The durations and variability of changing events were analyzed for 20 min. each of 13 children's television programs. These programs included selections from both publically and privately produced shows. Significantly different patterns of attentional demands were found between the programs. Public television programming is characterized by longer and more variable durations of sustained attentional events, while private television programming is best described as having fast-paced shorter events. The implications of this finding for difficulties in learning by school-age children to attend for longer periods are discussed.

Motivation to learn declines as students progress through elementary grades and drops precipitously as they enter middle school. A variety of reasons have been given for this decline from both developmental and environmental researchers. What has not been closely examined is the potential influence of different types of classroom assignments on the student motivation decline. In order to examine the decline, the influence of simple and complex language arts assignments on high, average, and low ability groups in middle school was measured by student interview. A randomly selected sample of 18 students from 3 sixth grade classrooms were interviewed using understanding, expectancy, and value questions with different types of assignments. Although the sample was small, 71 interviews were conducted to obtain 93 observations, giving a wider analytical base. Data were coded both quantitatively and qualitatively and analyzed for motivational focus (intrinsic, extrinsic, work-avoidant, or their combination) at both the group and individual/eve[. Results showed that students liked or were interested in most assignments and had motivational focus that was related to the assignment's complexity and creativity levels. As assignments progressed from simple to complex, students at all achievement levels progressed towards an intrinsicmastery focus. Further, the motivational foci formed cluster patterns by assignment type: discrepancies were on assignments that limited creativity. The implications for teacher planning and instruction are discussed.

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This study investigates the patterns of sustained attentional demands of events in Kindergarten through Grade 5. The durations and variability of sustained attention for events occurring in 12 elementary classrooms were observed. The data show a progression of sustained attentional demands across the grades; however, a substantial increase in students' sustained attention is required between Kindergarten and Grade 1. The implications of these findings on curriculum development are discussed.