Self-help Articles

by Juliette H. Walma van der Molen, Ph.D.
& Tom H.A. van der Voort, Ph.D.

Psychologists Juliette H. Walma van der Molen, Ph.D., and Tom H.A. van der Voort, Ph.D., of the Center for Child and Media Studies at Leiden University in The Netherlands wanted to see if child learning is influenced more by reading or television.

All the earlier studies (except one, which found no difference) found that adults remembered more of what they read than what they saw on television, possibly because adults take advantage of the freedom to re-read printed material that they don't usually have with television.

A Focus on Early Childhood Education

To do this, the researchers designed a study in which 152 fourth- and sixth-grade children were presented with five children's news stories, either in their original televised form or in a verbatim printed version.

Some of the children were told they would be tested on what they read or saw (to simulate the school setting) and others were not told that they would be tested (to simulate watching or reading at home). The television version of the five stories lasted 11 minutes and was viewed once; the children reading the printed versions could take as long as they needed to read them.

Across the board, children who watched the television news reports recalled more of what they viewed than the children who read the printed versions (which carried no photos or illustrations).

There were some differences, however: the more proficient readers remembered more from either medium than the less proficient readers (poor readers were excluded from the study) and the older children who were told they would be tested expended greater mental effort than those who were not told they would be tested.

Also, the children who watched the televised version recalled more items of information that were presented both verbally and visually than they did those that were presented only verbally, without accompanying pictures.

In other words, the television items were particularly effective (compared with the printed versions) when the children received the news via two channels: the spoken commentary and the television pictures conveying more or less the same information.

"The results of this study," the researchers conclude, "are 'good news' for children, because in the home situation they rely primarily on the medium that can serve them most effectively. For instructional settings, the study suggests that television news that is adapted to children's level of understanding and that effectively uses television's ability to convey news both verbally and visually may be an effective aid to the teacher."

Reference:

"Children's Recall of Television and Print News: A Media Comparison Study" by Juliette H. Walma van der Molen, Ph.D. & Tom H.A. van der Voort, Ph.D., Leiden, The Netherlands, in Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 89, No. 1.

This information received from the American Psychological Association (APA), in Washington, DC.