Comments of a signijicant other can enhance learning; television may even be capable of mediating itself.With experience, viewers of television have been able to acquire the skills to interpret, evaluate, and appreciate what they watch, Adults may exercise such skills, for example, by asking of a program or commercial, "How realistic is the portrayed action and its consequences?' "Does it correspond with other sources of information?" and "Does it agree with my own attitudes and beliefs?" However, such attempts to analyze television content are at best infrequent among adults. Children have been observed to be even less sophisticated viewers. They often do not understand the plots of programs (see 26) or the implied consequences of portrayed acts (e.g., 4), and do not critically evaluate products advertised on TV (e.g., 42,43). They have a lower order of mental skills, fewer analytical abilities, and less experience with the world with which to interpret, understand, and critically appreciate television programming.Thus it may be argued that in order for children to be in any sense critical television viewers, they need adult assistance. Parents, older siblings, and teachers apparently can have a direct and substantial impact upon children's understanding of the factual and value implications of television portrayals (1,8,9,10,22,32,34,37) by providing a limited commentary on what children view. The mere presence of an adult as a co-viewer (see 2, 28) is insufficient-interaction directed toward the program is the critical element. However, families rarely discuss television commercials being viewed (42), and little family interaction occurs with regard to television content (19), despite documented paren-

No abstract

Children viewing an entertainment program with un adult supplying interpretive comments retained more information than children who did not receive such guidance.Prior to the advent of TV, when young children were exposed to mass media, it usually had been selected in advance by a parent. Now, however, the ready availability and continuous effluence of TV have usurped many aspects of socialization once under parental control. Research with parents and children suggests that, despite the long number of hours family members spend watching the television set, those hours are not accompanied by any significant family interaction directed toward the medium or its conten't (4).Family interactions involving TV content may be particularly important for preschool viewers. Collins (2) found that younger children do not comprehend the motives for acts portrayed on TV, do not understand the consequences of doing certain acts, and often evaluate the characters in terms of the consequences of their acts, e.g., the aggressors were bad because they were sent to jail. Consequently, it appears likely that both informational and attitudinal statements made by adults would aid in the young child's comprehension of the on-going program content.Possibly the earliest evidence of the significance of family interaction during ttJlevision viewing is found in Ball and Bogatz's (1) first-year evaluation of "Sesame Street." Children who watched and learned more came from homes Charles R. Corder-Bolz is

A Monte Carlo study was conducted to evaluate six models commonly used to evaluate change. The results revealed specific problems with each. Analysis of covariance and analysis of variance of residualized gain scores appeared to substantially and consistently overestimate the change effects. Multiple factor analysis of variance models utilizing pretest and post-test scores yield invalidly low F ratios. The analysis of variance of difference scores and the multiple factor analysis of variance using repeated measures were the only models which adequately controlled for pre-treatment differences, however, they appeared to be robust only when the error level was 50% or more. These results indicated that one of the persistent flaws of models traditionally used to evaluate change is that the generated statistics are confounded with the amount of error variance in the data. With this insight, a modification of the analysis of variance model was developed. A second Monte Carlo study was conducted to further evaluate the traditionally used models and the modified models. The results confirmed the findings of the first study and suggested that the modified model may be an adequate model with which change phenomena can be evaluated.

The present study was undertaken to test whether young boys and girls, aged 6 to 7 yr., black, and from families of low income, would develop knowledge and attitudes about work roles and the sex of workers in those roles from television commercials. Both stereotypic and counter-stereotypic occupational roles were portrayed by TV actresses. Children were pre- and posttested in terms of (1) their occupational knowledge, (2) the extent to which they stereotyped various occupations, and (3) their own preferences for various traditionally male and traditionally female jobs. Children's knowledge of occupations increased after the TV exposure; however, their views of stereotypic roles did not change. Importantly girls showed greater preferences for traditionally male jobs following TV exposure to women in such roles.