This study reviews the literature on the effects of television viewing on children, examines the preferences of children for television programs and commercials, and analyzes selected characteristics of these programs. A stratified sample of 1,416 students in grades 1-6 in six eastern states was polled on their viewing preferences in November of…

The relationship between younger and older children's stated preferences for television characters and their conceptions of those characters was investigated among students in the second and fifth grades. Of particular interest was the possible effect of children's preferences on the developmental shift from external to internal attributes. Using…

This paper discusses research on age related aspects of children's processing and comprehension of the narrative content of family oriented television programs. In one study, the temporal integration necessary to make inferences about audiovisually presented information was examined in 254 second, fifth and eighth grade children. Subjects were…

This report, the second in a series of six reports on television advertising and children, presents the results from a series of experimental studies designed to test children's intentional and incidental learning from television commercials. A total of 400 elementary school students of varying socioeconomic status participated in the study, with…

This study explores the cognitive dimensions used by children in differentiating among television characters. Similarity judgments between all possible pairs of 14 television characters were analyzed using INDSCAL, a multidimensional scaling method which allows for individual or subgroup differences in scaling solutions. By linking the results of…

The roles of summative and formative evaluation as scientific approaches to theory building in instructional television programing for children are examined through a review of research studies. The author contends that the bias toward summative evaluation has been premature in an area of inquiry, where most of the variables are yet to be…

Investigates the use of closed captioning as reading material in the classroom environment of hearing children, both remedial and regular. (CRH)

A study aimed at developing a methodology for isolating and analyzing the value content of television programs is described and implications for education discussed. Three programs popular with children were found to present positive and negative values with equal frequency, though antisocial values were presented with greater intensity. (MJL)

When parents were sent television viewing guides listing (1) programs containing violent or otherwise antisocial behaviors, or (2) programs containing positive, prosocial behaviors, both groups of parents discouraged their children from watching some of the antisocial programs. Viewing guides sent to a third group, listing both antisocial and…

Suggests that a child's level of understanding of advertising is a product of family group interaction concerning consumer-related skills and other social experiences that the child brings to viewing situations. (Author/RL)

Describes a pilot television program, "Where Do You Work?" which was designed to contribute to each child's self-awareness and occupational awareness through the presentation of occupational role models. The production process and results of field testing are discussed. (CMV)

Children's visual attention to, and comprehension of, a television program was measured. A total of 64 children, equally distributed by sex, with 32 in kindergarten and 32 in fifth grade, were randomly assigned to one of four treatment conditions that crossed two levels of content cues with two levels of sound effects. The content cue conditions…

A study of 36 factors which could possibly limit the use of instructional television (ITV) in elementary schools consisted of an analysis of the responses to a questionnaire administered to 318 teachers who taught in kindergarten through grade six. Chi-square tests were computed for each factor in relationship to the average frequency of classroom…

A study explored the means by which children apply knowledge of the television medium and of the real world in distinguishing among the levels of reality and fantasy presented on television. Fifty-four second-, fourth-, and sixth-grade children were presented with a series of paired (reality/fantasy) television shows. They were asked to choose…