media and children's learning

8/14/2019 media and children's learning

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Media and Young Childrens Learning

VOL. 18 / NO. 1 / SPRING 2008 39


Heather L. Kirkorian, Ellen A. Wartella, and Daniel R. Anderson

SummaryElectronic media, particularly television, have long been criticized or their potential impact on

children. One area or concern is how early media exposure inuences cognitive development

and academic achievement. Heather Kirkorian, Ellen Wartella, and Daniel Anderson summa-

rize the relevant research and provide suggestions or maximizing the positive eects o media

and minimizing the negative eects.

One ocus o the authors is the seemingly unique eect o television on children under age two.

Although research clearly demonstrates that well-designed, age-appropriate, educational televi-

sion can be benefcial to children o preschool age, studies on inants and toddlers suggest that

these young children may better understand and learn rom real-lie experiences than they do

rom video. Moreover, some research suggests that exposure to television during the frst ew

years o lie may be associated with poorer cognitive development.

With respect to children over two, the authors emphasize the importance o content in mediat-ing the eect o television on cognitive skills and academic achievement. Early exposure to age-

appropriate programs designed around an educational curriculum is associated with cognitive

and academic enhancement, whereas exposure to pure entertainment, and violent content in

particular, is associated with poorer cognitive development and lower academic achievement.

The authors point out that producers and parents can take steps to maximize the positive eects

o media and minimize the negative eects. They note that research on childrens television

viewing can inorm guidelines or producers o childrens media to enhance learning. Parents

can select well-designed, age-appropriate programs and view the programs with their childrento maximize the positive eects o educational media.

The authors aim is to inorm policymakers, educators, parents, and others who work with

young children about the impact o media, particularly television, on preschool children, and

what society can do to maximize the benefts and minimize the costs.

www.utureochildren.org

Heather Kirkorian is a postdoctoral research associate at the University o MassachusettsAmherst. Ellen Wartella is a proessor,

executive vice chancellor, and provost at the University o CaliorniaRiverside. Daniel Anderson is a proessor at the University o

MassachusettsAmherst.


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40 THE FUTURE OF CHILDREN

S

ince television frst appeared in

the nations living rooms in the

middle o the twentieth century,

observers have voiced recurrent

concern over its impact on view-

ers, particularly children. In recent years,this concern has extended to other electronic

screen media, including computers and

video game consoles. Although researchers

still have much to learn, they have provided

inormation on the links between electronic

media, especially television, and childrens

learning and cognitive skills. The message is

clear: most (i not all) media eects must be

considered in light o media content. Withrespect to development, what children watch

is at least as important as, and probably more

important than, how much they watch.

In this article we review media research with

an emphasis on cognitive skills and academic

achievement in young children. We begin by

arguing that by age three, children are active

media users. We then discuss importantaspects o child development that highlight

the debate over whether children younger

than two should be exposed to electronic

media, emphasizing the apparent video

defcit o inants and toddlers in which they

learn better rom real-lie experiences than

they do rom video. Next we look at research

on media eects in three areas: associations

between media use and cognitive skills,particularly attention; experimental evidence

or direct learning rom educational media;

and associations between early media use and

subsequent academic achievement. We close

with some suggestions or both media

producers and parents or enhancing and

extending the potentially benefcial eects o

electronic media use in children, particularlythose who are o preschool age.

Children as Active Media UsersUntil the 1980s, social science researchers

had only an implicit theory o how viewers

watched television. Analysts regarded televi-

sion viewing, particularly by young children,

as being cognitively passive and under the

control o salient attention-eliciting eatureso the medium such as ast movement and

sound eects. Jerome Singer ormalized

this theory, proposing that the busyness o

television leads to a sensory bombardment

that produces a series o orienting responses

that intereres with cognition and reection.

As a result, children cannot process television

content and thereore cannot learn rom it.1

Others proposed similar views, arguing thatprograms such as Sesame Street provided

nothing that could be truly educational.2

Aletha Huston and John Wright proposed

a somewhat dierent theory o attention

to television, positing that the eatures o

television that drive childrens attention may

change as a child ages. Specifcally, they

claimed that in inancy, perceptually salienteatures o television such as movement and

sound eects drive attention. With age and

experience, however, children are less inu-

enced by perceptual salience and are able to

pay greater attention to inormative eatures

such as dialogue and narrative.3

Around the same time, Daniel Anderson and

Elizabeth Lorch created a complementarymodel o childrens attention to television,

drawing on evidence that television viewing is

Until the 1980s, social

science researchers had only

an implicit theory o howviewers watched television.


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VOL. 18 / NO. 1 / SPRING 2008 41

based on active cognition. They argued that

attention in children at least as young as two

is guided in large part by program content.

For example, preschool children pay moreattention to normal video clips than to those

that have been edited to make them incom-

prehensible, or example by using oreign

dubs o the video clips or randomizing the

order o shots within the clips.4 Moreover,

preschool-age children pay more attention to

childrens programs than to commercials even

though commercials are more densely packed

with ormal eatures.5 Children learn strate-gies or watching television by using their

knowledge o ormal eatures to guide atten-

tion.6 Finally, to understand typical programs

that use standard video montage such as cuts,

pans, and zooms, children engage in a variety

o inerential activities while viewing.7

Developmental ConsiderationsAlthough children are active viewers o

television by preschool age, research suggests

that this may not be true o inants and tod-

dlers. In this section we summarize research

on attention to, comprehension o, and learn-

ing rom video by children under two.

Attention to Electronic MediaUntil recently, research on media eects

TV programs Description Network

Barney & Friends Evoking a preschool setting, Barney the dinosaur teaches songs and dances to young

children. The show ocuses heavily on pro-social themes o sharing, empathizing, helping

others, and cooperating.

PBS

Blues Clues A human host encourages viewers at home to help solve a mystery with his dog riend,

Blue. The show is oten repetitive and encourages interactivity by asking viewers to ndclues and solve puzzles.

Nickelodeon

Bob the Builder Bob the Builder and his construction crew ace building, renovation, and repair chal-

lenges. The series oten ocuses on identiying a problem and making a plan to solve the

problem.

PBS

Dora the Explorer Featuring a bilingual Latina girl as the lead, Dora and her riends go on quests and help

others, encouraging viewers to help out through their own actions or by telling her what

she needs to know. In addition to highlighting traditional educational content such as

color and shapes, Dora teaches language by repeating words and phrases in English and

Spanish.

PBS

Sesame Street Combining puppetry, live action, and animation, this long-running series ocuses on a

wide range o topics including the alphabet, numbers, emotion management, confict reso-

lution, music, dance, and healthy liestyles.

PBS

Teletubbies Centering on our colorul characters, the Teletubbies speak in a baby-like language and

learn through play. The Teletubbies have televisions in their stomachs that show clips o

real children rom around the world. This program is targeted at toddlers.

PBS

Thomas & Friends Based on a book series, Thomas the Tank Engine and his engine riends learn to work

hard and be cooperative with each other.

PBS

The Wiggles Featuring a our-man singing group or children, episodes o The Wiggles include songs

and skits ocused on solving a problem. The Wiggles encourages children to sing songs

and move their bodies to music.

Disney

DVD series Description Producer

Baby Einstein Series content covers wide range o topics including music, art, language, poetry, and

science. Targeted at children starting at one month.

Disney

Brainy Baby Educational series highlighting range o subjects including alphabet, art, music, shapes,

oreign languages, and right and let brain development. Targeted at children starting at

nine months.

Brainy Baby

Company

Sesame Beginnings Features baby versions o the Muppets rom Sesame Street. The ocus is on encouraging

interactions between child and caregivers. Targeted at children starting at six months.

Sesame Workshop

Table 1. Selected Popular Television Programs and DVD Series for Young Children


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did not ocus on inants and toddlers. Early

studies reported that children younger than

two paid little attention to television, perhaps

because little television was produced or

them.8 The early 1990s, however, saw a virtual

explosion in the production o television

programs and videos designed or inants and

toddlers, and some research now suggests

that inants and toddlers pay close attention

to these videos.9 The increase in inant-

directed media products has led to debate

over whether inants and toddlers should be

exposed to electronic media. (See table 1 ora description o some popular media products

or young children.)

Although the underlying mechanisms driving

attention to video appear to be the same in

adults and inants as young as three months,

some research has ound dierences in the

ways in which younger and older viewers

watch proessionally produced video.10 Forexample, one study observed patterns o eye

movements in one-year-olds, our-year-olds,

and adults while they watched Sesame Street

and ound systematic dierences between

inants and older viewers. Inants visual fxa-

tions, or example, were more variable and

less sensitive to changes in content.11 In an-

other experiment, children aged six, twelve,

eighteen, and twenty-our months watchednormal and distorted segments oTeletubbies,

a program designed or viewers in this age

range.12 In one distorted video, shots were

randomly ordered; in the other, utterances

were reversed to produce backwards speech.

The experiment ound that although older

children (eighteen and twenty-our months)

looked or longer periods at the normal videosegment than at the distorted segments,

younger children (six and twelve months) did

not appear to discriminate between the two.

These fndings suggest that children under

eighteen months may not understand, and

thus learn rom, television in the same way as

do older children. In particular, they may be

inattentive to dialogue and may ail to inte-

grate comprehension across successive shotsin flmic montage.

Perception o VideoOne area o cognitive development inuenc-

ing childrens ability to learn rom television is

the perception o video itsel. Some research

suggests that children do not begin to discrim-

inate between television and real-lie events

until the early preschool years. For example,Leona Jaglom and Howard Gardner reported

qualitative observations o three children rom

age two to fve. They noted that at age two,

the children recognized that the television

world was contained within the television set

but not until they reached age three or our

did they realize that the television world could

not aect themthat, or example, television

characters could not enter their bedrooms.The authors concluded that sometime be-

tween ages two and three, children develop

an understanding o the representational

nature o video.13

In a similar vein, John Flavell and several

colleagues conducted a series o experiments

with preschool-age children to investigate the

distinction they made between real objectsand those represented on video. Younger

children were less likely to correctly answer

Research suggests that

children do not comprehend

the symbolic nature o

television until they reach

the preschool years.


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VOL. 18 / NO. 1 / SPRING 2008 43

questions regarding the uses o objects on

television. For example, three- and our-year-

old children saw a video image o a bowl o

popcorn and were asked i the popcorn would

all out o the bowl when the television set

was turned upside down. The our-year-oldsrecognized that televised images represent

real objects while three-year-olds ailed to

discriminate between televised images and

real objects, claiming that the popcorn would

all out o the bowl i the television was

turned upside down.14

Other research ocusing on childrens ability

to discriminate between televised programsand commercials has generally demonstrated

that children younger than fve cannot con-

sistently make that distinction.15 Even when

young children correctly label programs and

commercials, they may still think that the

commercial is part o or connected to the

program.16 Moreover, although children may

be able to identiy commercials based on

perceptual cues by age fve, their ability torecognize the persuasive intent and inherent

bias in advertising does not appear to develop

until age seven or eight.17

Together this research suggests that children

do not comprehend the symbolic nature

o television until they reach the preschool

years; evidence o comprehending and learn-

ing rom television at younger ages thanabout two-and-a-hal is meager. And it may

take several more years beore children are

able to make more specifc discriminations

with respect to program content.

Learning rom Electronic MediaMany inant-directed media products make

explicit claims about their educational value;

others, with titles such as Baby Einstein,keep their claims implicit. But analysts know

little about the extent to which children two

years and younger learn rom commercially

produced television programs. Experiments

on learning rom video have repeatedly ound

that inants and toddlers learn better rom

real-lie experiences than rom video. This

so-called video defcit disappears by aboutage three, when learning rom video becomes

robust.18

Support or the video defcit hypothesis

comes rom several lines o research. Studies

o language learning have demonstrated that

children aged two and older can learn vocab-

ulary rom television.19 Unlike older children,

however, inants and toddlers are less likely tolearn rom video. One experiment ound that

children younger than two learned vocabu-

lary better rom real-lie experiences than

rom equivalent video presentations.20 Other

experimental research demonstrates that

television models are less eective than live

ones in preserving discrimination o oreign

phonemes (speech sounds) in inants.21

Additional support or the video defcit

hypothesis comes rom studies examining

inants and toddlers ability to imitate specifc

actions, such as an adult demonstrating actions

with a puppet. In an experiment comparing

toddlers imitation o live and mediated (that

is, videotaped) models, Rachel Barr and

Harlene Hayne reported that twelve-, fteen-,

and eighteen-month-olds were more likely toperorm a behavior ater viewing unmediated,

live models than ater viewing either the video

model or no model. Only the oldest age group

was more likely to perorm the behavior ater

seeing the video model than the control group

ater seeing no modeled behavior.22 A more

recent experiment made similar fndings or

children at twenty-our and thirty months.23

It is clear that, unlike inants and toddlers,preschool-age children can readily imitate

behaviors seen on video.24


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Another line o research relevant to inants

and toddlers ability to transer rom video to

real-world problems involves object-retrieval

tasks. In these experiments, the child either

sees a toy hidden in an adjacent room through

a window or watches the toy being hiddenon television. In a study o children aged two

and two-and-a-hal, Georgine Troseth and

Judy DeLoache reported that both age groups

were able to fnd the toy on every trial when

the hiding event was seen through a window

but less oten when the event was watched

on television, particularly or the younger

participants.25 Kelly Schmitt and Daniel An-

derson reported similar fndings with overallperormance at chance levels (25 percent) or

children aged two and about 50 percent or

children aged two-and-a-hal in the television

task but nearly perect at both ages or the

window task. Three-year-olds did well on both

tasks.26 Marie Schmidt, Alisha Crawley-Davis,

and Daniel Anderson attempted to minimize

the inuence o perceptual cues and simpliy

the task in two experiments. In the frst, asticker was hidden underneath a cutout on

a elt-board that had the same dimensions

as the television screen. In the second, an

experimenter simply told the child, either

live or on closed-circuit television, where the

object was hidden. Perormance o two-year-

olds in both tasks was still at chance levels in

the television conditions.27 Georgine Troseth

and Judy DeLoache attributed this defcit toa poor understanding o symbolic representa-

tions or to prior expectations about television

as unreal. Recent work by Troseth shows

that i toddlers have interactive experiences

with televisioni, or example, they con-

verse with an experimenter via closed-circuit

videothe video defcit in the object-retrieval

task can be overcome.28

Overall, the bulk o the research supports

a video defcit or learning by inants and

toddlers even though it can be overcome

by an interactive relationship. Researchers

have not yet demonstrated any learning, or

lack o it, rom commercial baby videos. One

recent study evaluated the eect o a series

o baby videos designed to oster parent-childinteractions. Compared with parents who

watched a comparison series (Baby Einstein),

parents who watched videos rom the Sesame

Beginnings series showed more engaged

interactions with their twelve- to twenty-one-

month-old children i they had coviewed the

videos at home on multiple occasions.29 Al-

though there is as yet no evidence that babies

learn anything rom baby videos, apparentlycoviewing parents can.

To our knowledge no research has yet exam-

ined computer and interactive game use in

inants and toddlers, although these products

are now being developed or children as

young as six months o age and some parents

report that their inants and toddlers use

these media regularly. Based on a recent sur-vey o parents, the Kaiser Family Foundation

estimated that 61 percent o children under

age two use screen media (television, videos,

DVDs) on a typical day and 43 percent o

inants and toddlers watch television every

day.30 Given a relative dearth o empirical re-

search on inants and toddlers and a dispute

over whether they even comprehend screen

media, or the remainder o this article wewill ocus on educational media designed or

preschoolers and older children. Research is

urgently needed, however, to determine how

media inuence inants and toddlers.

Media Eects on Attention andOther Cognitive SkillsAmong their other charges, critics have

oten accused television o being a negativeinuence on the development o childrens

cognitive skills. Much o the debate about the


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television viewing.38 This fnding suggests that

there is no immediate link between program

pacing and attentional skills. Nonetheless,

longitudinal research manipulating program

content is needed to experimentally investi-

gate the causal eect o television on atten-tion in preschoolers.

Discussions o computer use and video games

have been more optimistic, with the relevant

research seeming to support a link between

both and cognition. The research generally

ocuses on cognitive skills other than atten-

tion. One study, or instance, conducted an

experiment with fth graders to investigatethe eects o video game experience on

spatial skills in children. Subjects were

randomly assigned to an experimental group

that played a spatial game, such as navigating

a marble along tracks through space, or a

control group that played a computerized

word game that was not spatial. Although the

study ound no between-group dierences on

pre-test measures o spatial skill, it oundsignifcantly higher post-test scores or the

spatial video game group than or the control

group.39 Similar results have been reported

by others.40

Overall, the research suggests that electronic

media might have an eect on attention skills.

Television, especially when viewed by children

younger than age two, may have a negativeeect on attention development, though the

evidence is relatively weak. Concern over

television exposure beore age two has been

echoed in research on cognitive development

more generally.41 Content appears to be an

important mediator, and specifc television

content has been linked to attention skills.

Studies o interactive media have ound that

video game play may enhance spatial cogni-tion, but research is lacking on other cognitive

skills, particularly attention development.

Learning rom Educational MediaEducational television programs, those

designed around a curriculum with a specifc

goal to communicate academic or social skills,

teach their intended lessons. But because

most research assessing the eectiveness oeducational curricula is proprietary or not

published in archival sources, most program

evaluations go unseen by the general public.

Nevertheless, reviews o this research

demonstrate the eectiveness, both short-

term and long-term, o curriculum-based

programming or children in areas as diverse

as literacy, mathematics, science, and social

skills.42 Academics have also publishedresearch evaluating the eectiveness o

educational programs. We present examples

o both correlational and experimental

evaluative studies.

Blues Clues is a television program ocusing

on social and cognitive problem-solving skills

in preschoolers. In a two-year program

evaluation, Jennings Bryant and othersollowed preschoolers who were regular

viewers o the show and preschoolers who

were not because the program did not air in

their town o residence. The two groups o

children did not dier on measures o prob-

lem solving and exible thinking at the start o

the study. At the end o the two-year observa-

tion period, however, regular viewers oBlues

Clues outperormed their non-viewing peersin many measures and were more successul

and systematic in their problem solutions.

Preschoolers who viewSesame Street have higherlevels o school readiness than

those who do not.


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VOL. 18 / NO. 1 / SPRING 2008 47

Solving the problems required careul

planning, a trait requently modeled and

described in the program.43 In an experimen-

tal study, preschool-age children were ran-

domly assigned to watch one episode oBlues

Clues, or the same episode fve times, or oneepisode o a dierent program. Not surpris-

ingly, children who viewed the Blues Clues

program showed better comprehension o the

specifc inormation presented in the show,

and children who watched the program fve

times showed better comprehension than

those who saw it only once. Moreover, Blues

Clues viewers scored higher than non-viewers

on problem-solving tasks dierent rom thosedirectly presented in the program, particularly

when they viewed the program repeatedly.44

Together these studies demonstrate immedi-

ate and potentially long-lasting eects o

Blues Clues on problem-solving skills,

especially or regular viewers o the program.

Some television programs designed or young

children ocus on a variety o academic andsocial skills to help prepare children or

entering school. One such program is Sesame

Street,which has been by ar the most studied

childrens program, probably because o

Sesame Workshops commitment to research,

the programs longevity and popularity, and

its long history o both criticism and praise.

Correlational research demonstrates a positive

association between early exposure to SesameStreet and school readiness.45 That is, ater an-

alysts statistically control or a range o other

actors known to aect school readiness, they

fnd that preschoolers who view Sesame Street

have higher levels o school readiness than

those who do not. Nationally, there is some

evidence or an increase in school readiness

among preschoolers in recent years.46 One

plausible explanation or this trend may beincreased early exposure to television, particu-

larly educational programs or young children,

though as yet evidence is insufcient to draw

solid conclusions. Although media may have

contributed to the trend, many other explana-

tions, such as increases in preschool enroll-

ment, also are plausible.47

Other orms o electronic media also have

been used or education. For instance, some

proessionally produced, curriculum-based

Internet websites or preschoolers are associ-

ated with television shows such as Sesame

Street or Dora the Explorer, though no public

domain research is available on the eect o

these websites. Researchers have conducted

studies on the use o educational sotware athome. For example, one experiment reported

signifcant gains in the eectiveness o edu-

cational sotware when children were allowed

to use the sotware at home as well as in

school.48 Similar benefts have been reported

by other researchers.49

To summarize, it is clear that children can

learn rom educational media. Television pro-grams designed with a specifc goal to teach

academic or social skills can be eective with

potentially long-lasting eects. Although

scarce, research on interactive media sot-

ware suggests similar results. We turn now to

a discussion o associations between overall

media use in early childhood and subsequent

measures o overall achievement.

Early Media Use andAcademic AchievementAmong the most common criticisms o chil-

drens media use is that it displaces other ac-

tivities believed to be more benefcial such as

outdoor play, homework, and leisure reading.

Historically, however, television viewing has

largely displaced other entertainment media

such as comic books, radio, and cinema.50 Forthe most part, television viewing does not

appear to displace more educationally valu-


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able activities, except perhaps in the case o

children and youth with extraordinarily high

television exposure or o early school-age

children learning to read, typically in frst and

second grade.51 Potential displacement eects

o relatively new, interactive media are lessclear because users can access multiple media

platorms simultaneously, using a computer,

or example, while watching television.52

Many studies o the eect o television viewing

on academic achievement examine correla-

tions between some measure o television

exposure and some contemporaneous measure

o achievement.53 In these studies, correla-tions are oten negative, indicating greater

achievement with lower exposure to television,

but the associations are also oten quite small.

Moreover, fndings o correlational studies can

be difcult to interpret. It may be that televi-

sion viewing lowers academic achievement,

but it is equally plausible that academically

challenged children are more drawn to televi-

sion as a leisure-time activity. Moreover, somethird variable that has not been accounted

or may explain both television exposure and

achievement. In the case o television view-

ing, or example, children rom lower-income

homes tend to watch more television and

also to score lower on measures o academic

achievement than do their higher-income

counterparts.54 In this example, both televi-

sion exposure and academic achievement maybe the result o amily income. In act, when

correlational studies take into account other

important actors, they oten ail to fnd signif-

cant associations between television exposure

and academic achievement in children.

Detailed analyses o the relation between

television exposure and academic achieve-

ment suggest that this relation is not straight-orward. For example, a meta-analysis o

twenty-three studies reported that the aver-

age correlation between total viewing time

and academic achievement was only -.05, a

tiny association. More accurately described,

the relation was what social scientists call

curvilinear. That is, in moderation (one to two

hours a day), television viewing was positivelyassociated with academic achievement, but

higher rates o television viewing were associ-

ated with decreasing achievement.55 Other

studies have ound a similar pattern.56

One important actor in the association

between television viewing and academic

achievement may be the age o the viewer.

The optimal amount o television exposuremay vary with age, possibly as a unction o

the types o programs viewed at dierent

ages.57 Few studies have directly investigated

the association between achievement and

television viewing in inants and toddlers.

In one study, however, viewing beore age

three was negatively related to later academic

achievement whereas viewing at three years

and beyond was positively related to subse-quent achievement.58

It is also important to note that most o the

studies mentioned thus ar did not distin-

guish between the types o content viewed.

The lack o a straightorward association

between television exposure and academic

achievement may be at least partially medi-

ated by the content o the programs viewed.For instance, although one study reported

a generally curvilinear relation with high-

est achievement or children watching one

to two hours a day, these moderate viewers

were also more likely to report watching

educational programming whereas heavier

viewers were more likely to report entertain-

ment viewing.59 Indeed, several more recent

studies have ound that achievement is linkedto early exposure to specifcally educational

television programming.


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VOL. 18 / NO. 1 / SPRING 2008 49

One o the most extensive studies o this kind

reported that viewing educational program-

ming at age fve was positively associated

with high school grades in English, math,

and science. Early exposure to educational

programming was also positively linked witha host o other actors such as leisure time

reading and involvement in extracurricular

activities.60 In another longitudinal study,

the eect o television exposure between six

and thirty months o age depended on the

content viewed. For example, early exposure

to programs such as Blues Clues and Dora

the Explorerwas positively linked with sub-

sequent vocabulary and expressive languagewhereas viewing Teletubbies was negatively

linked with perormance on these measures.61

On its ace, these fndings contradict results

indicating little language learning rom video

in children under two. It is possible, however,

that the fndings are attributable not to learn-

ing rom programs but rather to sel-selection

such that children who have well-developing

language skills preer to watch dierentprograms than their more slowly develop-

ing peers. Given the correlational nature o

this study, it is impossible to know or certain

what produced these fndings.

Although watching educational programs can

have academic and social benefts, watching

other types o content can have drastically

dierent results. For instance, longitudinalcorrelational research has demonstrated a

negative association between early expo-

sure to violent video content and academic

achievement.62

Not all non-educational television programs

have explicitly negative content such as

violence, but research on the links between

academic achievement and general entertain-ment content is less clear. Although children

can learn spontaneously rom entertainment

content, some longitudinal studies report

negative associations between academic

achievement and viewing entertainment (as

opposed to educational) media.63 Specifc

inormation learned spontaneously rom

viewing entertainment does not appear tohave the same cumulative long-term beneft

as viewing curriculum-based educational

programming.

With respect to interactive media such as

video games and the Internet, fndings are

mixed, almost entirely correlational (allowing

no conclusive cause-eect associations), and

seldom conducted with young children. Al-

though one study reported a negative associa-tion between video game use and academic

achievement in adolescents, others report

a positive association between achievement

and computer and Internet use at home.64

Though these ew studies may suggest that

video games are negatively linked with

achievement whereas computers and Inter-

net are positively linked with achievement,

additional research is needed to systemati-cally investigate this potential dierence in

outcome.

Educational programs

are positively associated

with overall measures oachievement and with

potentially long-lasting

eects, while purely

entertainment content,

particularly violent content,

is negatively associated withacademic achievement.


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To summarize, when studies control or im-

portant conounding variables such as income

and parent education, they oten ail to fnd

signifcant linear relations between television

viewing and subsequent achievement. In act,

the association appears to be curvilinear, withachievement increasing to a peak at low levels

o television viewing (one to two hours a day),

and then declining with heavier viewing. That

said, the most important mediator appears tobe content o the programs viewed. Edu-

cational programs are positively associated

with overall measures o achievement and

with potentially long-lasting eects, while

purely entertainment content, particularly

violent content, is negatively associated with

academic achievement. Age may also be an

important mediator. Too ew studies have

been conducted with interactive media suchas video games and computers to examine

content eects systematically. Nonetheless, as

noted in the previous section, sotware with

an educational curriculum can have a positive

inuence on learning.

Production Techniques toMaximize Educational Benefts

o Electronic MediaProducers o childrens educational media

can do several things to maximize the poten-

tial benefts to children. In this section we

briey discuss a ew important mediators o

the eectiveness o educational media.

Attention

Children cannot learn rom educationalmessages to which they do not pay attention.

Moreover, viewers learn more rom television

programs when they can pay sustained, un-

broken attention.65 Researchers have identi-

fed several means o maximizing childrens

attention to a program, some having to do

with program content, others with ormal ea-

tures such as camera techniques and sound

eects. As noted, one way to increase atten-tion to a program is to maximize comprehen-

sibility o the content, a topic we discuss in

the next section.66

At least by the preschool years, children use

ormal eatures o mediathose character-

istics that can be described with minimal

reerence to contentto guide attention.

For example, cuts between shots, camerapans, and sound eects are considered to

be ormal eatures. One study ound that

ormal eatures dier in the extent to which

they elicit, maintain, terminate, and suppress

preschool childrens looks at the television.

For example, child voices are likely to elicit

looks rom inattentive viewers whereas adult

male voices are likely to suppress looks.

The authors o the study interpreted theirfndings as demonstrating learned associa-

tions between ormal eatures and types

o content.67 Children, or instance, oten

associate child voices with child-directed

programming and adult male voices with

content or adults. The attention-directing

eect o ormal eatures may thus change

with age and experience, consistent with

Huston and Wrights theory.68 Such theoriesgenerate some interest in understanding

how inants and toddlers respond to ormal

To maximize the cognitiveresources available to children

to process educationalcontent, one study suggests

that producers integratenarrative and educationalcontent as much as possible.


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VOL. 18 / NO. 1 / SPRING 2008 51

eatures, though the only such study to date

concluded that inants, toddlers, and older

children responded similarly to a ew visual

ormal eatures.69 That is, the same eatures

appear to elicit and maintain attention in all

young viewers rom inancy at least throughthe preschool years. Although viewers o

all ages respond to ormal eatures, Huston

and Wrights theory predicts that content

becomes increasingly important with age and

ormal eatures consequently less impor-

tant except insoar as they are used to help

process content. Moreover, the fnding that

attention in children under age two is driven

partly by ormal eatures does not necessar-ily mean that they comprehend video. It is

more likely that such young children respond

automatically to the saliency and unamiliar-

ity o ormal eatures.

ComprehensionJust as children cannot understand an edu-

cational message to which they do not pay

attention, they cannot learn rom contentthat they do not understand. Shalom Fisch

proposed what he called the capacity model

o childrens comprehension o television

programs based on the limited cognitive

resources people have available or process-

ing inormation at any given moment.70 Fisch

makes a distinction between a programs

narrative contentits storyand its educa-

tional contentits inormative messagesand emphasizes the potential competition

between the two types o content or the

cognitive resources needed to process the

program. To maximize the cognitive resourc-

es available to children to process educa-

tional content, Fisch suggests that producers

integrate narrative and educational content

as much as possible, making the educational

message a central part o the ongoing story.For example, characters may have to solve a

particular problem beore advancing to the

next chapter in the story. In this way, narra-

tive and educational content can capitalize on

the same resources rather than compete or

them. Although Fischs presentation o the

capacity model ocused on educational televi-

sion in particular, it can easily be applied toeducational, interactive media as well.

RepetitionOne reason why media can be such a power-

ul educational tool is that content can be

easily and cheaply repeated. Literal repeti-

tion o episodes can enhance comprehension

and subsequent learning. We have already

noted the experimental study comparingpreschoolers who watched one episode o

Blues Clues with those who watched the

same episode once a day on fve consecutive

days. In that study, attention to the episode

remained high and relatively constant over

the course o fve presentations while com-

prehension or program content increased

with repeated exposure to the episode.

Children also increasingly interacted with thecontent (in terms o audience participation)

as the episode was repeated.71 Similar

benefts o literal repetition have been report-

ed in other studies.72 Moreover, the Blues

Clues experiment ound that transer o

learning rom the specifc examples present-

ed in the program to dierent problems with

similar solutions increased as a unction o

program repetition.

Viewer CharacteristicsSome studies o media eects suggest that

a variety o viewer characteristics, including

but not limited to intelligence, socioeconomic

status, and gender, can mediate the eects o

media on learning and academic achievement.

To the extent that producers o childrens me-

dia can take these characteristics into accountduring program design and production, they

may enhance educational value. For example,


14/24



several correlational studies suggest that the

negative impact o heavy television viewing

on academic achievement may be stronger

or girls or or individuals with higher intel-

ligence.73 Other studies suggest that television

viewing may have dierential eects on chil-dren rom dierent socioeconomic groups.

Specifcally, television viewing is associated

with higher achievement in children rom

lower-income homes and lower achievement

in children rom higher-income homes.74 A

longitudinal study that separately analyzed

dierent content types ound that the positive

association between exposure to educational

programs at age fve and later achievementwas signifcantly stronger or boys while the

negative association between violent content

and later achievement was stronger or girls.

The authors interpreted this fnding in the

context o socialization. For example, because

socialization o girls generally places more

emphasis on academics, early exposure to

educational programs may help boys become

relatively more prepared or school.75 Al-though these studies are oten correlational

and rarely conducted or the express purpose

o investigating individual dierences such as

race or gender, they highlight some possible

mediators o the eects o media on children.

Transer o LearningDirect learning o specifc inormation rom

educational media is certainly useul, but agoal o most (i not all) educational initiatives

is to empower children to apply what they

have learned to real-lie problems. Thus

children must transer to the real world what

they learn rom the media context (or

example a television program set in a antasy

environment). Researchers now know

relatively little about transer o learning in

young children, particularly with respect totelevision and interactive media, though some

evidence suggests that even preschoolers can

transer video inormation to real-lie prob-

lems.76 In a discussion o ideal conditions or

transer rom television based on transer o

learning and analogical reasoning in children

more generally, Fisch argues that transer can

be maximized not only by repeating theeducational messages in the course o the

episode but also by varying the contexts

surrounding each presentation. He suggests

that presenting the same lesson, such as a

specifc problem-solving strategy, several

times using dierent types o examples can

increase the exibility o a childs mental

representation o that strategy, thus enhanc-

ing the childs ability to accurately select andapply it in dierent real-lie situations.77

Parent Coviewing and MediationJust as media producers can increase the

educational value o electronic media, so

parents and other caregivers can also play an

important role in increasing the eectiveness

o educational media. Coviewing adults, or

example, can enhance the eectiveness oeducational programming by drawing at-

tention to the most important aspects o the

program and by extending lessons presented

in the program. Some studies suggest that

coviewing with a parent or other adult may

increase a childs learning rom educational

television, particularly when the coviewer ac-

tively mediates by explicitly drawing attention

to the program and by asking and answeringquestions.78 Although some studies ail to fnd

a beneft o adult coviewing or mediation, to

our knowledge no evidence suggests a nega-

tive link between such parent involvement

and learning rom television. With respect

to interactive media, fndings are mixed.

Although learning rom educational sotware

may be enhanced when an adult provides

eedback or extends the lessons, it seems thatchildren still need to be ree to control the

interactive experience themselves to maintain


15/24


VOL. 18 / NO. 1 / SPRING 2008 53

interest in the activity.79 Taken together, adult

coviewing and mediation are most likely to

have a positive eect on learning rom educa-

tional media.

Educational Media in SchoolsAlthough most research on electronic mediaocuses on use at home, some initiatives are

evaluating the use o educational media in

the classroom. Eorts have been made to

create school curricula that integrate educa-

tional television programs, and a massive set

o evaluations o such initiatives is now under

way.80 Ready to Learn, a public broadcast-

ing initiative to enhance school readinessthrough educational television programs

and online resources, oered workshops or

parents and educators showing how to extend

lessons rom television programs through

practice and repetition. A fve-year evalua-

tion o Ready to Learn ound a modest but

positive link between the workshops and the

time adults spent coviewing PBS programs

and reading books that extended lessons inthe programs.81 Although analysts ound no

evidence that childrens language and cogni-

tive abilities benefted rom the coviewing,

the fndings nevertheless hold some promise.

The apparent benefts o adult mediation may

provide a new area or extending the lessons

o educational media.

ConclusionsMany studies have linked media use with

cognitive skill development and academic

achievement, with most thorough studies

strongly suggesting that content is the most

important mediating actor in that relation.

Although the fnding is particularly true or

television, it is likely to be important or

interactive media as well. There is strong

evidence that children older than two learnrom educational media, and there is moder-

ate evidence that exposure to educational

television during the preschool years is

positively linked with various measures o

academic achievement even ten years later.

Moderate evidence also suggests that early

exposure to purely entertainment content,

and media violence in particular, is negativelyassociated with cognitive skills and academic

achievement. Research fndings regarding the

benefts associated with exposure to high-

quality, age-appropriate, educational media

oer producers o child-directed media an

important opportunity to capitalize on the

time that children older than two spend using

these media. In act, both producers and

parents can take steps to maximize thepositive eects o media and minimize

negative ones. Research should guide the

production o programs that oster learning

and transer. Moderate evidence suggests that

parents can also maximize the benefts o

media by selecting age-appropriate, educa-

tional programs and coviewing with their

children.

Our review o media eects research is based

largely on studies o young children o

preschool age and older. Substantially less

research is available on media exposure in

children younger than two, and what little

there is strongly suggests that learning rom

media by inants and toddlers may be dier-

ent than it is or older children. Children

under two suer rom a video defcit such thatthey learn substantially less rom video than

rom comparable real-lie experiences.

Moreover, weak but nonetheless worrying

evidence suggests a negative association

between exposure to television younger than

age two and later cognitive development.

Given the dramatic increase in media now

being produced or inants and toddlers, it has

become particularly important to understandthe eect o media during the frst ew years

o lie.


16/24



Taken together, the research indicates that

electronic media are powerul inuences

on the lives o contemporary children. With

advances in technology such as larger screens

that provide images in high defnition, three-

dimensional surround sound, and greaterpossibilities or interaction, the power o

media will likely only increase or the oresee-

able uture. The inuences can be both or

good and or ill. Researchers are beginning

to understand which aspects o media should

be reduced and which enhanced, but urther

research is required. Ultimately, however, the

question is whether society has the ability andwill to enhance the positive aspects o media

and reduce the negative.


17/24


VOL. 18 / NO. 1 / SPRING 2008 55

Endnotes

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VOL. 18 / NO. 1 / SPRING 2008 57

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son, Instruction and Modality Eects on Childrens Television Attention and Comprehension,Journal

o Educational Psychology 77 (1985): 91100; G. Noble, Social Learning rom Everyday Television,inLearning rom Television: Psychological and Educational Research , edited by M. J. Howe (London:

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P. Attewell and J. Battle, Home Computers and School Perormance, The Inormation Society 15

(1999): 110; L. A. Jackson and others, Does Home Internet Use Inuence the Academic Perormance

o Low-Income Children? Developmental Psychology 42 (2006):42935.

65. J. J. Burns. and D. R. Anderson, Attentional Inertia and Recognition Memory in Adult Television Viewing,Communication Research 20 (1993):77799.

66. Anderson and others, The Eects o TV Program Comprehensibility (see note 4).


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67. D. R. Anderson and others, Watching Children Watch Television,Attention and Cognitive Development,

edited by G. Hale and M. Lewis (New York: Plenum, 1979), pp. 33161.

68. Huston and Wright, Childrens Processing o Television (see note 3).

69. K. L. Schmitt, Inants, Toddlers, and Television: The Ecology o the Home, Zero to Three 22 (2001):

1723.

70. S. M. Fisch, A Capacity Model o Childrens Comprehension o Educational Content on Television,

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71. Crawley and others, Eects o Repeated Exposures (see note 36).

72. H. Skouteris and L. Kelly, Repeated-Viewing and Co-Viewing o an Animated Video: An Examination oFactors that Impact on Young Childrens Comprehension o Video Content,Australian Journal o Early

Childhood 31 (2006): 2230.

73. Williams and others, The Impact o Leisure-Time Television (see note 53); T. Z. Keith and others,

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ment,Journal o Educational Psychology 78 (1986): 37380.

74. Comstock and Paik, Television and the American Child (see note 54); Fetler, Television Viewing and

School Achievement (see note 56).

75. Anderson and others, Early Childhood Television Viewing (see note 60).

76. Crawley and others, Eects o Repeated Exposures (see note 36); S. M. Fisch,

Transer o Learningrom Educational Television: Near and Far Transer rom Cyberchase, poster presented at the biennial

meeting o the Society or Research in Child Development, Atlanta, Ga., April, 2005; T. V. Hodapp,

Childrens Ability to Learn Problem-Solving Strategies rom Television,Alberta Journal o Educational

Research 23 (1977): 17177.

77. Fisch, Childrens Learning rom Educational Television (see note 42); or a complete review o this model

and relevant research on transer o learning more generally, see S. Fisch, H. L. Kirkorian, and D. R.

Anderson, Transer o Learning in Inormal Education: The Case o Television, in Transer o Learning

rom a Modern Multidisciplinary Perspective, edited by J. Mestre (Greenwich, Conn.: Inormation Age

Publishing, 2005), pp. 37193.

78. L. K. Friedrich and A. H. Stein, Prosocial Television and Young Children: The Eects o Verbal Labeling

and Role Playing on Learning and Behavior, Child Development 46 (1975):2738; P. M. Valkenburg,

M. Krcmar, and S. de Roos, The Impact o a Cultural Childrens Program and Adult Mediation on

Childrens Knowledge o and Attitudes towards Opera,Journal o Broadcasting & Electronic Media 42

(1998):31526.

79. S. W. Haugland, The Eect o Computer Sotware on Preschool Childrens Developmental Gains,

Journal o Computing in Childhood Education 3 (1992): 1530; Shute and Miksad, Computer Assisted

Instruction (see note 49); S. L. Calvert, B. Strong, and L. Gallagher, Control as an Engagement Feature

or Young Childrens Attention to and Learning o Computer Content,American Behavioral Scientist 48

(2005):57889.


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VOL. 18 / NO. 1 / SPRING 2008 61

80. S. Ball and G. A. Bogatz, Reading with Television: An Evaluation o The Electric Company (Princeton,

N.J.: Educational Testing Service, 1973).

81. K. Boller and others, Using Television as a Teaching Tool: The Impacts o Ready to Learn Workshops on

Parents, Educators, and the Children in Their Care (Princeton, N.J.: Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.,

2004).


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Documents

media and children's learning