Johannes W. J. Beentjes

Television's impact on children's reading skills: A review of research.

THE AUTHORS discuss the hypotheses that explain why television might influence the childs development of reading skills positively (facilitation hypothesis), negatively (inhibition hypothesis), or not at all (no-effect hypothesis). Although the evidence is not unequivocal, most of the research supports the inhibition hypothesis. However, televisions relation to reading achievement is complex; the magnitude and direction of the relation are influenced by a number of conditions. Heavy viewers, socially advantaged children, and intelligent children tend to be most vulnerable to televisions inhibition effect. In addition, the relation is sensitive to the type of television content watched. The authors evaluate the utility of the five research approaches used in the past, and suggest directions for further research.

Television viewing versus reading: Mental effort, retention, and inferential learning

The study compared childrens learning from structurally equivalent television and print versions of two stories. Three hypotheses derived from Salomons (1984) model were tested: (a) children invest more mental effort in processing print stories compared to television stories; (b) story recall is not affected by the medium through which the story is presented; and (c) print stories lead to more inferential learning than television stories. Fourth and sixth grade students watched the television film version of one story and read the text version of the other story. Mental effort was assessed during television viewing and reading by measuring secondary‐reaction times, and afterwards by means of Salomons retrospective measure. Story retention and story‐related inferences were measured both immediately following each story and two to three weeks later. As assessed by Salomons measure, children invested more mental effort in reading than in watching television, but on the reaction‐time measure the reverse w...

Learning from Television and Books: A Dutch Replication Study Based on Salomon's Model.

According to Salomons (1981) model, children usually invest less effort in television viewing than in book reading, with the result that information from television is less deeply processed than information from books. The amount of invested mental effort, in its turn, is assumed to depend on the way a medium is perceived. Most children perceive television as an easy medium and books as a difficult one. In this article, Salomons model and the research in which the model was tested are discussed, and a replication study is presented. The study determines the internal structure of the Dutch versions of Salomons instruments and tests some predictions following from the model. Unlike their American peers, Dutch children do not unconditionally perceive television as an easy medium.

Children's written accounts of televised and printed stories

Following on studies that compared cognitive processing of stories presented either on television or radio, an exploratory study was carried out to compare stories watched on television with printed stories read by children. Children aged 10 to 12 (N = 127) either watched a television film or read a print version of the same story. Afterwards, each child retold the story in writing. Children exposed to the television film reproduced the story more completely and made fewer errors. Written reproductions of the story by children who read the printed version were easier to understand because story characters were referred to more specifically and references to the story elements contained more descriptive details.

Children's Recall of Televised and Printed News as a Function of Test Expectation.

Abstract An exploratory study was carried out to investigate the relative effectiveness of news stories watched on television and news stories read by children. Children aged 10 to 12 (n = 123) either watched five news stories or read print versions of the same news stories. In each condition, half of the children expected a retention test, whereas the other children did not. Results indicated that children who did not expect a retention test learned more from television news than from printed news. Among children who expected a retention test, televised and printed news were recalled about equally well.

Dimensional Structure of the Imaginal Processes Inventory for Children (IPI-C)

The dimensional structure of Dutch versions of the Imaginal Processes Inventory for Children (IPI-C) was investigated with children in Grades 3–6. According to Study 1, the reliabilities of the nine subscales distinguished within the American instrument were not satisfactory. A principal components analysis (PCA) performed on the subscales resulted in three factors that paralleled the three fantasy styles found previously in a similar analysis of the American IPI-C. However, two of the three factors found were defined by subscales that had a number of items in common. When these shared items were removed from the subscales, a different three-factor solution emerged. The three fantasy styles found in the latter analysis were encountered again in Study 2, which was conducted with an adjusted version of the IPI-C. Three reliable fantasy scales were constructed, for positive-intense, heroic-aggressive, and dysphoric fantasy. The results of the two studies justify further research into the validity of these three fantasy scales.

The Impact of Background Media on Homework Performance: Students’ Perceptions and Experimental Findings

Although a series of studies have shown that television viewing can have adverse effects on young people’s academic performance (Comstock & Paik, 1991), little is known about the processes by which television may hinder students’ academic achievement. One possible explanation is that television distracts students from homework because they do their home study in front of an operating television screen. Whereas pre-television generations of students could chose to combine doing homework with audio media, nowadays students may also combine their homework with television. According to a U.S. survey, secondary school students frequently combine doing homework with the use of background media, either television or audio media — radio, compact discs, and audio cassettes (Patton, Stinard & Routh, 1983). To our knowledge, there are no reliable data about the frequency with which European students combine doing homework with background media.

Three Proposals for Cross-National Research on Television and Children

During the first meeting of European researchers in the field of media psychology (Budapest, 1991) we presented an overview of Dutch media psychological research, entitled ‘Media psychology behind the dikes: State of the art in the Netherlands’ (van der Voort & Beentjes, 1991). We concluded this paper by making a plea for the foundation of a European Association of Media Psychology with the following objectives: organizing a biennial conference, promoting cross-cultural research, raising European research funds, and publishing a European journal of media psychology.

Research at the Leiden Center for Child and Media Studies

At the Budapest symposium on ‘Psychology of media in Europe’ we presented an overview of media-psychological research conducted at Dutch universities (van der Voort & Beentjes, 1991). In this paper we will review the research of one institute, the one with which the authors are affiliated, namely the Center for Child and Media Studies. The Center was founded in 1986 at Leiden University to do research and to offer courses about the role played by media in children’s development and socialization. The research perspective is psychological and pedagogical.