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An in-home investigation of maternal teaching strategies during Sesame Street and a popular situation comedy
JOURNAL
OF APPLIED
DEVELOPMENTAL
PSYCHOLOGY
3
275284
(1982)
An In-Home Investigation of Maternal Teaching Strategies During Sesame Street and a Popular Situation Comedy* ZOLINDA STONEMAN,GENE H. BRODY University
A naturalistic
in-home investigation
viewing on educational program gram (a situation school
children
two television of programs,
tape-recorded programs.
Likewise,
educationally
relevant
while watching
and an entertainment
Fourteen
their conversations
Mothers
mothers
Sesame
comedy,
particular
while jointly
more frequently
viewing
the
both types
more questions
Street than they did about the content of the situ-
during
Sesame
Street,
concepts such as size, Street,
engaged
mothers
behaviors
pro-
and their pre-
took the role of teacher during
the situation
why television
children
Children,
comedy. During characters
Street. The findings
role in helping
more obout
of educationally
traits and emotions
than they did during Sesame
the parent may play an important
talked
and number.
in more labeling
explained
and assigned
mothers color,
concepts than they did while viewing
the situation
television
Street)
but they talked more and asked proportionally
ation comedy.
formed
of maternal teaching strategies while
(Sesame
comedy) was conducted.
about the content of Sesame
relevant
of’ Georgia
per-
to characters suggest
maximally
that
utilize
as a teacher
There is little doubt that television serves as a teacher of children. Whether the intent of programming be “educational,” or strictly for enjoyment, all television provides an opportunity for learning to occur. With over 96% of all American homes possessing at least one television set (Lyle, 1972), it has been estimated that the average child views 15,000 hours of television by high school graduation (Rockman, 1980). Obviously, this provides massive opportunity for teaching. It is striking, however, how little we know about what children actually learn from
*Reprints can be obtained from either author at the Department of Child and Family Development, Dawson Hall, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602
275
276
STONEMAN
AND BRODY
watching television, or about what impact television has on the interactions between the child and important others, such as parents or siblings (cf. Brody, Stoneman, Sanders, 1980). Because of this dearth of information, Dirr (1980) has labeled television an invisible teacher with an invisible curriculum. Perhaps the most ambitious attempt to formally utilize the teaching potential of television began in 1969 with the first broadcast of Sesame Streef (Lesser, 1974). Aimed at a preschool audience, Sesame Street was designed to teach disadvantaged children specific academic and preacademic skills. Immensely successful, Sesame Street reaches approximately eight million young children (Gunther, 197 1) and has generated a proliferation of evaluative research, primarily focusing on children’s attention to different aspects of the program and children’s gains in specific skill areas (Ball & Bogartz, 1970; Bogartz & Ball, 1971). Overall, the research findings reveal impressive gains in the skill areas taught by the program, as well as some evidence of generalization to other skills. Also included in.the findings (Bogartz & Ball, 1971) is a suggestion that children gain more from viewing Sesame Street when their mothers encourage them to watch. Thus, when their mothers were actively involved with the series, children seem to learn more. This led Cook, Appleton, Conner, Shaffer, Tabkin, and Weber (1975) to argue that the teaching effectiveness of Sesame Street could not be attributed solely to viewing the series, since the involvement of the mother increased the children’s gains. Salomon (1977) directly investigated the extent to which encouraging mothers to co-observe Sesame Street with their children facilitated children’s learning from the program. Taking advantage of the introduction of Sesame Street to Israel, Salomon studied two groups of kindergarten children. The mothers of one of the groups of children were directly instructed to watch Sesame Street with their offspring, while the other group of children watched the program as they pleased. The findings of the study support the notion that the presence of mother while viewing educational television increases children’s learning. In Salomon’s study, this effect was primarily evidenced by lower class children and their mothers. Since Salomon did not actually observe mother-child pairs viewing television, he was not able to attribute his findings to specific maternal behaviors. Watkins, Huston-Stein, and Wright (1980) suggest a number of ways in which maternal coviewing might increase children’s learning from television. These include focusing the child’s attention on important television content, asking the child questions, labeling and elaboration of program content, talking about program segments as examples of more general concepts, and explaining actions, intentions, and motives of characters. They further suggest that these maternal behaviors may encourage the child’s active involvement with the programming content, eliciting deeper levels of information processing that the child would spontaneously undertake. A study by these authors (Watkins, Calvert, Huston-Stein & Wright, 1980) examined the effects of one of the above strategies, namely, la-
MATERNAL
TEACHING
277
beling and elaboration of program content, on children’s recall of televised information. They found that children from preschool, kindergarten, and third and fourth grade all remembered more about the program content when an adult made comments about the program material. It is interesting to note that identical labeling and elaboration had no facilitative effect on recall when it was presented by an adult voice dubbed onto pauses in the audio track of the television program itself. In another study, Galst (1980) found that positive comments by an adult coobserver increased the impact of pronutritional television segments on the snack selections of preschool children. Similarly, Corder-Bolz and Bryant (1978) found that comments made by a teacher could increase the amount that young children learned from a popular television adventure program. Thus, fragmented evidence exists to suggest that the presence of an adult is an important factor in children’s learning from television, but there is a paucity of information about the teaching behaviors which mothers actually use when watching television programs with their children. Thus, the first purpose of the current study was to examine the naturally occurring teaching behavior of mothers at home watching television programs with their offspring. One consideration in investigating maternal teaching during television viewing is the variety of programs available to child viewers. Although it has been argued that all of television can be considered “educational television” since viewers learn something from all types of programming (Dirr, 1980), it seems plausible that different types of programming might elicit qualitatively and quantitatively different teaching strategies from mothers. The major distinction among types of child-oriented programming can be conceptualized as being between those programs that are designed to teach and those programs that are designed to entertain (and thus, teach in an unplanned fashion). Therefore the second purpose of the current study was to naturalistically investigate maternal teaching strategies while viewing both an educational program (Sesame Street) and an entertainment program (a situation comedy) at home with their children.
METHOD
Subjects Fourteen mothers and their preschool children (ages 3 to 5) participated in this study. The families were recruited from a child and family center. All families were white and middle class. Half of the children were girls and half were boys. Mothers were selected for inclusion in the study only if they reported that they routinely watched Sesame Street and other television programs with their children so as not to put mothers and children in unnatural situations.
278
STONEMAN
AND BRODY
Procedure An experimenter visited each family’s home and provided the mother with a tape recorder. While in the home, the experimenter showed the mother how to position the tape recorder in order to record interactions taking place in front of the family’s television set. Experimenters were not present in the home during actual data collection. Mothers were asked to tape-record their conversations with their children while watching two programs: Sesame Street and a situation comedy which they routinely watched with their children that was broadcast at approximately the same time of the day as Sesame Street. Three different popular situation comedy programs were selected by the fourteen mothers. Half the mothers were instructed to watch and record Sesame Street first, and then, on another day, to watch the situation comedy, while the remaining mothers were asked to view the situation comedy first. Mothers were asked to tape-record their conversations for 30 minutes during each of the two programs. To avoid interruptions, mothers were requested to take their phones off the hook for the duration of each program. Mothers and their target child watched television alone without any other family members present. Approximately the first and last five minutes of each taperecording were deleted from data analysis, allowing for accommodation to the setting and standardizing the length of data collection to 20 minutes for each program. All verbalizations of both the mother and child were transcribed from the audiotapes. Two independent persons coded each transcript. Reliabilities of 80% or above were obtained on all coding categories. Eight maternal verbal behaviors were coded: (a) total number of utterances during the 20-minute session; (b) utterances directly related to the content of the television program being viewed; (c) questions related to the content of the television program being viewed; (d) preacademic instruction (comments teaching the child the concepts of size, color, or number, or the labeling of an object, person, or letters of the alphabet); (e) intention/ attribution utterances (utterances which explain why a television character performed a particular behavior or which assign a trait to a television character); (f) reasoning/problem solving (explaining cause-effect relationships or generating solutions to problems depicted on television); (g) positive feedback (praise, positive comments about the child); and (h) negative feedback or controlling utterances (criticism. corrective feedback, mother directly asking the child to perform or not perform a certain behavior). Additionally, six child verbal behaviors were coded: (a) total number of utterances; (b) television content-related utterances; (c) questions related to the content of the television program; (d) preacademic and labeling utterances related to the concepts of size, color, or number, or the labeling of an object. person. or letters of the alphabet; (e) intention/attribution utterances (defined the same as described above for mothers); and (f) reasoning/ problem solving (defined the same way as described above for mothers).
MATERNAL
279
TEACHING
For each of the three maternal and child teacher/learner categories (preacademic/labeling, intention/attribution, and reasoning/problem solving), an additional recording was made as to whether the utterance was a question (asking for information) or a statement (providing information).
RESULTS Since an initial analysis of the data revealed that there were no significant sex differences on any of the maternal or child measures the data for male and female children were combined in all subsequent analyses. The data were examined for differences in maternal and child behavior during their viewing of the two television programs by subjecting the dependent measures to r tests for correlated means. Since data were gathered from the same mother-child dyads while viewing Sewme Street and the situation comedy, the data were correlated and thus the correlated 1 test was deemed to be the most appropriate statistic. Means for each dependent measure are presented in Table I. First. we will consider the mother’s behavior. Even though the number of total utterances emitted by mothers during the viewing of the two television programs did not reliably differ, mothers spoke more utterances about the content of Sesame Street than about the situation comedy, tl_<= 3.33, p < .Ol . Children did not differ in their frequency of utterances, television-related utterances. or television-related questions between the two programs. TABLE
1
ond Child Verbal Behovior Sesame Street and a Situotion Comedy
Frequency of Maternal
During
Program Behavior
Sesome Street
Situation
Comedy
p level
Mother
utteronc.3s
43.64
36.35
27.36
15.71
.Ol’
13.00
6.04
.05’
Preocodemidlabeling
6.57
3.00
.05”
Intention/attribution
1.28
2.14
.05”
1.36
1.07
n.S.-
1.50
4.00
1.02
.46
Tv
utterances
TV questions
Reasoning/problem Negative Positive
solving
feedbacWcontrol feedback
n.s:
.Ol” n.S.-
Child Utterances
20.29
lV
14.64
11.36
n.s.*
TV questions
4.36
4.00
n.S.:
Preocademidlabeling
6.69
2.75
.Ol”
.93
1.57
n.S:
1.36
1.14
n.s.’
utterances
Intention/attribution Reasoning/problem
solving
‘tests for correlated ‘Wilcoxon
matched
32.93
means. pairs
signed-ranks
test.
n.s:
280
STONEMAN
AND BRODY
Since the following maternal and child measures were not normally distributed, nonparametric statistical procedures, namely the Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-ranks test, were used to analyze this data. Maternal teaching efforts during Sesame Streef focused on preacademic/labeling skills more frequently than during the situation comedy @ < .05), while the situation comedy elicited more maternal intention/attribution utterances than Sesame Street (p < .05). The frequency of maternal reasoning/problem solving utterances did not differ between the two programs. Children emitted more concept and labeling utterances during the viewing of Sesame Street rhan they did during the situation comedy @ < .Ol), but, children’s intention/attribution and reasoning/ problem solving utterances did not differ between the two programs. To further examine the teaching interactions between parents and children, Wilcoxon tests were executed on the frequency of maternal teaching questions, maternal provision of information, child information-seeking, and child provision of information during each program. During both programs. children provided labels and conceptual information concerning size, color, number, and letters more frequently (M Sesame Street = 5.07, M comedy = I .7 I) than they asked their mothers to provide this information (M Sesame Street = .93. p < .Ol ; M comedy = .79, p < .05). Conversely, during the situation comedy, children asked their mothers questions concerning intentions, attributions, and motives (M = 2.36) more frequently than they provided this information (M = .39, p < .Ol). This difference was not detected during Sesame Street. Mothers, on the other hand, exhibited the opposite pattern. Mothers during both programs were as likely to provide preacademic/labeling information (M Sesome Street = 3.50. A4 comedy = I. 14) as they were to ask their children about labels or preacademic concepts (M Sesrrme Street = 1.14, M comedy = .7 I). During the situation comedy, mothers provided attribution/intention information (M = I .43) more frequently than they asked their children for this information (M = .7 I, p < .05). This relationship did not occur during Sesame Street. Thus, children were more equal participants in the teaching/learning interactions revolving around preacademic skills and labeling, while mothers, during the situation comedy. were the source of most information concerning intentions, attributions, and motives. In this later teacher/learner relationship, the child’s role was primarily one of information-seeker. When the mothers’ negative feedback/ controlling utterances during the two television programs were examined, it was found that mothers gave more negative feedback and attempted to control the behavior of their children more often during the situation comedy than during Sesame Street 0, < .O I). No differences in maternal positive feedback were detected between the two programs. Pearson correlations were executed to examine the interrelationships among dependent measures. The frequency of maternal utterances was significantly correlated across the two programs, r = .54. p < .04. Frequency of child utterances
MATERNAL
TEACHING
281
across programs exhibited a similar relationship, r = .64, p < .Ol. No other maternal or child measures demonstrated significant relationships across programs. Examining the relationship between maternal and child behavior within each program. interesting patterns emerged. During Sesame Street, mothers who emitted more instructional utterances had children who labeled more frequently, r = .76, p < .002. Similarly, mothers’ intention/ attribution statements were correlated with intentions/attribution statements made by their children, r = .65, p < .02. Frequency of maternal and child utterances were also significantly related, r = 69, p < ,006. During the situation comedy, maternal and child behavior were related on the following dependent measures: total utterances, r = .8 1, p < .0004, intention/attribution statements, r = .89, p < .OOOl , and TV content utterances, r = .71, p < ,002.
DISCUSSION
Mothers in the study took the role of teacher in interaction with their children during both Sesame Street and a situation comedy. The mothers talked more and asked more questions about the content of Sesame Street than they did about the content of the situation comedy. Likewise, during Sesame Street mothers talked more about educationally relevant concepts such as size, color, and number; frequently labeling televised events, characters, and objects, as well as letters of the alphabet. Thus, the mothers focused their children’s attention on important educational content and frequently asked their children questions to insure that they were actively processing the televised information. Children, while viewing Sesame Street, engaged in more labeling of educationally relevant concepts than they did during the situation comedy, thus providing verbal rehearsal of the material to be learned. Such rehearsal has been demonstrated repeatedly to be an important component of learning (Flavell, Beach & Chinsky, 1966; Keeney, Cannizzo, & Flavell, 1967; Asarnow & Meichenbaum, 1979). During the situation comedy, mothers explained why television characters performed particular behaviors and assigned traits and emotions to characters more frequently than they did during Sesame Street. This finding makes sense in that the unfolding of the plot of a situation comedy provides more opportunity for discussing motives and reasons for certain behaviors than does the fast-moving, academically oriented format of Sesame Street. Likewise, the situation comedy affords more opportunity for developing the personalities of the characters in the program, allowing for the attribution of traits, such as honesty and courage, as well as the labeling of the character’s emotional response to certain plot events. The relationships between maternal and child verbal behaviors found in this study are interesting in that mothers who frequently commented on preacademic concepts during Sesame Street had children who did likewise. Similarly, during both programs, mothers who frequently commented on attributions, intentions,
282
STONEMAN
AND BRODY
and motives had children who talked about these same concepts. It appeared that for preacademicilabeling skill teaching, mothers asked frequent teaching questions, designed to elicit labels and concepts from their children, while for intention/attribution teaching, children actively sought this information from their mothers. For preschool children, information concerning motives and attributes is more complex than simple labeling of objects, colors, etc., and, thus, it is not surprising that children did not spontaneously provide information concerning character’s roles, intentions, and attributes. The findings of the current study suggest that there is a qualitative difference between maternal teaching during Sesame Sweet and a situation comedy, although mothers who watch these shows with their children utilize the content of both types of programs for teaching. Since television is an inflexible medium providing the same information to all children regardless of their level of competency or personal experience, this is an important finding. As Schramm (1962) noted, television cannot answer children’s questions or adjust to individual differences in its viewers. The developmental literature has consistently stressed, however, that the ideal teaching situation involves the presentation of material that is finely tuned to the competency level of the learner (cf. Hunt, 1961). Obviously, television, by itself, cannot simultaneously provide this ideal learning environment to a heterogeneous population of children. Recent research by Larch, Anderson, and Levin (I 979) suggests that children cope with television content that they do not comprehend by withdrawing their attention from the television program. A sensitive mother, aware of her child’s knowledge limitations, can elaborate on program content to make it understandable, as well as relate the televised information to the child’s own life experience. The finding that mothers spontaneously engage in these types of teaching behaviors suggest that the differences found in the Sesame Street evaluation data (Bogartz & Ball, I97 I ) between learning gains for children whose mothers were and were not encouraged to become actively involved in the television program could be explained by the mediation of program content by the children’s mothers. Similarly, it is plausible that Salomon’s (1977) finding that co-observing mothers facilitated children’s leaming from Sesame Street might be attributed to the effects of maternal teaching strategies rather than a more general arousal explanation such as that put forth by the author. The finding that mothers emitted more control utterances and negative feedback during the situation comedy suggests that this type of program may not keep children’s attention as effectively as does Sesame Street. Considering the research and production expertise which have been focused on making the format of Sesume Srreet compelling to young viewers, this would not seem surprising. Some words of caution appear necessary before the results of this study are generalized. The sample of the present study was relatively small and all the families were recruited from a university-affiliated preschool. Obviously. future studies need to expand the results of the current study by employing families with het-
MATERNAL
TEACHING
283
erogeneous backgrounds and interests. These cautions notwithstanding, this study did provide information regarding how the selection of television programs impact upon maternal teaching strategies and child behavior. While numerous authors have expressed concern over television as a powerful socializing force, possibly competing with aprents and schools as sources of social influence for children (Comstock, 1978; Bronfenbrennder, 1973, the teaching potential of television can also be viewed as a positive educational force, opening up new areas of knowledge and exploration for children. The findings of the current study suggest that the parent plays an important role in helping children maximally utilize television as a teacher.
REFERENCES Asarnow, J. R., & Meichenbaum, D. Verbal rehearsal and serial recall: The mediation training of kindergarten children. Child Development. 1979, 50. 1173-I 177. Ball, S., & Bogartz, G. Thefirst year of Sesame Sfreetc An evaluation. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service, 1970. Bogartz, G. & Ball, S. The second year of Sesame Street: A continuing evaluation. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service, 1971. Brody, G. H., Stoneman, Z., and Sanders, A. K. Effects of television viewing on family interactions: An observational study. Fami1.v Relations. 1980, 29. 216-220. Bronfenbrenner, U. The origins of alienation. In U. Bronfenbrenner and M. Mahoney, (Eds.), Influences on human development. Hinsdale, IL: Dryden, 1975. Comstock, G. The impact of television on American institutions. Journal of Communication, 1978, 28, 12-28. Cook, T. D., Appleton, H., Conner, R. F., Shaffer, A., Tabkin, G., & Weber, S. J. Sesame Street revisited. New York: Russell Sage, 1975. Corder-Bolz, C. R., & O’Bryant, S. Teacher vs. program. Journal of Communication, 1978, 28, 97-103. Dirr, P. I. The future of television’s teaching face. In E. L. Palmer & A. Dorr (Eds.), Children and the faces of television. New York: Academic Press, 1980. Flavell, J. H., Beach, D., & Chinsky, J. Spontaneous verbal rehearsal in a memory task as a function of age. Child Development, 1966, 37, 283-299. Galst, J. P. Television food commercials and pro-nutritional public service announcements as determinants of young children’s snack choices. Child Development, 1980, 51, 935-938. Gunther, M. What’s around the comer for “Sesame Street”? 7%’ Guide. 1971, 19. 20-25. Hunt, I. McV. Intelligence and experience. New York: Ronald Press, 1961. Keeney, T.; Cannizzo, S. & Flavell, I. Spontaneous and induced verbal rehearsal in a recall task. Child Development, 1967, 38, 953-966. Lesser, G. S. Children and television: Lessonsfrom Sesame Street. New York: Random House, 1974. Larch, C. P., Anderson, D. R., & Levin, S. R. The relationship of visual attention to children’s comprehension of television. Child Development, 1979, 50, 722-727. Lyle, J. Television and daily life: Patterns of use. In E. Rubenstein, G. Comstock, &J. Murray (Eds.), Television and social behavior. (Vol. 4). Washington D.C.: U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 1972. Rockman. S. Realities of change. In E. L. Palmer & A. Dorr (Eds.), Children and thefaces of television, New York: Academic Press, 1980. Salomon, G. Effects of encouraging Israeli mothers to co-observe “Sesame Street” with their fiveyear-olds. Child Development, 1977, 48. 114651.
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Schramm, W. What we know about learning from instructional television. In L. Asheim (Ed.), Educational felevisionr The next fen yvrs. Stanford, CA: Institute for Communication Research, 1962. Watkins, B., Calvert, S. Huston-Stein, A., & Wright, J. C. Children’s recall of television material: Effects of presentation mode and adult labeling. Developmenral Psychology. 1980, 16, 672-674. Watkins, B. A., Huston-Stein, A., &Wright, J. C. Effects of planned television programming. In E. L. Palmer & A. Dorr (Eds.) Children and thefaces of television. New York: Academic Press, 1980.
OF APPLIED
DEVELOPMENTAL
PSYCHOLOGY
3
275284
(1982)
An In-Home Investigation of Maternal Teaching Strategies During Sesame Street and a Popular Situation Comedy* ZOLINDA STONEMAN,GENE H. BRODY University
A naturalistic
in-home investigation
viewing on educational program gram (a situation school
children
two television of programs,
tape-recorded programs.
Likewise,
educationally
relevant
while watching
and an entertainment
Fourteen
their conversations
Mothers
mothers
Sesame
comedy,
particular
while jointly
more frequently
viewing
the
both types
more questions
Street than they did about the content of the situ-
during
Sesame
Street,
concepts such as size, Street,
engaged
mothers
behaviors
pro-
and their pre-
took the role of teacher during
the situation
why television
children
Children,
comedy. During characters
Street. The findings
role in helping
more obout
of educationally
traits and emotions
than they did during Sesame
the parent may play an important
talked
and number.
in more labeling
explained
and assigned
mothers color,
concepts than they did while viewing
the situation
television
Street)
but they talked more and asked proportionally
ation comedy.
formed
of maternal teaching strategies while
(Sesame
comedy) was conducted.
about the content of Sesame
relevant
of’ Georgia
per-
to characters suggest
maximally
that
utilize
as a teacher
There is little doubt that television serves as a teacher of children. Whether the intent of programming be “educational,” or strictly for enjoyment, all television provides an opportunity for learning to occur. With over 96% of all American homes possessing at least one television set (Lyle, 1972), it has been estimated that the average child views 15,000 hours of television by high school graduation (Rockman, 1980). Obviously, this provides massive opportunity for teaching. It is striking, however, how little we know about what children actually learn from
*Reprints can be obtained from either author at the Department of Child and Family Development, Dawson Hall, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602
275
276
STONEMAN
AND BRODY
watching television, or about what impact television has on the interactions between the child and important others, such as parents or siblings (cf. Brody, Stoneman, Sanders, 1980). Because of this dearth of information, Dirr (1980) has labeled television an invisible teacher with an invisible curriculum. Perhaps the most ambitious attempt to formally utilize the teaching potential of television began in 1969 with the first broadcast of Sesame Streef (Lesser, 1974). Aimed at a preschool audience, Sesame Street was designed to teach disadvantaged children specific academic and preacademic skills. Immensely successful, Sesame Street reaches approximately eight million young children (Gunther, 197 1) and has generated a proliferation of evaluative research, primarily focusing on children’s attention to different aspects of the program and children’s gains in specific skill areas (Ball & Bogartz, 1970; Bogartz & Ball, 1971). Overall, the research findings reveal impressive gains in the skill areas taught by the program, as well as some evidence of generalization to other skills. Also included in.the findings (Bogartz & Ball, 1971) is a suggestion that children gain more from viewing Sesame Street when their mothers encourage them to watch. Thus, when their mothers were actively involved with the series, children seem to learn more. This led Cook, Appleton, Conner, Shaffer, Tabkin, and Weber (1975) to argue that the teaching effectiveness of Sesame Street could not be attributed solely to viewing the series, since the involvement of the mother increased the children’s gains. Salomon (1977) directly investigated the extent to which encouraging mothers to co-observe Sesame Street with their children facilitated children’s learning from the program. Taking advantage of the introduction of Sesame Street to Israel, Salomon studied two groups of kindergarten children. The mothers of one of the groups of children were directly instructed to watch Sesame Street with their offspring, while the other group of children watched the program as they pleased. The findings of the study support the notion that the presence of mother while viewing educational television increases children’s learning. In Salomon’s study, this effect was primarily evidenced by lower class children and their mothers. Since Salomon did not actually observe mother-child pairs viewing television, he was not able to attribute his findings to specific maternal behaviors. Watkins, Huston-Stein, and Wright (1980) suggest a number of ways in which maternal coviewing might increase children’s learning from television. These include focusing the child’s attention on important television content, asking the child questions, labeling and elaboration of program content, talking about program segments as examples of more general concepts, and explaining actions, intentions, and motives of characters. They further suggest that these maternal behaviors may encourage the child’s active involvement with the programming content, eliciting deeper levels of information processing that the child would spontaneously undertake. A study by these authors (Watkins, Calvert, Huston-Stein & Wright, 1980) examined the effects of one of the above strategies, namely, la-
MATERNAL
TEACHING
277
beling and elaboration of program content, on children’s recall of televised information. They found that children from preschool, kindergarten, and third and fourth grade all remembered more about the program content when an adult made comments about the program material. It is interesting to note that identical labeling and elaboration had no facilitative effect on recall when it was presented by an adult voice dubbed onto pauses in the audio track of the television program itself. In another study, Galst (1980) found that positive comments by an adult coobserver increased the impact of pronutritional television segments on the snack selections of preschool children. Similarly, Corder-Bolz and Bryant (1978) found that comments made by a teacher could increase the amount that young children learned from a popular television adventure program. Thus, fragmented evidence exists to suggest that the presence of an adult is an important factor in children’s learning from television, but there is a paucity of information about the teaching behaviors which mothers actually use when watching television programs with their children. Thus, the first purpose of the current study was to examine the naturally occurring teaching behavior of mothers at home watching television programs with their offspring. One consideration in investigating maternal teaching during television viewing is the variety of programs available to child viewers. Although it has been argued that all of television can be considered “educational television” since viewers learn something from all types of programming (Dirr, 1980), it seems plausible that different types of programming might elicit qualitatively and quantitatively different teaching strategies from mothers. The major distinction among types of child-oriented programming can be conceptualized as being between those programs that are designed to teach and those programs that are designed to entertain (and thus, teach in an unplanned fashion). Therefore the second purpose of the current study was to naturalistically investigate maternal teaching strategies while viewing both an educational program (Sesame Street) and an entertainment program (a situation comedy) at home with their children.
METHOD
Subjects Fourteen mothers and their preschool children (ages 3 to 5) participated in this study. The families were recruited from a child and family center. All families were white and middle class. Half of the children were girls and half were boys. Mothers were selected for inclusion in the study only if they reported that they routinely watched Sesame Street and other television programs with their children so as not to put mothers and children in unnatural situations.
278
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AND BRODY
Procedure An experimenter visited each family’s home and provided the mother with a tape recorder. While in the home, the experimenter showed the mother how to position the tape recorder in order to record interactions taking place in front of the family’s television set. Experimenters were not present in the home during actual data collection. Mothers were asked to tape-record their conversations with their children while watching two programs: Sesame Street and a situation comedy which they routinely watched with their children that was broadcast at approximately the same time of the day as Sesame Street. Three different popular situation comedy programs were selected by the fourteen mothers. Half the mothers were instructed to watch and record Sesame Street first, and then, on another day, to watch the situation comedy, while the remaining mothers were asked to view the situation comedy first. Mothers were asked to tape-record their conversations for 30 minutes during each of the two programs. To avoid interruptions, mothers were requested to take their phones off the hook for the duration of each program. Mothers and their target child watched television alone without any other family members present. Approximately the first and last five minutes of each taperecording were deleted from data analysis, allowing for accommodation to the setting and standardizing the length of data collection to 20 minutes for each program. All verbalizations of both the mother and child were transcribed from the audiotapes. Two independent persons coded each transcript. Reliabilities of 80% or above were obtained on all coding categories. Eight maternal verbal behaviors were coded: (a) total number of utterances during the 20-minute session; (b) utterances directly related to the content of the television program being viewed; (c) questions related to the content of the television program being viewed; (d) preacademic instruction (comments teaching the child the concepts of size, color, or number, or the labeling of an object, person, or letters of the alphabet); (e) intention/ attribution utterances (utterances which explain why a television character performed a particular behavior or which assign a trait to a television character); (f) reasoning/problem solving (explaining cause-effect relationships or generating solutions to problems depicted on television); (g) positive feedback (praise, positive comments about the child); and (h) negative feedback or controlling utterances (criticism. corrective feedback, mother directly asking the child to perform or not perform a certain behavior). Additionally, six child verbal behaviors were coded: (a) total number of utterances; (b) television content-related utterances; (c) questions related to the content of the television program; (d) preacademic and labeling utterances related to the concepts of size, color, or number, or the labeling of an object. person. or letters of the alphabet; (e) intention/attribution utterances (defined the same as described above for mothers); and (f) reasoning/ problem solving (defined the same way as described above for mothers).
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TEACHING
For each of the three maternal and child teacher/learner categories (preacademic/labeling, intention/attribution, and reasoning/problem solving), an additional recording was made as to whether the utterance was a question (asking for information) or a statement (providing information).
RESULTS Since an initial analysis of the data revealed that there were no significant sex differences on any of the maternal or child measures the data for male and female children were combined in all subsequent analyses. The data were examined for differences in maternal and child behavior during their viewing of the two television programs by subjecting the dependent measures to r tests for correlated means. Since data were gathered from the same mother-child dyads while viewing Sewme Street and the situation comedy, the data were correlated and thus the correlated 1 test was deemed to be the most appropriate statistic. Means for each dependent measure are presented in Table I. First. we will consider the mother’s behavior. Even though the number of total utterances emitted by mothers during the viewing of the two television programs did not reliably differ, mothers spoke more utterances about the content of Sesame Street than about the situation comedy, tl_<= 3.33, p < .Ol . Children did not differ in their frequency of utterances, television-related utterances. or television-related questions between the two programs. TABLE
1
ond Child Verbal Behovior Sesame Street and a Situotion Comedy
Frequency of Maternal
During
Program Behavior
Sesome Street
Situation
Comedy
p level
Mother
utteronc.3s
43.64
36.35
27.36
15.71
.Ol’
13.00
6.04
.05’
Preocodemidlabeling
6.57
3.00
.05”
Intention/attribution
1.28
2.14
.05”
1.36
1.07
n.S.-
1.50
4.00
1.02
.46
Tv
utterances
TV questions
Reasoning/problem Negative Positive
solving
feedbacWcontrol feedback
n.s:
.Ol” n.S.-
Child Utterances
20.29
lV
14.64
11.36
n.s.*
TV questions
4.36
4.00
n.S.:
Preocademidlabeling
6.69
2.75
.Ol”
.93
1.57
n.S:
1.36
1.14
n.s.’
utterances
Intention/attribution Reasoning/problem
solving
‘tests for correlated ‘Wilcoxon
matched
32.93
means. pairs
signed-ranks
test.
n.s:
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Since the following maternal and child measures were not normally distributed, nonparametric statistical procedures, namely the Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-ranks test, were used to analyze this data. Maternal teaching efforts during Sesame Streef focused on preacademic/labeling skills more frequently than during the situation comedy @ < .05), while the situation comedy elicited more maternal intention/attribution utterances than Sesame Street (p < .05). The frequency of maternal reasoning/problem solving utterances did not differ between the two programs. Children emitted more concept and labeling utterances during the viewing of Sesame Street rhan they did during the situation comedy @ < .Ol), but, children’s intention/attribution and reasoning/ problem solving utterances did not differ between the two programs. To further examine the teaching interactions between parents and children, Wilcoxon tests were executed on the frequency of maternal teaching questions, maternal provision of information, child information-seeking, and child provision of information during each program. During both programs. children provided labels and conceptual information concerning size, color, number, and letters more frequently (M Sesame Street = 5.07, M comedy = I .7 I) than they asked their mothers to provide this information (M Sesame Street = .93. p < .Ol ; M comedy = .79, p < .05). Conversely, during the situation comedy, children asked their mothers questions concerning intentions, attributions, and motives (M = 2.36) more frequently than they provided this information (M = .39, p < .Ol). This difference was not detected during Sesame Street. Mothers, on the other hand, exhibited the opposite pattern. Mothers during both programs were as likely to provide preacademic/labeling information (M Sesome Street = 3.50. A4 comedy = I. 14) as they were to ask their children about labels or preacademic concepts (M Sesrrme Street = 1.14, M comedy = .7 I). During the situation comedy, mothers provided attribution/intention information (M = I .43) more frequently than they asked their children for this information (M = .7 I, p < .05). This relationship did not occur during Sesame Street. Thus, children were more equal participants in the teaching/learning interactions revolving around preacademic skills and labeling, while mothers, during the situation comedy. were the source of most information concerning intentions, attributions, and motives. In this later teacher/learner relationship, the child’s role was primarily one of information-seeker. When the mothers’ negative feedback/ controlling utterances during the two television programs were examined, it was found that mothers gave more negative feedback and attempted to control the behavior of their children more often during the situation comedy than during Sesame Street 0, < .O I). No differences in maternal positive feedback were detected between the two programs. Pearson correlations were executed to examine the interrelationships among dependent measures. The frequency of maternal utterances was significantly correlated across the two programs, r = .54. p < .04. Frequency of child utterances
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across programs exhibited a similar relationship, r = .64, p < .Ol. No other maternal or child measures demonstrated significant relationships across programs. Examining the relationship between maternal and child behavior within each program. interesting patterns emerged. During Sesame Street, mothers who emitted more instructional utterances had children who labeled more frequently, r = .76, p < .002. Similarly, mothers’ intention/ attribution statements were correlated with intentions/attribution statements made by their children, r = .65, p < .02. Frequency of maternal and child utterances were also significantly related, r = 69, p < ,006. During the situation comedy, maternal and child behavior were related on the following dependent measures: total utterances, r = .8 1, p < .0004, intention/attribution statements, r = .89, p < .OOOl , and TV content utterances, r = .71, p < ,002.
DISCUSSION
Mothers in the study took the role of teacher in interaction with their children during both Sesame Street and a situation comedy. The mothers talked more and asked more questions about the content of Sesame Street than they did about the content of the situation comedy. Likewise, during Sesame Street mothers talked more about educationally relevant concepts such as size, color, and number; frequently labeling televised events, characters, and objects, as well as letters of the alphabet. Thus, the mothers focused their children’s attention on important educational content and frequently asked their children questions to insure that they were actively processing the televised information. Children, while viewing Sesame Street, engaged in more labeling of educationally relevant concepts than they did during the situation comedy, thus providing verbal rehearsal of the material to be learned. Such rehearsal has been demonstrated repeatedly to be an important component of learning (Flavell, Beach & Chinsky, 1966; Keeney, Cannizzo, & Flavell, 1967; Asarnow & Meichenbaum, 1979). During the situation comedy, mothers explained why television characters performed particular behaviors and assigned traits and emotions to characters more frequently than they did during Sesame Street. This finding makes sense in that the unfolding of the plot of a situation comedy provides more opportunity for discussing motives and reasons for certain behaviors than does the fast-moving, academically oriented format of Sesame Street. Likewise, the situation comedy affords more opportunity for developing the personalities of the characters in the program, allowing for the attribution of traits, such as honesty and courage, as well as the labeling of the character’s emotional response to certain plot events. The relationships between maternal and child verbal behaviors found in this study are interesting in that mothers who frequently commented on preacademic concepts during Sesame Street had children who did likewise. Similarly, during both programs, mothers who frequently commented on attributions, intentions,
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and motives had children who talked about these same concepts. It appeared that for preacademicilabeling skill teaching, mothers asked frequent teaching questions, designed to elicit labels and concepts from their children, while for intention/attribution teaching, children actively sought this information from their mothers. For preschool children, information concerning motives and attributes is more complex than simple labeling of objects, colors, etc., and, thus, it is not surprising that children did not spontaneously provide information concerning character’s roles, intentions, and attributes. The findings of the current study suggest that there is a qualitative difference between maternal teaching during Sesame Sweet and a situation comedy, although mothers who watch these shows with their children utilize the content of both types of programs for teaching. Since television is an inflexible medium providing the same information to all children regardless of their level of competency or personal experience, this is an important finding. As Schramm (1962) noted, television cannot answer children’s questions or adjust to individual differences in its viewers. The developmental literature has consistently stressed, however, that the ideal teaching situation involves the presentation of material that is finely tuned to the competency level of the learner (cf. Hunt, 1961). Obviously, television, by itself, cannot simultaneously provide this ideal learning environment to a heterogeneous population of children. Recent research by Larch, Anderson, and Levin (I 979) suggests that children cope with television content that they do not comprehend by withdrawing their attention from the television program. A sensitive mother, aware of her child’s knowledge limitations, can elaborate on program content to make it understandable, as well as relate the televised information to the child’s own life experience. The finding that mothers spontaneously engage in these types of teaching behaviors suggest that the differences found in the Sesame Street evaluation data (Bogartz & Ball, I97 I ) between learning gains for children whose mothers were and were not encouraged to become actively involved in the television program could be explained by the mediation of program content by the children’s mothers. Similarly, it is plausible that Salomon’s (1977) finding that co-observing mothers facilitated children’s leaming from Sesame Street might be attributed to the effects of maternal teaching strategies rather than a more general arousal explanation such as that put forth by the author. The finding that mothers emitted more control utterances and negative feedback during the situation comedy suggests that this type of program may not keep children’s attention as effectively as does Sesame Street. Considering the research and production expertise which have been focused on making the format of Sesume Srreet compelling to young viewers, this would not seem surprising. Some words of caution appear necessary before the results of this study are generalized. The sample of the present study was relatively small and all the families were recruited from a university-affiliated preschool. Obviously. future studies need to expand the results of the current study by employing families with het-
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erogeneous backgrounds and interests. These cautions notwithstanding, this study did provide information regarding how the selection of television programs impact upon maternal teaching strategies and child behavior. While numerous authors have expressed concern over television as a powerful socializing force, possibly competing with aprents and schools as sources of social influence for children (Comstock, 1978; Bronfenbrennder, 1973, the teaching potential of television can also be viewed as a positive educational force, opening up new areas of knowledge and exploration for children. The findings of the current study suggest that the parent plays an important role in helping children maximally utilize television as a teacher.
REFERENCES Asarnow, J. R., & Meichenbaum, D. Verbal rehearsal and serial recall: The mediation training of kindergarten children. Child Development. 1979, 50. 1173-I 177. Ball, S., & Bogartz, G. Thefirst year of Sesame Sfreetc An evaluation. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service, 1970. Bogartz, G. & Ball, S. The second year of Sesame Street: A continuing evaluation. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service, 1971. Brody, G. H., Stoneman, Z., and Sanders, A. K. Effects of television viewing on family interactions: An observational study. Fami1.v Relations. 1980, 29. 216-220. Bronfenbrenner, U. The origins of alienation. In U. Bronfenbrenner and M. Mahoney, (Eds.), Influences on human development. Hinsdale, IL: Dryden, 1975. Comstock, G. The impact of television on American institutions. Journal of Communication, 1978, 28, 12-28. Cook, T. D., Appleton, H., Conner, R. F., Shaffer, A., Tabkin, G., & Weber, S. J. Sesame Street revisited. New York: Russell Sage, 1975. Corder-Bolz, C. R., & O’Bryant, S. Teacher vs. program. Journal of Communication, 1978, 28, 97-103. Dirr, P. I. The future of television’s teaching face. In E. L. Palmer & A. Dorr (Eds.), Children and the faces of television. New York: Academic Press, 1980. Flavell, J. H., Beach, D., & Chinsky, J. Spontaneous verbal rehearsal in a memory task as a function of age. Child Development, 1966, 37, 283-299. Galst, J. P. Television food commercials and pro-nutritional public service announcements as determinants of young children’s snack choices. Child Development, 1980, 51, 935-938. Gunther, M. What’s around the comer for “Sesame Street”? 7%’ Guide. 1971, 19. 20-25. Hunt, I. McV. Intelligence and experience. New York: Ronald Press, 1961. Keeney, T.; Cannizzo, S. & Flavell, I. Spontaneous and induced verbal rehearsal in a recall task. Child Development, 1967, 38, 953-966. Lesser, G. S. Children and television: Lessonsfrom Sesame Street. New York: Random House, 1974. Larch, C. P., Anderson, D. R., & Levin, S. R. The relationship of visual attention to children’s comprehension of television. Child Development, 1979, 50, 722-727. Lyle, J. Television and daily life: Patterns of use. In E. Rubenstein, G. Comstock, &J. Murray (Eds.), Television and social behavior. (Vol. 4). Washington D.C.: U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 1972. Rockman. S. Realities of change. In E. L. Palmer & A. Dorr (Eds.), Children and thefaces of television, New York: Academic Press, 1980. Salomon, G. Effects of encouraging Israeli mothers to co-observe “Sesame Street” with their fiveyear-olds. Child Development, 1977, 48. 114651.
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Schramm, W. What we know about learning from instructional television. In L. Asheim (Ed.), Educational felevisionr The next fen yvrs. Stanford, CA: Institute for Communication Research, 1962. Watkins, B., Calvert, S. Huston-Stein, A., & Wright, J. C. Children’s recall of television material: Effects of presentation mode and adult labeling. Developmenral Psychology. 1980, 16, 672-674. Watkins, B. A., Huston-Stein, A., &Wright, J. C. Effects of planned television programming. In E. L. Palmer & A. Dorr (Eds.) Children and thefaces of television. New York: Academic Press, 1980.