PBS Kids & Prairie Public on Media and Learning
Television and Video's Impact on Children’s Behavior and Learning
Over the past 20-30 years, many studies have measured the impact of television
on children and found it to be significant.Violence on television and
its impact on young children has been a particular concern. The evidence
from those correlational studies overwhelmingly shows consistent results:
viewing and/or preference for violent television is related to aggressive
attitudes, values and behaviors. But there is also a huge body of evidence
from educational research showing that students' learning retention increases
significantly when visual information and a variety of instructional methods
are used in the classroom--that video and television programs used in
the classroom are effective tools for engaging and reinforcing the learning
experience.
Dr. Faith Rogow of Insighters Educational Consulting puts it this way,
“Students remember visual information better than words. So video
can improve student comprehension and performance.”She goes on to
say that certainly the strongest learning experience comes from real life
experience or hand-on-activities but that a combination of hands-on-activities
with video increases learning recall significantly. Simply put: TELEVISION
AND VIDEO HAVE TREMENDOUS POWER TO IMPACT YOUR STUDENTS. Used appropriately
, they can positively affect children’s learning experiences and
dramatically increase learning retention. Used inappropriately, they may
have adverse affects on our kids. (see Rogow's entire response below)
In April, the newest television study on young children was released to
the general public. The study concluded, “Early television exposure
is associated with attentional problems at age seven. Efforts to limit
television viewing in early childhood may be warranted, and additional
research is needed."
PBS KIDS encourages caregivers to limit and supervise their childrens'
television viewing habits as well as interact with them during and after
approved programs. Studies have proven that educational television can
have a positive impact on children over the age of two, but there is no
conclusive research to date that supports whether television has a positive
or negative effect on children under age two-- a key stage in a child's
brain development. In addition to recommending that caregivers learn more
about the very important studies and findings from AAP, Annenberg and
Kaiser Family Foundation among others, PBS KIDS encourages parents and
caregivers to evaluate an individual child's stage rather than age to
help determine what might be best for the child. With a mandate to serve
and educate all of America's children, PBS KIDS shows are created with
experts to ensure they are developmentally sound and contribute to the
entire growth of the child -- the cognitive, emotional, social and physical
-- in a commercial-free environment.
Information on each show's goals and advice for parents is available here.
For more research on the effectiveness of using video in the classroom
go to the NETA Web
site.
View the entire Christakis study here.
Insighters Educational Consulting
Faith Rogow, Ph.D.
SINGLE STUDIES CANNOT BE CONCLUSIVE – In the world of science, results
need to be replicated in order to be considered reliable.
In the case of the Christakis study, despite some media claims, the findings
don’t “back up” some great body of research because there
is no existing body of research. Only a handful of studies have ever been
done on the relationship between TV viewing and attention span and the
findings are mixed. There is no scientific consensus on this issue.
WHEN RESEARCH FINDS CONTRADICTORY RESULTS, RESEARCHERS NEED TO BE ABLE
TO EXPLAIN THE CONTRADICTION - It is not enough to say “this is what
we found”, especially when others have found something different.
You need to explain why others’ work is unreliable and your conclusions
are definitive. The Christakis conclusions contradict earlier research
by Dan Anderson on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood indicating that viewing
Fred actually increased concentration levels. The study even contradicts
the recent Kaiser Family Foundation study on children, TV, and obesity,
which found that the content, not the amount of time spent viewing was
the determining factor in the impact of TV. In Christakis, time is the
major variable and content was not considered at all.
THERE NEEDS TO BE A LOGICAL MECHANISM TO EXPLAIN THE LINK BETWEEN CAUSE
& EFFECT. – You can’t just say that one thing causes another
without being able to explain, or at least give an educated guess, about
how it happens.
The Christakis explanation is based on an internal contradiction. He says
that the TV overstimulates developing brains, thus permanently re-wiring
them. Yet, the study does not take into account content of what was viewed.
Given that there are huge differences in the amount of information on
screen in various kinds of programs.
ALL UNITS OF MEASUREMENT NEED TO BE CLEAR AND PRECISE
Christakis specifically did not track children who have been clinically
diagnosed with an attention disorder. Instead, researchers interviewed
parents and asked them whether or not their seven-year-olds had attention
problems. They then asked parents to recall how much TV those children
viewed between ages 1-3. Not only is it likely that memory might not be
accurate, the study lacks any precision about what might constitute an
attention problem. Given current controversies about the percentage of
attention disorders that are real versus those that are merely misbehavior
or reflective of natural developmental stages, and given that many scholars
would argue that the nature of seven year olds is not to sit still for
the kinds of long time periods that we require of them and that parents
do not always have accurate information about child development (see the
Zero to Three study a couple of years back), the lack of clarity in this
study on what constitutes an attention problem is a critical flaw.
There is also no clear measurement of attention. In fact, many children
can pay attention for hours to something that they find engaging (hobbies,
video games, mastering a sports skill, etc.). What they haven’t learned
is how to pay attention to something that bores them. If you have ever
played peek-a-boo with a child in the seat in front of you on a plane,
you will know that you tire of the game long before they will! So if Christakis
is correct and TV is re-wiring kids’ brains, why can they pay attention
to some things and not others? It is just as likely that TV trains brains
to process information more quickly – not a bad thing in the digital
world. Don’t get me wrong here. I am not suggesting that we have
the evidence to prove that this is the case either. I only want to suggest
that there are other possible interpretations, even if you accept Christakis’
findings as accurate.
WHO BENEFITS? – When shaky, preliminary, or limited data is used
to make definitive or broad assertions, it is especially important to
ask who benefits from making these assertions. Blaming TV takes lots of
people off the hook. It minimizes other possible factors, ranging from
diet, lifestyles that require hours each day in a car (which for babies
& toddlers means strapped into a car seat and not moving), unsafe
neighborhoods that prevent outdoor play, parenting styles, lack of a living
wage, divorce and single-parent households, etc., etc., etc.
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