-2 99 22.9 ' 7-9 602 98 16.3 314 52.2 190 31-6 10-12 763 189 24.8 423 55-4 151 19.8 BOYS - ACHIEVEMENT All grades 2102 368 17.5 835 39.7 899 42.8 Grades 1-3 283 53 1 8 .7 158 55.8 72 25.4 4-6 439 94 21.4 181 41.2 164 37.4 7-9 612 92 15.0 257 42.0 263 43.0 10-12 768 129 16.8 239 31.1 400 5 2 .1 GIRLS - MENTAL ABILITY High Average Low All No. of Per No. of Per No. of Per Girls Girls cent Girls cent Girls cent All grades 1977 576 29.1 1039 5 2 .6 362 18.3 Grades 1-3 227 63 2 7 -8 123 54.2 41 1 8 .1 4-6 364 133 36.5 176 48.4 55 15.1 7-9 611 16? 27.3 307 50.2 137 22.4 10-12 775 213 27.5 433 55.9 129 1 6 .6 GIRLS - ACHIEVEMENT All grades 2021 6l6 30.5 865 42.8 540 26.7 Grades 1-3 245 8 0 32.7 126 51-4 39 15.9 4-6 372 130 34.9 166 44.6 76 20.4 7-9 622 169 27.2 288 46.3 165 26.5 10-12 782 237 30.3 2 8 5 36.4 260 33.2

aFigures in this column, in all groups below, apply only to children for whom data concerning mental ability and academic achievement were available•

^Grades 1 to 3 inclusive, etc. APPENDIX E

Table 29 - Percentages of All Children in Various Grade-Placement, Sex, and Mental Ability Groups Who Favored Tele­ vision Programs of Certain Types

Table 30 - Percentages of All Ghildren in Various Grade-Placement, Sex, and School Achievement Groups Who Favored Television Programs of Certain Types

211 2 1 2

TABLE 29

PERCENTAGES OF ALL CHILDREN IN VARIOUS GRADE-PLACEMENT, SEX, AND MENTAL ABILITY GROUPS WHO FAVORED TELEVISION PROGRAMS OF CERTAIN TYPES

GRADES 1-3

PROGRAM Mental Ability Mental I Ability TYPES All All Boys* High Axa* Low Girls® Low Number of respondents: 2 8 ? 52 129 72 250

Adult adventure 52% 28# 59% 21# 15# 22# 27# Adult western 45 41 52 30 23 31 35 O O Detective-police 21 18 24 18 10 19 23 Mystery & suspense 6 12 21 20 21 24 Audience part* & quiz1 2 7 9 10 7 10 15 Variety (incl. musical) 8 7 8 8 12 10 11 17 Featured comedians 24 29 24 23 22 15 23 31 Children's programs 51 51 51 49 54 53 55 51 "Slapstick" comedy 77 8? 77 7i 68 62 66 76 Dramatic shows 5 3 k 6 8 3 9 10 Late movies (11 P.M.) 5 0 5 6 2 2 2 2 Situation comedy 36 37 34 34 35 32 36 35 Sports broadcasts 16 !7 15 4 4 ? 7 Discussion & interview 2 0 2 2 2 0 3 4 Documentary 4 3 4 3 4 2 3 7 News broadcasts 6 5 4 6 6 3 7 9 Religious programs 6 ? 4 8 9 3 11 13 GRADES 4-6 Number of respondents: 440 121 213 99 373 133 176 55 Adult adventure 50 41 55 50 42 36 45 49 Adult western 58 50 60 64 48 40 49 60 Detective-police 40 33 41 46 36 33 36 41 Mystery & suspense 26 24 27 27 21 20 21 24 Audience part. & quiz 22 18 24 22 22 22 23 22 Variety (incl. musical) 15 12 15 17 16 16 17 17 Featured comedians 44 43 47 39 36 39 34 35 Children's programs 42 40 43 40 51 51 51 53 "Slapstick" comedy 73 76 7f 71 64 37 67 Dramatic shows it 9 14 20 iS“~ 14 19 24 Late movies (11 P.M.) 26 15 25 40 18 11 22 16 Situation comedy 45 48 46 39 52 55 52 48 Sports broadcasts 41 45 42 33 9 6 11 9 Discussion & interview 7 4 5 17 5 2 7 8 Documentary 15 12 17 16 10 9 10 11 News broadcasts 14 9 15 18 9 7 9 14 Religious programs 11 6 11 15 11 8 10 19

£ Includes some for whom no mental ability data axe available. 213

TABLE 29— Continued

GRADES 7-9 PBOGRAM Mental Ability Mental Ability TYPES All All Boys High Avg. Low Girls* High Avg. Low Number of respondents: bl2 ”98 314 190 623 157 307 137

Adult adventure 56% 49% 59% 55% 50% 48% 50% 53% Adult western 61 52 63 61 48 40 49 56 Detective-police 45 39 47 44 42 36 43 48 Mystery & suspense 40 3 0 28 29 28 29 Audience part. & quiz 18 18 16 21 18 16 19 19 Variety (incl. musical) 13 12 12 15 14 12 15 16 Featured comedians 44 48 42 46 37 38 38 34 Children*s programs 31 24 33 31 32 28 33 33 "Slapstick" comedy 66 61 68 64 39. 40 42 Dramatic shows l*+ 14 12 16 2 6 2 0 25 36 Late movies (11 P.M.) 30 25 31 32 29 22 28 39 Situation comedy 38 40 39 34 47 49 47 42 Sports broadcasts 42 45 37 14 14 14 14 Discussion & interview 5 5 4 7 4' 2 5 5 Documentary 17 23 16 18 11 8 13 10 News broadcasts 18 20 14 23 11 8 12 15 Religious programs 8 3 8 11 11 4 13 18 GRADES 1 0 -1 2 Number of respondents: 768 189 423 151 782 213 433 129

Adult adventure 46 39 49 47 41 36 42 46 Adult western 48 40 49 53 32 25 33 39 Detective-police 45 40 45 49 39 35 40 40 Mystery & suspense 33 3? 32 28 31 31 32 29 Audience part. & quiz 12 10 12 12 16 15 16 17 Variety (incl. musical) 12 12 12 13 18 18 17 20 Featured comedians 43 46 42 40 30 27 31 29 Children's programs 18 15 18 21 19 14 19 24 "Slapstick" comedy 48 42 30 52 23 14 26 26 Dramatic shows 14 12 13 17 33 33 33 35 Late movies (11 P.M.) 32 23 34 35 31 32 30 32 Situation comady 27 25 28 27 34 30 35 36 Sports broadcasts 43 44 43 43 11 10 11 10 Discussion & interview 5 6 4 5 5 5 4 9 Documentary 19 23 18 18 12 16 10 10 News broadcasts 26 30 25 26 22 25 21 19 Religious programs 5 1 5 8 8 3 9 16 £ Includes some for whom no mental ability data are available. 214

TABLE 30 PERCENTAGES OF ALL CHILDREN IN VARIOUS GRADE-PLACEMENT, SEX, AND SCHOOL ACHIEVEMENT GROUPS WHO FAVORED TELEVISION PROGRAMS OF CERTAIN TYPES

GRADES 1=1 PROGRAM Achievement Achievement TYPES All All Boysa High Avg. Low Girlsa High Avg. Low Number of respondents: 2S7 55 158 72 250 "SO 126 39

Adult adventure 32% 50% 29% 40% 21% 16% 21% 35% Adult western k5 k3 42 54 50 25 31 39 Detective-police 21 20 19 2 6 18 12 18 29 Mystery & suspense 9 10 7 12 7 ? 6 15 Audience part. & quiz 8 8 6 10 10 7 10 16 Variety (incl. musical) 8 7 7 10 12 9 11 19 Featured comedians 2k 24 25 26 22 17 21 36 Children's programs 51 50 50 55 5k 55 53 5k "Slapstick" comedy 78 68 77 81 7f? 6? 67 U Dramatic shows 5 5 k 8 8 4 11 8 Late movies (11 P.M.) 5 2 6 6 2 1 2 3 Situation comedy 56 55 55 57 55 55 35 35 Sports broadcasts 16 2? 11 18 4 ? 4 6 Discussion & interview 2 1 2 2 2 0 3 6 Documentary 4 6 5 5 4 2 3 10 News broadcasts 6 5 4 10 6 2 8 11 Religious programs 6 4 6 8 9 4 11 1? GRADES 4-6 Number of respondents: kko 94 181 164 373 130 166 76

Adult adventure 50 44 51 52 42 36 45 46 Adult western 58 52 57 65 48 41 49 56 Detective-police 40 54 40 k3 36 33 37 39 Mystery 8c suspense 26 22 29 25 21 19 21 Audience part. 8t quiz 22 19 25 23 22 21 24 19 Variety (incl. musical) 15 15 15 18 16 15 17 18 Featured comedians kk 42 47 42 36 58 35 35 Children's programs 42 42 40 43 51 49 52 49 "Slapstick" comedy 75 76 74 70 64 62 6 5 67 Dramatic shows 14 9 10 21 18 13 20 22 Late movies (11 P.M.) 26 17 25 54 18 13 20 21 Situation comedy 45 47 47 41 52 56 50 51 Sports broadcasts 41 48 42 55 9 7 11 8 Discussion 8c interview 7 5 6 12 5 2 () 11 Documentary 15 15 16 16 10 9 10 14 News broadcasts 14 8 14 16 9 5 8 18 Religious programs 11 7 9 14 11 7 10 18 a . . Includes some for whom no achievement data are available. 215 TABLE 30— Continued

GRADES 7-9 PROGRAM Achievement Achievement TYPES All^ A n a Boys High Avg. Low Girls High Avg. Low m h h h s s u m s n s m r Number of respondents: 612 92 257 2S3 623 159 558 155

Adult adventure 5636 48# 3396 60# 50# 47# 50* 53% Adult western 61 30 60 65 48 40 47 58 Detective-police 45 38 kk 49 42 37 42 47 Mystery & suspense . . . PP ^k 31 28 28 27 ?1 Audience part. & quiz 19 17 18 18 18 17 20 Variety (incl. musical) 13 12 11 15 14 12 15 17 Featured comedians 44 46 kk 43 37 37 38 34 Children's programs 31 2k 30 34 32 27 33 34 "Slapstick" comedy 66 60 6? 68 39 P1 ?? 48 Dramatic shows 14 9 13 16 26 19 26 3^ Late movies (11 P.M.) 30 18 33 32 29 20 27 40 Situation comedy 38 kz 37 36 47 47 47 45 Sports broadcasts 42 4Q 45 i* 14 !7 1? 14 Discussion & interview 5 k k 7 4 3 5 5 Documentary 17 20 15 18 11 11 12 11 News broadcasts 18 16 14 22- 11 8 12 13 Religious programs 8 k 6 12 11 P 12 16 GRADES 10-12 Number of respondents: 768 129 239 400 782 237 285 260

Adult adventure 46 36 46 49 41 36 44 45 Adult western 48 37 48 51 32 25 33 36 Detective-police 45 38 46 46 39 34 39 42 Mystery & suspense 33 _ ?2 31 31 29 ?2 Audience part. & quiz 12 10 12 12 16 i4 17 17 Variety (incl. musical) 12 10 13 13 18 17 17 20 Featured comedians 43 43 47 40 30 29 29 30 Children's programs 18 Ik 18 19 19 13 19 23 "Slapstick" comedy 48 P 1* 51.... 23 16 25 28 Dramatic shows Ik 10 15 15 33 30 34 35 Late movies (11 P.M.) 32 23 31 34 31 28 29 35 Situation comedy 27 23 28 28 34 29 34 38 Sports broadcasts .42__ *+? 46 42 11 10 12 9 Discussion & interview 3 3 5 5 5 4 6 5 Documentary 19 19 21 18 12 13 13 10 News broadcasts 26 23 28 26 22 2 5 19 21 Religious programs 3 2 P 6 8 4 7 14

aIncludes some for whom no achievement data are available. BIBLIOOHAPHY

216 BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. BOOKS

Bogart, Leo, The Age of Television. New York: Frederick Ungar Publish­ ing Co., 1956.

Himmelweit, Hilde T., Oppenheim, A. N., and Vince, Pamela. Television and the Child. London: Oxford University Press, 1958*

Schramm, Wilbur, Lyle, Jack, and Parker, Edwin B. Television in the Lives of Our Children. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1961.

Steiner, Qary. The People Look at Television. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963.

Sterner, Alice Parvin. Radio, Motion Pictures, and Reading Interests. New York: Columbia University (Bureau of Publications, Teachers College), 1947. (Published Doctoral dissertation)

B. PERIODICALS

Balogh, Joseph K. "Television Viewing Habits of High School Boys," Educational Research Bulletin, 38:66-71, March 11, 1959*

Besco, Galen S. "Television and Its Effects on Other Related Interests of High School Pupils," English Journal, 41:151-52, March, 1952.

Bradway, B. M. "High School Students' TV Habits," Educational Digest, 31:10-12, October, 1951-

"Children's TV Loyalties Pinpointed," Broadcast-Telecast Magazine, 50:4-2, May 28, 1956.

Clark, Weston R. "Radio Listening Activities of Children," Journal of Experimental Education, 8:44—48, 1944.

. "Radio Listening Habits of Children," Journal of Social Psy­ chology. 12:131-49, 1940.

Coffin, Thomas E. "Television's Effect on Leisure-Time Activities," Journal of Applied Psychology, 32:550-58, 1949*

217 218

Flierl, Nina T. "Favorite TV Program*— A Springboard for Pupil Reading," Senior Scholastic, 77*12T-13T, October 3* I960.

Qreenstein, Jack. "Iffeet of Television Upon Elementary School Grades," Journal of Educational Research. 48i161-76, 1954.

Helsler, Florence. "A Comparison of Comio Book and Non-Comic Book Readers of the Elementary School," Journal of Educational Re­ search, 40*458-64, 1947.

Lazarus, Arnold L. "Pupils' TV Habits," Educational Leadership. 13:241-42, January, 1956.

Lewis, P. "TV and Teen-Agers," Educational Screen. 28t159-61, 1949*

Lyness, Paul I. "The Place of the Mass Media in the Lives of Boys and Girls," Journalism Quarterly. 29:43-54, 1952.

Morgan, C. M., and Straker, E. I. "Out-of-School Listening Habits of Vigo County School Children," Teachers College Journal. 10:112-15* May, 1939.

Northey, William A. "Does Television Affect Homework?" The Clearing House, 36:283, January, 1962.

Riley, John W., Cantwell, Frank V.t and Ruttiger, Katherine F. "Some Observations on the Social Effects of TV," Public Opinion Quarterly. 13:223-34, 1949.

Schramm, Wilbur, Lyle, Jack, and Parker, Edwin B. "Patterns in Children's Reading of Newspapers," Journalism Quarterly. 37:35-40, I960.

Scott, Lloyd F. "A Study of Children's TV Interests," California Journal of Educational Research. 4:162-64, September, 1953*

______. "Television and School Achievement," Phi Delta Kappan. 38 :25-28, October, 1956.

Strang, R. and Witty, P. National Parent Teacher. "You and TV," 54:8-10, November, 1959.

Sweetser, Frank L., Jr. "Home Television and Behavior: Some Tentative Conclusions," Public Opinion Quarterly. 19*79-84, Spring, 1955*

Tarbet, Donald G. "The Televiewing Habits of Pupils," The Clearing House, 30:485-87, April, 1956.

"Teacher-Opinion Poll," National Education Association Journal, 49*6, December, I960. 219

Wells, C. A., and Lynch, T. L. "Amount of Free Reading Engaged in by Intermediate Group Pupils Who Have Viewed Television for One Year or More," Journal of Educational Research, 47:*+73-77, February, 195**.

Witty, Paul A. "Comics, Television, and Our Children," Today1s Health, 33:18-21, February, 1955.

______, "Television and the High School Student," Education, 72:242-51, December, 1951.

. "Televiewing by Children and Youth," Elementary English, 35T103-13, February, 1961.

_ _ _ _ _ and Kinsella, Paul J, "A Report on Televiewing in 1961," Elementary English, 39:24-32, January, 1962.

Wolf, A. W. H. "TV, Movies, Comics, Boon or Bane to Children?" Parents Magazine, 36:46-48, April.. 1961.

Maccoby, Eleanor E. "Television: Its Impact on School Children," Public Opinion Quarterly, 15:421-44, 1951.

McDonagh, Edward C. "Television and the Family," Sociology and Social Research, 35:115-22, November-December, 1950.

McGinnis, W. C. "Now It's Television," The Journal of Education, 133:152-5**, May, 1950.

C. MONOGRAPHS, PAMPHLETS, REPORTS

Bailyn, Lotte. "Mass Media and Children: A Study of Exposure Habits and Cognitive Effects," Psychological Monographs, 73:1-48, 1959.

Battin, Tom G. "The Use of the Diary and Survey Method Involving the Questionnaire-Interview Technique to Determine the Impact of Tele­ vision on School Children in Regard to Viewing Habits and Formal and Informal Education," Abstracts of Theses in the Field of Speech, VIII. Edited by Clyde W. Dow. Speech Monographs, 20:135* June, 1953.

"Characteristics and Program Preferences of Television Listeners in Columbus, Ohio - April 1959*" Radio-Television Audience Studies - New Series No. 2 - Department of Speech, The Ohio State University, (Mimeographed). 220

Clarke, W. J. Of Children and Television. Report of Research conducted by Xavier University, prepared under the supervision of the Graduate Division, 1951.

Cunningham and Walsh. "Videotown, 19^8-57." Report of a study by the advertising firm of Cunningham and Walsh, New York City, 1958* (Mimeographed).

Koch, Freda Postle. "Children's Habits in the Columbus, Ohio, Area: A Study of the Relations of Children and Youth to Television in a Saturated Area," Published by Franklin County, Ohio Section, White House Conference on Children and Youth, 1952. (P. 9)

"Listener Availability and Radio News and Music Preferences in Columbus, Ohio - April 1959*" Radio-Television Audience Studies - New Series No. 1 - Department of Speech, The Ohio State University. (Mimeo­ graphed)

D. DISSERTATIONS AND THESES

Appell, Clara T. " An Exploration of Television's Impact Upon Middle Class Family Life: As Measured by an Opinion Questionnaire of 150 Families." Ph.D. dissertation, Teachers College, Columbia Uni­ versity, 1 9 5 9*

Bell, Anna Fitzhugh. "Television Viewing Habits of Palo Alto Families." Master's thesis, School of Education, Stanford University, 195^°

Clark, Herbert Arnold. "A Study of Adolescent Radio Listening." Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University, 1950.

Clark, Weston R. "Radio Listening Activities of Children in Washington, D. C." Ph.D. thesis, George Washington University, 1938.

Gessleman, Daisy B. "Reading Activities of Third Grade Children From Television Homes as Contrasted With Children From Non-Television Homes." Master's thesis, University of Utah, 1951.

Goldberg, Herman D. "Television Viewing and Children's Leisure Time." Ph.D. dissertation, Teachers College, Columbia University, 195^-

Guth, Raymond Edward. "A Survey of the Radio Listening Habits and Preferences of Students in the Junior and Senior High Schools of a Midwestern City." Master's thesis, State University of Iowa, 19^9* 221

Luker, Henry E. "An Analysis of the Reading and Listening Habits of 2*t0 Texas Junior and Senior High School Students." Master's thesis. State University of Iowa, 19^9*

Lyness, Paul I. "Reading, Listening, and Viewing Behavior of Young People in Qrades 3* 5» 7, 9, and 11 in the Des Moines Public Schools." Ph.D. dissertation, State University of Iowa, 1950*

McKay, John Price. "The Radio as a Factor in the Lives of Sixth Grade Children." Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Missouri, 1939.

Muellen, Theophil Konrad. "Influence of Television Ownership and View­ ing on Personality and School Achievement." Ph.D. thesis, Western Reserve University, 1955-

Siudslnski, Edward S. "A Study of Television Interests and Viewing Habits and a Comparison of These With the Interests and Habits in Radio, Motion Pictures, and Reading, As Shown by Students in Selected Senior High Schools in Metropolitan New York." Ph.D. dissertation, Fordham University, 1938* 2 vols.

Wolfe, Frances Bond. "Television: A Study of Its Effect Upon the Read­ ing Habits of a Group of Mansfielders." Master's thesis, The Ohio State University, 1938* AUTOBIOGRAPHY

It Robert Barker Burrows, was born December 2, 1905i in Chehalis,

Washington, where I received my elementary and secondary school educa­ tion in the public schools. My undergraduate training took place at the College (University) of Puget Sound, which granted me the Bachelor of Arts degree in 1928. At the University of Washington I earned the

Master of Arts degree in Speech and Drama in 19^0. For eleven of the

fourteen years from 1928 to 19^2, I taught in public secondary schools

in the state of Washington. The other three years (1929-32) were spent

in advertising and selling.

In 19^2 I left a teaching position in Lincoln High School, Seattle,

to become a member of the Dramatic Art Department faculty in the Uni­

versity of North Carolina, where I remained for four years. Then fol­

lowed a year at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, devoted to studying interior

design. After teaching the next year at the University of Missouri, I

joined the Speech Department faculty of West Virginia University, where

I am at present an associate professor.

I was allowed a two-year leave-of-absence in 1955-37 for graduate

study in radio, television, and theatre at The Ohio State University.

While there, I served as a teaching fellow in Speech, and later as

assistant to Dr. I. Keith Tyler, the Director of the Office of Educa­

tional Broadcasting.

2 2 2 223

In the summer of I960, I received a Faculty Summer Fellowship from the West Virginia University Foundation, which made possible a three- months study of broadcasting in Britain.

The requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree were completed at The Ohio State University in the summer of 1963.