Learning From a Television News Story

Abstract

Although large numbers of young children watch news programs, researchers have paid little attention to nonproduction variables involved in learning from the news This field experiment with 435 third through seventh graders focuses on the relationship between childrens' perceptions of the news and learning and the effect of news story context on their per ceptions The study predicts that four perceptual variables—liking the story, liking the program, believing the story, and understanding the function of the story—will have a positive relationship to learning Because some news for children is presented in the context of cartoons and fantasy drama- such as the CBS "In the News" series—the study explores the effect of news story context on learning through the perceptual variables listed above