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Science on Saturday Morning:children's perceptions of sciencein educational and non‐educationalcartoonsShalom M. Fisch a , William Yotive a , Susan K. McCann Brown a

, M. Scott Garner a & Lisa Chen aa Children's Television Workshop , New York, USAPublished online: 25 Nov 2010.

To cite this article: Shalom M. Fisch , William Yotive , Susan K. McCann Brown , M. ScottGarner & Lisa Chen (1997) Science on Saturday Morning: children's perceptions of science ineducational and non‐educational cartoons, Journal of Educational Media, 23:2-3, 157-167, DOI:10.1080/1358165970230205

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Journal of Educational Media, Vol. 23, No. 2/3, 1997 157

Science on Saturday Morning:children's perceptions of sciencein educational andnon-educational cartoonsSHALOM M. FISCH, WILLIAM YOTIVE, SUSAN K.McCANN BROWN, M. SCOTT GARNER & LISACHENChildren's Television Workshop, New York, USA

ABSTRACT The Federal Communications Commission is considering whether tostrengthen the implementation of the Children's Television Act of 1990, which requiresbroadcasters to air educational and informational programs for children. Some broadcastershave opposed such measures, arguing that not enough children will watch educationalprograms. This argument assumes that children distinguish between educational andnon-educational programs, find educational programs less appealing, and consequently areunlikely to watch them. The present study tests these assumptions directly, through acomparison of two animated programs set in prehistoric times, Cro (an educationalprogram about technology) and The Flintstones (a non-educational program). Resultsindicated that Cro's technology content was salient to children but, contrary to the aboveassumptions, children did not distinguish between the programs on the basis of theireducational content, and both programs were highly appealing.

Introduction

Television plays a major role in the lives of children. Although estimates of theamount of time children spend viewing television vary widely (from 11 to 28 hoursper week), numerous studies indicate that American children spend more timewatching television than in any other activity except sleeping (for example, Andersonet al., 1985; Huston et al, 1987, 1989). A large body of research has also demon-strated that television can have significant effects on children, either educational (forexample, Ball & Bogatz, 1970; Bogatz & Ball, 1971; Chen, 1994; Fisch et al., 1994)or detrimental (for example, Surgeon General's Scientific Advisory Committee onTelevision and Social Behavior, 1972; Paik, 1993).

The ubiquity of television in children's lives has provided the impetus for morethan 25 years of debate over the need for public policy to ensure that broadcasters

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provide programming which will meet the needs of a child audience. One outcomeof this debate was the passage of the Children's Television Act of 1990. Among theprovisions of the Act was the requirement that broadcasters must serve 'the educa-tional and informational needs of children through the licensee's overall program-ming, including programming specifically designed to serve such needs' (Section103 [2]).

The response to the Act was not a sudden increase in the production ofeducational programming aimed at children. Although a station survey conductedby the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) reported that the averageamount of children's educational programming had risen from slightly more than 2hours per week in 1990 to 3.6 hours in 1993, the Federal CommunicationsCommission (FCC) concluded from a cursory review of license renewal applicationsthat the reliability of these figures was questionable (FCC, 1995, p. 6318) [1].Indeed, a very different picture was presented by Condry et al. (1993); theseresearchers conducted a content analysis of children's television, and found only oneeducational program airing on commercial stations (i.e. stations other than PBS) in1992. Although 1993 saw the introduction of four new educational television serieson commercial television—three series about science (Cro, Beakman's World, andBill Nye the Science Guy) and one about geography {Where on Earth Is CarmenSandiego)—the overall number of educational programs remained fairly low.

Part of the reason for the discrepancy between the data from the NAB study andthat of Condry et al.—as well as the relatively small amount of substantive educa-tional programming found on commercial television—may lie in the FCC'sdefinition of 'educational programming'. The FCC broadly defined 'educationalprogramming' as carrying content that 'furthers the positive development of children16 years of age and under in any respect, including the child's intellectual/cognitiveor social/emotional needs' (FCC, 1991, p. 2121). Contrast this with the stricterdefinition used by Condry et al. (1993):

A significant portion of the program is devoted to teaching information thatthe children in the audience are not likely to already know (e.g., thealphabet, vocabulary, historical or scientific information, applied infor-mation for everyday life) or demonstrating skills or crafts, (p. 5)

Under the broad definition of 'educational programming' currently used by theFCC, some broadcasters have responded to the Act, not by creating new educa-tional programming but by redefining existing entertainment programming as edu-cational (Kunkel & Canepa, 1995). In a few well-publicized cases, this was taken toextremes; for example, The Jetsons was presented as educational because it presentslife in the 21st century, and The Flintstones and G.I. Joe were cited for containingpro-social themes, while adult-oriented news programs and game shows such asWheel of Fortune have been claimed as educational children's programming as well(Andrews, 1993; Kunkel & Canepa, 1995).

The FCC is not unaware of either the lack of substantive educational program-ming or its potential causes. In 1993, the FCC stated that 'it seems clear thatCongress intended ... to increase the amount of educational and informationalprogramming aimed expressly at the child audience ... [but] we do not believe that

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[the current] level of performance is, in the long term, consistent with the objectivesunderlying the [Children's Television Act]' (FCC, 1993, p. 1842). The FCCannounced its intention to strengthen its implementation of the Act, and soughtcomment on the possibility of: (1) narrowing the definition of 'educational andinformational programming', and (2) establishing quotas for the amount of educa-tional programming to be aired, and its enforcement (Andrews, 1993). Morerecently, the FCC voted to further study several proposals for strengthening the Act(Cooper, 1995), although support among the FCC commissioners is far fromunanimous (Stern, 1995). At the time of this report, the FCC has solicited, and isin the process of receiving, public comment on the Act and its guidelines (FCC,1995).

As one might expect, broadcasters have been wary of further governmentalregulation of their programming, and many have opposed strengthening the guide-lines of the Act. At a recent FCC hearing on children's television, one stationmanager argued that 'if television stations are straightjacketed and forced by govern-ment fiat to broadcast unappealing, but educational programs, the audience willevaporate' (Walker, 1994, p. 6). Similarly, Aufderheide & Montgomery (1994)quote a syndicator as complaining that 'the FCC is telling you that you have to putboring TV on. The primary focus has to be educational, not entertaining. You knowkids, they don't want to go to school all week. If they don't want to watch it, who'sgonna make 'em?' (p. 25).

Such arguments seem to rest on the assumption that education and entertain-ment are, somehow, mutually exclusive. Although some proponents of this viewacknowledge rare exceptions to the rule, such as Beakman's World (Walker, 1994),they nevertheless assume that educational programs will be appealing to a narroweraudience of children and, thus, attract fewer (if any) viewers. In other words, theyassume that children: (1) distinguish between programs that are intended to beeducational and programs that are not, (2) find educational television programs tobe unappealing, and (3) consequently choose not to watch educational programs.

Yet, these tacit assumptions have never been tested empirically, so their validityhas remained questionable. The present study is intended to provide a direct,empirical test of these issues, through a comparison of children's perceptions ofeducational and non-educational television series. In particular, the study examineswhether children distinguish between educational and non-educational televisionprograms, their recall and perceptions of the educational content in an educationalprogram, and the relative appeal of educational and non-educational programs.

To be conservative, this paper adopts the strict definition of 'educational tele-vision programming' used by Condry et al. (1993), presented above. The twotelevision programs used in the study (The Flintstones and Cro) are, on the surface,very similar. Both are humorous, 30-minute animated cartoons, both air on com-mercial television, and both present a cast of characters in a prehistoric setting.

Yet, the two series differ in educational content. The Flintstones would not beconsidered educational under the definition posed by Condry et al. However, evenunder this strict definition, Cro would. Produced by the Children's TelevisionWorkshop (CTW) and broadcast on Saturday mornings on ABC, Cro is a series

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about technology aimed at 6- to 11-year-old children. Cro presents the adventuresof an 11-year-old Cro-Magnon boy, his Neanderthal 'family', and the talking woollymammoths who are their friends, as they use a variety of scientific concepts andsimple machines to overcome the obstacles of their prehistoric world. The mainbody of each show is set in the Ice Age, with framing sequences (starring a Latinascientist, an African-American boy, and a well-preserved mammoth) set in thepresent.

Cro was designed to blend into the Saturday-morning viewing environment, butto educate as well as entertain. The series' three primary educational goals are:

• to entertain and reach a large audience on network television, while helpingincrease children's familiarity with and interest in basic scientific and technologi-cal principles through an introduction to the workings of familiar machines,gadgets, and simple tools,

• to help stimulate children's interest in science and technology by showing thatthey are not abstractions but integral parts of daily life; and

• to work to convince youngsters that discovering the workings of science andtechnology can be great fun.

Each episode of Cro centers on a different science concept or technological device,such as the features of wings that allow an airplane to fly. Two summative studieshave demonstrated that Cro exerts a significant impact on children's understandingof and interest in technology (Fay et al., 1995; Fisch et al, 1995).

Like Cro, The Flintstones presents whimsical gadgets (e.g. an elephant's trunk thatserves as a vacuum cleaner). Unlike Cro, however, the devices in The Flintstones arefanciful and would not work in real life. Thus, the devices and 'science' presentedin The Flintstones can better be considered 'pseudo-science'—i.e. unrealistic deviceswhich do not obey physical laws or 'scientific' practices which have the trappings ofscience but are not accurate.

Because Cro and The Flintstones share a great deal of surface similarity but are sodifferent educationally, they can provide a good test of broadcasters' assumptionsregarding educational programming. The present study examines the relative appealof these two programs for children, children's perceptions of the similarities anddifferences between them, and their perceptions of science in each program.

Method

Sample

The sample consisted of 77 children, 41 girls and 36 boys. Children were taken fromthe second (mean age = 7 years, 11 months), fourth (mean age =10 years, 0months), and fifth (mean age =11 years, 0 months) grades of an inner-city, publicelementary school in Manhattan, NY. The ethnic composition of the sample was90% African-American, 9% Latino, and 1% White.

To assess the children's viewing habits, they were asked whether they had seeneach of the following series on television: Cro, The Flintstones, Marsupilami, Cadillacs

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and Dinosaurs, TheX-Men, and Bobby's World. The relative numbers of children whohad watched each series are consistent with the series' Nielsen ratings and thelongevity of The Flintstones. Thus, the television viewing habits of the sampleappeared to be representative of the larger population of American children.

Children were also asked, more specifically, how often they had watched Cro andThe Flintstones on television before. Prior viewership was higher for The Flintstonesthan Cro. In all, 73% reported having watched The Flintstones 'a whole lot (morethan 20 times)', 15% reported watching it 'a lot (6-20 times)', 7% had watched it'a few times (1-5 times)', and 5% had never seen it. By contrast, 18% had watchedCro 'a whole lot', 12% reported watching it 'a lot', 23% had seen it 'a few times',and 47% had never watched it.

Materials

Children were presented with three television programs on videotape. Two of theprograms were episodes of Cro and one was an episode of The Flintstones.

The first episode of Cro (the 'Wheels' program) showed the characters develop-ing a wheeled device to transport a mammoth who had broken two of his legs. Thetechnology content centered on finding the easiest and most efficient method ofreducing friction: pushing the mammoth across the ground; pushing him acrossrollers that constantly had to be replaced in front of him; creating a platform thatrolled on two permanent rollers; and using a pair of wheels that would allow him tosteer and brake.

In the second episode of Cro (the 'Flight' program), the characters invented arudimentary glider. The technology content of the episode consisted primarily of thecharacters' learning that: air exists and wind can hold things in the air; wings musthave the proper size, shape, and sturdiness; a vertical stabilizer allows a glider to flystraight; and a rudder allows it to turn.

In the Flintstones episode, Fred Flintstone had a dream in which the infantsPebbles and Bamm Bamm became singing stars. The episode contained no technol-ogy content of the sort presented in Cro. However, it did include several instancesof pseudo-science: cars that were powered by the driver's feet running through thefloor; a stone contract that was signed with a chisel; and a psychiatrist who checkedBamm Bamm's knee reflexes and immediately diagnosed both Bamm Bamm andPebbles as suffering from 'mass-media transactional hypnosis'.

Procedure

The study was conducted over a 3-day period. On Day 1, children were shown theCro Wheels episode. On Day 2, they viewed the Cro Flight episode. On Day 3, theyviewed The Flintstones.

On Days 2 and 3, immediately after viewing each program, the children rated itsappeal on a five-point scale: 'great' (5), 'good' (4), 'OK' (3), 'not so good' (2), or'terrible' (1). Next, approximately half of the children were then interviewed ingroups of two to four. Each interview asked children to recall the story from that

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TABLE I. Percentage of children mentioning devices,inventing, or pseudo-science during free recall

Cro The Flintstones

Devices or inventing 67% 0%Pseudo-science 0% 5%No mention 33% 95%

day's program, compare it to the programs they had seen on the previous days(similarities and differences), and decide whether the program contained any 'sci-ence' (since second graders might not understand 'technology' as relating to simplemachines) and, if it did, to give examples of the 'science' they had seen.

Results

Appeal

Both of the programs tested (the Cro Flight episode and The Flintstones) were ratedas highly appealing, with both rated between 'good' and 'great' on average. Themean appeal rating for Cro was 4.33 and the mean rating for The Flintstones was 4.54on a five-point scale.

Free recall

In examining children's free recall of the stories of the Cro Flight episode and TheFlintstones, our primary interest was in whether children would spontaneouslymention the devices shown in the two programs, the process of inventing shown inCro, or the instances of pseudo-science shown in The Flintstones.

As Table I indicates, significantly more children spontaneously mentioned thedevices or inventing in Cro than in The Flintstones (%2 = 37.38, p< 0.001). Approxi-mately two-thirds of the children mentioned these aspects of Cro. For example, onesecond grader explained that a flimsy, overly long wing was not as good as a shorterwing because 'the stick [wing] is heavier and smaller'. A fifth grader explained theuse of the rudder on the device: '[the characters] made the wing of an airplane andthe back of the airplane like a motor boat... the back [rudder] sticks up like a motorboat and controlled the front ... If you couldn't control it, it would go right or left[uncontrollably].'

By contrast, only two children mentioned the psychiatrist's examination in TheFlintstones. For example, one second grader recalled that 'the doctor came to seehow they sing and they didn't even talk. The doctor hit [Barnm Bamm] on the kneeand he kicked them. The doctor said, "Ah" and they opened their mouth.' None ofthe children spontaneously mentioned the gadgets shown in the program.

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TABLE II. Percentage of children who said therewas 'science' or 'no science' in Cro and The

Flintstones

Cro The Flintstones

'Science' 69% 53%'No science' 31% 47%

Direct comparison of Cro and and The Flintstones

Children were asked directly for similarities and differences between Cro and TheFlintstones, to determine whether they perceived the two series as different becauseof the educational/technology content of Cro.

When asked for similarities, almost all of the children's responses centered ontheir prehistoric settings or humorous animated formats. Of the 48 children whowere asked, only three responded that the characters in both series 'solved prob-lems', approaching the problem-solving context in which Cro's technology contentis set.

Similarly, most (76%) of the differences that children found between the seriesconcerned plot- or format-related differences (e.g. different characters, animals, orclothes) rather than educational/technological features. In fact, although 26% of thechildren's responses concerned differences in technology, only one of these re-sponses referred to the fact that Cro 'invents things'; the remainder of the responsesconcerned devices such as prehistoric televisions, cars, lawnmowers, or lights, thatwere shown in The Flintstones but not Cro.

Thus, when asked to make explicit comparisons between Cro and The Flintstones,children's responses did not typically rely upon the educational/technology contentof Cro.

'Science'

Because the primary educational focus of Cro is on science and technology, thechildren were asked directly whether 'science' was present in each of the twoprograms. Most children said that 'science' was present in both (Table II). Therewas no statistically significant difference between the number of children who saidthat there was 'science' in the two programs (j1 = 2.01, N.S.).

However, significant differences between the programs emerged when we exam-ined the nature of the examples of 'science' that the children provided (Table III).After each show, most of the examples children provided were pseudo-science ratherthan actual science, indicating that children do not differentiate between real andpseudo-science. This is consistent with past research that has shown that children—and even college students—do not always hold clear and accurate conceptions of

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TABLE III. Examples of technology/inventing vs. pseudo-science offered as 'science' in Cro and The Flintstones

Cro The Flintstones

Devices or inventing 45% 13%Pseudo-science 55% 87%

what 'science' is (for example, Fleming, 1988; Crelinsten, et al., 1991; Fisch, et al.,in preparation).

Nevertheless, those children who offered examples of 'science' were approxi-mately three times as likely to offer realistic examples of devices or technology in Crothan in The Flintstones (x2 = 4.65, /><0.05). In all, 45% of the children's examplesregarding Cro concerned devices and technology; for example, one fifth grader saidthat 'they take leaves and sticks and they put it on the back of a glider to make it turn... [E: Why is that science?] Because they are building and doing.' By contrast,children almost invariably pointed to pseudo-science in giving examples regardingThe Flintstones; for example, a fifth grader explained, 'They teach you how to useanimals for machines ... an elephant for a shower, you can use a tiger for a pet. [E:Why is that science?] Because you have someone to protect you when you are inyour house [E: What make that science?] You can put poison in his teeth and havehim or her bite you.' (Other examples of pseudo-science included the fancifulmedical examinations, 'historical' settings, and animals in both The Flintstones andCro, and an Ice Age mammoth's being frozen until the twentieth century in Cro.)

Thus, children more often identified examples of actual science or technologywhen discussing Cro, although there was no significant difference in the degree towhich they saw the two programs as containing 'science'.

Discussion

To contextualize the present data properly, let us return to the assumptions thatunderlie broadcasters' arguments that children are disinclined to watch educationaltelevision: (1) children distinguish between programs that are intended to beeducational and programs that are not, (2) they find educational television programsto be unappealing, and (3) they consequently choose not to watch educationalprograms.

The present data, along with prior research, support Cro being classified aseducational. Prior research has shown exposure to Cro to result in significantincreases in children's understanding of and interest in technology (Fay et al., 1995;Fisch et al, 1995). The present data are consistent with these findings; in this study,Cro's technology content was sufficiently salient that two-thirds of the childrenspontaneously mentioned its devices during free recall and approximately half oftheir examples of science in Cro concerned its devices and technology.

Nevertheless (and contrary to broadcasters' first assumption, above), children

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did not see the educational content of Cm as distinguishing it from The Flintstones.They did not cite it as a difference between the two series, nor did they see Cm asmore of a 'science series' than The Flintstones.

Regarding broadcasters' second assumption—that children find educationalseries unappealing—the data indicate that the children in this study found both Cmand The Flintstones to be appealing. Both received appeal ratings between 'good' and'great' on average. This is consistent with prior research that has shown Cm to havehigh appeal (for example, Fay et al., 1995), as well as research on other, moreexplicitly educational television series, such as Square One TV, which also has shownhigh appeal among school-age children (for example, Fisch et al., 1992). Indeed,research on Square One ri^has often found school-age children explaining that theyliked a particular show or segment because they could learn from it (for example,Hall et al, 1990).

This study did not test broadcasters' third assumption—that children choose notto watch educational programs—directly; however, the high appeal of Cm suggeststhat children would choose to watch it. The most recent Nielsen rating data for Cmalso cannot answer this question directly, because at the time of this writing, Cmmost recently aired opposite Beakman's World (another educational series) andsports programming (which is not aimed exclusively at children). Nevertheless, therecent Nielsen data for 6 to 11-year-olds indicate that Cro's target age group choseto watch Cm over other series by a nearly two-to-one margin; an average of morethan 1,500,000 children watched Cm every week between December 1994 and July1995 (Nielsen Media Research, 1995). Indeed, even when Cm aired oppositenon-educational children's programming in 1993 and 1994, Cm consistently re-ceived higher Nielsen ratings among 6 to 11-year-olds than either The Little Mermaidor Marsupilami (both of which were non-educational programs on CBS), althoughCm was not as highly rated as the Fox Network's Dog City (Nielsen Media Research,1993, 1994). Thus, Cro's ratings were competitive against both educational andnon-educational programs, indicating that children are not inherently biased againstwatching educational programs.

Overall, then, while broadcasters have argued that children will not watcheducational television series, none of the assumptions that underlie this argumentshow empirical support. Children do not necessarily make a firm distinction be-tween educational and non-educational programming (even if they learn or benefitfrom the educational programs), nor do they necessarily find educational programsto be less appealing.

Certainly, we would not conclude that all educational television series are highlyappealing, any more than we would argue that all non-educational programs arehighly appealing. However, the present data make it clear that education andentertainment are not mutually exclusive; this is a false dichotomy, as the FCC hasacknowledged in response to comments from parties such as CTW, Disney, CBS,and the NAB (FCC, 1995, pp. 6324, 6328). When children watch television, theydo not necessarily categorize programs as 'education' or 'entertainment'. A tele-vision series can be both educational and entertaining. Indeed, it is likely that it willbe more effective if it is.

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Acknowledgements

The production of Cro and the research described here were funded in part by theNational Science Foundation. We gratefully acknowledge: Keith Mielke for histhoughtful contributions in the design of this research; Daniel Victor and BarbaraGardner for providing reference material; Josephine Holz, Gary Knell, and DaleKunkel for helpful suggestions and support regarding this paper; and the Croproduction and content teams—particularly Franklin Getchell, Marjorie Kalins,Jeffrey Nelson, Catherine Mullaly, Sindy McKay, Joel Schneider, Edward Atkins,Susan Mendelsohn, and the staff of Film Roman and ABC—without whom Crowould not exist.

NOTE

[1] At the time of this writing, the National Association of Broadcasting has commissioned asecond survey of broadcasters' educational programming. The results of the current study arenot yet available.

Correspondence: Children's Television Workshop, 1 Lincoln Plaza, New York, NY10023, USA. Tel: (211) 595 3456.

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