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THE EFFECTS OF TELEVISION ON CHILDREN: A PUERTO RICAN STUDY
Abstract
This study was designed to investigate the effects of television viewing on children's language, reading skills, creativity and aggression. The control group consisted of children who never watched television and the experimental group were composed of children who viewed television. The sample consisted of 196 third, fourth and fifth graders attending two different schools in Naguabo, Puerto Rico. The statistical analysis of the data indicated that the patterns of television viewing had an adverse effect on the reading and language skills of the children. Youngsters in the study who were not television viewers reflected greater mastery of language and reading skills than their counterparts that viewed television. In addition, further analysis were conducted to control the effects of sex, grade, mental ability and socio-economic status. As evidenced by the study, it was discovered that television viewing affected the language skills of all male, children of average intellectual ability (from percentiles 26 to 75) and of low socio-economic status. Moreover, it was also clear, that the reading skills of the children were affected by extensive television viewing. This factor was especially true among children of both sexes and of average to high intellectual ability, low socio-economic status. In regard to the Torrance Creativity Test, children who watched television obtained higher scores than their conterparts who were not viewers. Significant differences were evidenced in the subtests of Originality and Elaboration in favor of the children who were regular television viewers. In light of the evidence, children who viewed television on a regular basis were evaluated more frequently as being much more aggressive than children who were non-viewers. With respect to intellectual ability as the independent variable, it was further noted that viewing television did affect children of average to above intellectual level. In addition, the effect of television on aggression did not differ by age, sex and socio-economic status.
Subject Area
Education
Recommended Citation
SUAREZ CEPEDA, YOLANDA, "THE EFFECTS OF TELEVISION ON CHILDREN: A PUERTO RICAN STUDY" (1982). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI8211750.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI8211750