Selected references on educational television.

Bibliography of the role of television in education grouped into categories: Information about Current Developments in ETV, Uses of TV in Education, Television Production, Research on the Effectiveness of ETV as an Educational Tool, Bibliographies on ETV, and Conferences. Most references are briefly annotated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

National television film series.

APA with grant support from NSF has sponsored the production of a series of 10 ?-hour films in cooperation with the National Educational Television and Radio Center, titled "Focus on Behavior: The Science of Psychology." The films have just been released to 72 affiliated educational TV stations. Titles are indicated and featured experimenters are named. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some thoughts on television as an educational tool.

"A major conclusion warranted by all of the research findings is: TV can teach." The authors state that "… the relatively little research available, its character and findings, do not warrant the marked enthusiasm and overoptimism about educational television evidenced in many quarters." "In our view, TV at present should be regarded merely as one other communication channel for teaching purposes." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A new road to the abundant life: a survey of educational television.

Perhaps "… we have within our grasp a means of bringing to millions of people what only thousands could have had before television came." A brief history of the development of television for education is presented. A wide variety of subjects relating to home life, travel, recreation, child care, reading, playing, the art of conversation, the arts of acquired skills in music, photography, design, the dance, etc. can be presented realistically. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An evaluation of the effectiveness of instruction and audience reaction to programming on an educational television station.

"The achievement of students enrolled in elementary psychology and biology television instruction and non-television instruction was compared. No significant differences were found. An audience-reaction survey of Houston televiewers revealed that 75% of the audience watched the station from as often as three times a week to at least once in two weeks. Highly preferred programs included sports, a psychology course, and an international affairs discussion panel. Suggested programs ranked most highly were sports programs, educational films, panel discussion, and children's programs. Least preferred programs were of the classical music type." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Scaling preferences for television shows.

The constant-sum method of psychological scaling was applied to the problem of determining scale values for the dimension of liking for 18 television shows. 2 groups (N = 376 and 384) of relatively homogeneous Ss were employed. Groups came from different geographical areas. Stability of stimulus scale values is demonstrated when each group is divided into 2 samples and scales determined for each sample. Scales from the 2 groups are compared, and correlations are determined between CSM scale values and commercial survey ratings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A personal adjustment television program.

"This article describes some of our experiences in presenting a television program on personal adjustment on a commercial station over a period of one year. It is also an announcement of the availability of 13 half-hour kinescope recordings of these programs through the Educational TV and Radio Center." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological research using television.

Psychologists "… along with other behavioral scientists, have both personal and professional responsibilities for research related to telecommunications." Three main barriers to research using television and related media are (1) the lack of adequate, continuing financial aid and of available facilities, (2) the lack of highly competent research men "… motivated to investigate the complex processes of communication… ", and (3) the lack of a sound research tradition for experimental psychologists in the field of the mass media and telecommunications. "Now is the time for research and development work before the flood of students reaches our colleges and universities." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An investigation of some aspects of the social psychological impact of an educational television program.

Do educational TV programs change viewer attitudes? The degree to which TV programs change viewer attitudes and personality measures can predict these changes, and the relation of credibility of source of programs on these changes, were studied using the Semantic Differential and Dogmatism Scales with a control (n-30) and 2 experimental groups (n-47 and n-36) of University of Houston elementary psychology class students. All of the hypotheses advanced were rejected. 20 refs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Retention of classroom and television learning.

Comparison of retention three years after instruction was made for four conditions of learning introductory psychology: An off-campus television group (n = 40), a traditional classroom group (n = 22), a TV-in-studio class (n = 11), and a kinescope class (n = 10). The original-test-retention-test differences were not significant, nor was the test x group interaction. "The results… indicate that… long-term retention of… material learned by television… is as good as that learned by traditional means… ." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Violence and sex impair memory for television ads.

Participants watched a violent, sexually explicit, or neutral TV program that contained 9 ads. Participants recalled the advertised brands. They also identified the advertised brands from slides of supermarket shelves. The next day, participants were telephoned and asked to recall again the advertised brands. Results showed better memory for people who saw the ads during a neutral program than for people who saw the ads during a violent or sexual program both immediately after exposure and 24 hr later. Violence and sex impaired memory for males and females of all ages, regardless of whether they liked programs containing violence and sex. These results suggest that sponsoring violent and sexually explicit TV programs might not be a profitable venture for advertisers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Subjective measurements in television.

A discussion of the type of psychophysical experiments which are fruitfully carried out in studying the relation between physical circuit variables and the perception of television pictures by the viewer. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stereoscopic television pursuit tracking.

This research was concerned with tracking a remote target moving in depth. A 3-D television system provided visual feedback, and direct and aided pursuit tracking systems were evaluated as a function of target speed. The stereoscopic display was shown to be generally satisfactory for remote-control operations, although some fatigue or "eyestrain" was reported, probably due to the optics of the system. Contrary to previous tracking studies on nondepth courses, it was shown that on a depth course direct tracking is consistently superior to aided tracking at the 3 target speeds used. Amplitude of error analysis provided answers concerning what Ss do when not on target. Tracking behavior was interpreted in terms of the sensory-feedback mechanisms governing the control of motor patterns. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A psychological investigation of a group of demographic, personality, and behavioral variables as they relate to viewing educational television.

42 frequent and 72 nonviewers were interviewed by 6 trained interviewers using a questionnaire composed of fixed-alternatives, general open-end, and projective questions. They did not differ with respect to occupation, income, sex, race, or personality factors. Time spent in viewing reaches its peak after 50. "Our findings indicate that frequent viewers discuss and act upon ideas and information gained from educational television programs." From Psyc Abstracts 36:02:2KC25E. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social psychology on television: Experimental programming.

The opportunity to present a series of psychology programs of a non-telecourse variety was an opportunity to investigate some of the experimental possibilities inherent in the presentation of social psychological content on television. "This paper describes certain aspects of the series: Techniques of presentation, the presentation of potentially controversial subject matter, and the problems involved in the evaluation of the series." One program dramatized social prejudice; another featured a discussion of basic propaganda techniques; still another focussed on worker morale. The experimental programming of social psychology on television "provides further evidence which suggests that educational television not only supplies a challenging experimental medium in social psychology, but also in the process provides a means of communicating significant psychological ideas to a greater representation of the population than has heretofore ever been possible." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Television Instruction in Child Psychology.

The October 1955 issue of the "American Psychologist" was devoted principally to educational television. The need for research on the effectiveness of television instruction in psychology was emphasized. This is a report of an attempt to assess the impact of a series of television programs in child psychology on an audience of parents and teachers in the Denver (Colorado) area. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of closed-circuit television in university resident instruction.

"It is now obvious that we can link any number of classrooms together, put one or more TV receivers in each, and let one good professor lecture over the television system to multiple groups of students." Experiments "… or demonstrations could be performed and televised… ." Initial cost, installation and maintenance, operation, flexibility and pictures are discussed. "… TV exists as an aid to, and not a replacement for, the instructor… ." Faculties should "… begin now to coolly appraise TV for its strengths and its weaknesses, and to determine in what ways and under what conditions TV can make a contribution to resident university instruction." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An inexpensive method to determine the efficiency of a television program.

By telephoning people and asking them if they had watched a just-shown TV program, the size of the audience is estimated. "Efficiency, or most per thousand home exposures, is selected as the criterion." Based on material used in a PhD dissertation the technique of sequential analysis permits, with stated risks of error, a decision about the efficiency of a TV program. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Applications of psychology to television programming: Program execution.

Discusses the use of both educators and entertainers in the development and implementation of "Sesame Street" and "The Electric Company." The need of both of the groups to learn the other's language is pointed out, and the creation of a common lexicon (e.g., "cross plug," "visiting relatives effect,") and the psychological terms that can be used to describe the terms are reviewed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Flesch readability formula applied to television programs.

A Flesch readability analysis was made of eight daytime adult interest programs and twenty-five evening once-a-week network TV programs. Both types of program used audible vocabularies that were relatively simple and contained relatively large amounts of human interest. Although the Reading Ease and Human Interest scores were significantly correlated, neither was correlated significantly with Telepulse ratings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)