Children's knowledge acquisition through film: influence of programme characteristics

APPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGYAppl. Cognit. Psychol. 22: 1228–1244 (2008)Published online 21 January 2008 in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/acp.1431
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Children’s Knowledge Acquisition Through Film:Influence of Programme Characteristics

EVA MICHEL* and CLAUDIA M. ROEBERS

Department of Developmental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Berne,Berne, Switzerland

SUMMARY

Several characteristics of educational programmes for children are discussed to influence learning ofcontent. In the present study, positive effects of a preview and inserted summaries in educational filmsfor learning are examined. A total of 127 6-and 8-year-old participating children watched one of thefour educational film versions: The original film (without preview and summaries), a version with apreview, with inserted summaries or with a verbal ‘preview’. One week later, children’s recollectionof facts was tested in a memory interview. Results show that previews and summaries in educationalfilms can enhance learning, and that visual scene repetition appears to further boost knowledgeacquisition. Formal and content characteristics of educational programmes are discussed in termsof the underlying mechanisms influencing children’s cognitive processing and learning. Copyright#2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Since television first appeared in homes in the 1960s, its influence on children’s social and

cognitive development has been a controversy. The variety of potential harms and benefits

of television viewing are frequently subsumed as ‘television effects’. Examining such

effects in more detail makes it necessary to distinguish between different programme

formats. Researchers now agree that indiscriminate and excessive television viewing can

have negative effects on children (Ennemoser, 2003; Schiffer, Ennemoser, & Schneider,

2002), while at the same time viewing selected educational programmes can be beneficial

to various aspects of child development (Anderson, Bryant, Wilder, Santomero, Williams,

& Crawley, 2000; Ball & Bogatz, 1970; Fisch, 1999). Specifically, children can acquire

domain-specific knowledge by watching such programmes (Beuscher, Roebers, & Schneider,

2005; Clifford, Gunter, & McAleer, 1995; Linebarger, Kosanic, Greenwood, & Sai Doku,

2004; Michel, Roebers, & Schneider, 2007; Walma van der Molen & van der Voort, 1997).

However, the existing literature also shows that the knowledge children acquire while

watching television depends partly on how the programme is designed, and how the

to-be-learned content is presented. In these studies, very heterogeneous educational films

and programme formats have been used: While some studies focus on effects of

educational magazine format, typically Sesame Street (e.g. Ball & Bogatz, 1970; Fisch,

1999; Sell, Ray, & Lovelace, 1995), other studies include show formats combining live

action and animation (e.g. ‘Blue’s Clues’, Anderson et al., 2000; ‘Between the Lions’,

Correspondence to: Eva Michel, Department of Developmental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Universityf Berne, Muesmattstrasse 45, Berne 3011, Switzerland. E-mail: [email protected]

opyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Children’s knowledge acquisition through film 1229

Linebarger et al., 2004) or non-fictional science programmes (Clifford et al., 1995). In the

study presented here, a single-topic science film is used to examine how the presentation

format of educational films influences knowledge acquisition in children.

Fisch (2000) specifies which information processes are affected and which programme

characteristics of educational television programmes promote comprehension given the

limited working memory capacity involved in on-line processing of information. Thereby,

this capacity model focuses on a certain kind of programme format that is typically used for

children: the message to be learned (the educational content), embedded in an entertaining

story (the narrative setting). It is presumed that priority is given to comprehension of

narrative over educational content, a principle the author refers to as ‘narrative dominance’

(Fisch, 2000). It is further assumed that processing and comprehending educational

programmes is influenced not only by the difficulty of the educational message but also

by the characteristics of the narrative. These two interwoven aspects may promote

comprehension when the distance between them is small. In cases of corresponding

contents, processing the programme can be done with relatively low working memory

demands. In contrast, when the distance between the educational content and the narrative

content is large, they compete for working memory resources. Thus, Fisch (2000) proposes

that decreasing the distance between narrative content and educational content is a major

way to promote children’s learning while watching television, because it allows processing

of the narrative to facilitate rather than interfere with learning educational content.

If Fisch’s assumption is correct that working memory demands play a key role in

children’s comprehension of educational television programmes, then the use of advance

organizers (Ausubel, 1963) should be helpful in processing educational television content.

Fisch (2000) defines advance organizers as ‘cues presented early in the programme to alert

viewers as to its subject matter, such as previews of upcoming material’ (p. 71). Advance

organizers should reduce working memory demands, enabling the child to direct attention

to the educational content and to extract more core information. So far, there is only limited

direct empirical support for Fisch’s model, but it is consistent with existing literature on

children’s comprehension of television (Fisch, McKann Brown, & Cohen, 2001) and text

learning, for example, positive effects of advance organizers (Mayer, 1979, 1983).

Although not included in Fisch’s capacity model, it is reasonable to assume that other

characteristics of children’s television programmes may be useful for structuring content

and facilitating processing. For example, repetitions and summaries are often used in

educational programmes for children, either as ‘massed’ repetition of sequences within an

episode itself, as ‘spaced’ repetition of the entire content after an episode (Peracchio, 1993)

or in form of entire episode repetition (e.g. in the programme ‘Blue’s Clues’). Such features

may also facilitate processing by drawing attention to the important information, reducing

the working memory load.

There are only a few studies addressing effects of previews in educational films. In one

study, previews with visual excerpts improved children’s comprehension of content more

than previews given by a narrator (Calvert, Huston, & Wright, 1987). In line with this, a

more recent study (Michel & Roebers, 2007b) showed that previews or inserted summaries

in an educational film given by a commentator, without visual scenes from the original film,

had no influence on content learning. In contrast, Neuman, Burden, and Holden (1990)

showed that previews of an educational film foster knowledge gain in 6- to 9-year-old

children. Participants watched an educational film either with or without a preview. The

preview included information about the characters and the setting, and also questions to

stimulate thought about the content. During the short preview of 1.5minutes, core scenes of

Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 22: 1228–1244 (2008)

DOI: 10.1002/acp

1230 E. Michel and C. M. Roebers

the original film were used for visualization. A recall test carried out immediately after

viewing revealed that children in the preview condition recalled significantly more core

information than children in the no-preview condition. However, given that the preview

included mainly core information, this particular study cannot answer the question whether

the effects were due to mere repetition of content (i.e. rehearsal effects) or due to other

stylistic features included in the preview.

Evidence for a rehearsal effect was provided in a study of 8- and 10-year-olds who

watched a film either once or twice, received a standardized school lesson with the same

content prior to watching the film or received only the school lesson (Michel & Roebers,

2007a). When children who watched the educational film twice had their memory

tested 1 week later, their recall of the content was significantly higher in comparison to

children who had seen the film only once. In fact, their performance was comparable to

children who received the school lesson before they watched the film. In other words, the

repetition of an entire episode seemed to significantly foster recall of educational content.

What remains still unclear from that study, however, is the question whether repetition

within an episode itself has positive effects, and further, whether it makes a difference for

children’s level of comprehension and recall how information is repeated.

These questions have been addressed in only a few studies with rather heterogeneous

design and stimulus material. Generally speaking, it has been shown that summaries can

enhance knowledge gain, but it does seem to make a difference at which point in time

summaries are presented and how they are designed. In educational programmes, repetition

with summaries inserted during an episode has been found to enhance comprehension and

to be even more effective than repetition of the whole content with a complete summary

after an episode (Coldevin, 1975; Peracchio, 1993). In a study using a televised action

drama for children, summaries that were inserted in the programme improved recollection

for 8-year-olds (Kelly & Spear, 1991). There is further evidence that summaries combining

visual and verbal information may enhance later recall performance when learning with

texts (Mayer, Bove, Bryman, Mars, & Tapango, 1996). While the insertion of central visual

scenes, called breakpoints, in summaries of educational programmes seems to be

particularly effective for coherent recall, at least for adults (Schwan & Garsoffky, 2004)

summaries without visual supplement, in contrast, seem to have no beneficial effect on

children’s memory of the content of an educational film (Watkins, Calvert, Huston-Stein, &

Wright, 1980).

To summarize, there is only little empirical evidence for the impact of previews and

summaries in educational programmes for children’s knowledge acquisition. Although

there are some studies documenting beneficial effects, several potential underlying

mechanisms contributing to these effects, for example, repetition and visualization have

not been systematically examined. Further, methodological problems with preview studies

concern the dependent variables: Most studies focus on recall of content immediately after

watching a television programme (e.g. Schwan & Garsoffky, 2004). True knowledge

acquisition in terms of recall and recognition after a delay has seldom been examined. In

our study described here, we examine the effects on children’s recall of a preview or

inserted summaries after a 1 week delay, to investigate longer lasting effects indicating

educationally intended knowledge gains. Both the preview and the summaries were made

using scenes from the original film. This was done to minimize the divergence between the

original film and the previews or summaries. In order to investigate effects of visual scene

repetition alone, a control version with only the audio track of the preview was used. This

way, we can explore the impact of visual excerpts for the effectiveness of a preview.


DOI: 10.1002/acp


An additional research question of our study concerns developmental differences in

knowledge acquisition with the different film versions. It is assumed that previews and

summaries can have differential effects on children, depending on age: specifically, they

might compensate more for knowledge and processing deficits in younger children

than older ones. Younger children show a lesser ability to draw inferences, to integrate

information throughout longer stories, and to select the most central information (Collins,

1970; Lorch, Bellack, & Augsbach, 1987). In addition, because overall processing speed

increases gradually during childhood, younger children are at disadvantage when processing

television programmes in general (Charlton, 2004).

Knowledge acquisition was measured in terms of free recall (‘Tell me everything you

remember’), cued recall (using open-ended questions) and a recognition test. Including

different memory tasks is methodologically and theoretically advantageous, because it

becomes possible to distinguish between recall and representation of information: while

open-ended questions focus more strongly on recall, recognition performance is typically

seen as an adequate indicator of memory representation (Schneider & Bjorklund, 1998).

HYPOTHESES

Based on the theoretical assumptions and the empirical findings discussed above, three

hypotheses and one research question were proposed:

H1: All three versions with information repetition—the version with a preview, the

version with inserted summaries and the version with an audio preview—will lead to

better recall performance compared to the original film.

H2: The two film versions with visual excerpts of the original film— the preview

condition and the inserted summaries condition—will enhance recall performance

compared to the original film condition and compared to the audio preview condition

without visual excerpts.

H3: The preview and the summaries will provide processing aids which will be

especially beneficial for the younger age group.

Because the comparison of previews and summaries in educational films has not been

adequately addressed in the previous literature, and no published studies are available in

which previews and summaries in educational films were compared, a research question

rather than a hypothesis is posed here:

RQ: Will the anticipation of central information and of content structure in the film

version with preview lead to better recall compared to the inserted summaries?

METHOD

Overview

A 2 (age: 6- vs. 8-year-olds)� 4 (film version: original film, preview before film, inserted

summaries during film, audio preview before film) factorial design was used in this study.

The factors age and film version were between-subjects factors. Six- and 8-year-olds

watched one of four brief educational films and were individually questioned about it


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1 week later using free recall, cued recall (open-ended questions) and a recognition test.

The power analysis showed the study has sufficient power to detect effects of small to

moderate size (e¼ .25–.30, Bortz, 1999).

Participants

A total of 127 children (70 girls, 57 boys) completed the study: 57 6-year-olds (mean age¼6:1 years, SD¼ 7 months) and 70 8-year-olds (mean age¼ 8:3 years, SD¼ 5 months).

Children were recruited from different kindergartens and primary schools and came from

lower to upper middle-class families. All parents gave informed consent for the study. Of

the 6-year-olds, 14 were randomly assigned to the ‘preview’ condition (6 girls), 14 to the

‘inserted summaries’ condition (8 girls), 14 to the ‘original film’ condition (6 girls) and

15 to the ‘audio preview’ condition (7 girls). In the group of 8-year-olds, 17 were assigned

to the ‘preview’ condition (10 girls), 18 to the ‘inserted summaries’ condition (11 girls),

18 to the ‘original film’ condition (11 girls) and 17 to the ‘audio preview’ condition.

Stimulus materials

All film versions were produced with Pinnacle Studio 9.0 software. For the four

experimental conditions, different film versions were used. The original film lasted

6.44minutes and depicted the production of sugar in a sugar refinery. A narrator explains

each production step and all the equipment in child-appropriate language; the factual

information is embedded in the story ‘a visit to a sugar factory’. The film consists of

58 scenes; the exact content is listed in Table 1.

Briefly, the film depicts how sugar beets are harvested and brought into a refinery. Inside,

the beets are cleaned, cut into pieces and cooked. The resulting sugar juice is filtered,

cooked repeatedly and then centrifuged. This film is part of a popular German television

series for children aged 3–13 years called ‘Sendung mit der Maus’. In a previous study

(Michel et al., 2007), children’s prior knowledge about this topic was shown to be only

rudimentary.

For the three other experimental conditions, additional versions of the film were

produced. For the preview condition, a preview was created according to an advance

organizer, using a procedure adapted from Neuman et al. (1990). The spoken text is

a shortened transcription of the central text parts of the original film. In a prior study,

66 adults rated the centrality of every statement in the original film with a procedure

Table 1. Scenes and contents of the film

Filmic scene number Filmic scene duration (in seconds) Filmic scene content

1 0.00–0.21 Introduction2–11 0.22–1.25 Harvesting of sugar beets12–17 1.26–1.59 Transportation to factory18–20 2.00–2.26 Cleaning/washing21–24 2.27–3.11 Cutting25–31 3.12–4.03 Cooking32–34 4.04–4.26 Filtration of sugar juice35–48 4.27–5.29 Repeated cooking49–55 5.30–6.20 Centrifugation56–58 6.21–6.44 The end products


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adapted from Lorch et al. (1987). The statements rated as central were used to create a

script. In addition, answers to all questions in the later memory interview were included in

the script. The spoken text was accompanied by scenes central to the original film, so that

visual–verbal redundancy was high. Important concepts and terms were introduced, but no

new information or explanations were added. This version of the film, including the

preview, lasted 9.28minutes.

For the inserted summaries condition, short scenes were inserted into the film after each

sequence. Each insert gave brief summaries of the central information (the same

information as in the preview) and led into the next sequence. Therefore, visual and

auditory information was repeated. The speaker was the same in all film versions. This film

version lasted 9.20minutes.

The film version with audio preview served as control condition to monitor for potential

effects of the scene repetition in the two conditions described above. In this version, the

same audio track was used as in the preview condition, accompanied by a fixed image

depicting a sugar beet. The duration was 9.28minutes.

Overall, all film versions included the same central content information and no version

included additional information that was not in the original film.

Memory interview

All children were given a memory interview on the contents of the film. Each participant

was asked the same questions in the same order following the sequence of events in the

film. Questions were intensively piloted to ensure child-appropriate language and sufficient

variability in difficulty. The questionnaire has already been used in previous studies

(Beuscher & Roebers, 2005; Beuscher et al., 2005; Michel et al., 2007). It consisted of

33 questions (see Appendix A): one initial question concerning self-rated learning (‘How

much do you believe you learned about the production of sugar?’) which the child had to

answer on a 5-point-scale with a lot, quite a lot, medium, little or nothing. The second

question concerned interest (‘How interesting was it to learn about the production of

sugar?’), and a third question asked about motivation (‘How much would you like to learn

more about this topic?’).

The next 15 questions were asked in an open-ended format (question 4–18) which

focused on details but did not suggest any specific answer (e.g. ‘What happens first when

the sugar beets arrive at the sugar factory? ‘What is donewith the sugar juice to unhinge the

sugar?’ ‘What colour is a sugar beet?’ ‘What happens with the sugar beets after

cleaning?’). The same information was asked by using recognition questions at the end of

the questionnaire (question 19–33). Children were given two alternative answers and they

had to select the right one (e.g. ‘what is donewith the sugar juice to unhinge the sugar? (a) it

is cooked repeatedly, (b) it is dried’). Each participant was asked the same questions in the

same order which followed the sequence of events in the film. The two alternative answers

were given in the same order to each participant; the placement of the correct answer and

the distractor was randomized across the questions. These questions had also been used in

previous studies (Beuscher et al., 2005; Michel et al., 2007).

Procedure

Children did not receive any information about being questioned later. To prevent them

from deliberately memorizing the film, they were not informed about the purpose of the


DOI: 10.1002/acp


study. Another reason was to simulate the natural learning context in school, where

students are typically not explicitly instructed to remember the information for passing a

later performance test. Children were randomly assigned to one of the four experimental

conditions. They watched one of the film versions in small groups of 5–10 children of the

same age (resulting in three to six groups for every condition) that were from different

classes to minimize talking about the film, and influencing later recall.

Prior to watching the film, the children were told that the experimenter would like to

know their opinion about film and were asked to pay full attention. Then, the children

watched the film sitting in semi-circle at a distance of about 3m from a silver screen. (A

television set with DVD player, projector and screen was used for the film presentation).

After the presentation, children were asked whether or not they enjoyed it.

One week later, the children were individually tested in a quiet room in their school by a

female experimenter who was unknown to them. After building rapport, the children were

asked to tell the interviewer everything they remembered about the film. The children’s free

narratives (i.e. free recall) were audio-taped and later analysed by experienced raters using

a list of 32 items. When each child had finished the free narrative and indicated not to

remember anything else, the interviewer told the child that she would now ask some more

questions about the film. Answers to these questions were written down using standard

protocol sheets. After the interview, the child was praised for the good performance and

given a small gift. He/she was asked not to talk to the classmates about the test and was

led back to the classroom. The interview lasted about 15minutes per child.

For later analyses, the per cent of correctly recalled items was calculated for free recall.

The item list for free recall was generated based on a procedurewith each item representing

a feature of the event (Baker-Ward, Ornstein, Gordon, Follmer, & Clubb, 1995). The

coding system had been developed and validated in a pilot study and has been used in

previous studies (Beuscher et al., 2005; Michel et al., 2007). For open-ended and

recognition questions, percentages of correctly answered questions were calculated.

RESULTS

An alpha level of .05 was used for all statistical tests. A preliminary multivariate ANOVA

with gender as between-subject factor for the three dependent measures (free recall,

open-ended questions and recognition test) did not reveal any systematic differences

between boys and girls. Therefore, the data of boys and girls were analysed together. Data

for free recall, open-ended questions and recognition questions were analysed separately.

Free recall

For the free recall, items were coded as repeated (information that was conveyed in the

original film and repeated in all three experimental versions) or as not repeated. Table 2

shows the means and standard deviations for percentage of correctly recalled repeated and

not-repeated items, as well as overall amount of correctly remembered information for the

two age groups and the four experimental conditions.

An ANOVAwith age (6-years vs. 8-years) and condition (original film, preview before

film, inserted summaries, audio preview before film) as between-subjects factor and

repetition as within-subjects factor (repeated, non-repeated items) revealed a main effect

of age, F(1, 119)¼ 18.37; p< .001, partial h2¼ .13. The 8-year-olds (11.7% correctly


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Table 2. Mean percentages of correctly recalled repeated, non-repeated and overall items in freerecall, for the two age groups and the four experimental conditions

Previewbefore film

Insertedsummaries

Audio previewbefore film

Originalfilm

6-year-oldsItems overall 8.0 (6.0) 5.2 (4.5) 5.3 (5.5) 7.6 (6.1)Items repeated 7.5 (7.6) 4.5 (5.8) 4.6 (7.4) 6.7 (8.3)Items non-repeated 8.7 (6.3) 6.1 (6.2) 6.2 (6.5) 8.7 (8.0)

8-year-oldsItems overall 13.6 (7.8) 15.3 (9.4) 8.7 (6.5) 9.3 (7.3)Items repeated 12.1 (11.4) 14.0 (10.8) 6.2 (7.5) 8.5 (8.6)Items non-repeated 15.6 (6.8) 17.1 (11.3) 12.2 (8.3) 10.3.(8.6)

Note: Standard deviations in parentheses. Overall amount of items¼ 32; 18 items were repeated, 14 items werenon-repeated. In the original film condition, no information was repeated.


reported items) outperformed the 6-year-olds (6.5%). Further, there was a trend for an

interaction of age and condition (p< .10). Descriptively, the means in Table 2 show that the

6-year-old children scored especially low in free recall in the inserted summaries condition,

compared to the 8-year-olds and compared to the preview before film condition and the

original film condition. The mean percentages of correctly reported items for the two age

groups together were 7.1% for the original film condition, 8.5% for the audio preview

condition and 11% for the preview condition and the condition with inserted summaries.

Open-ended questions

For the open-ended questions, a preliminary analysis of the internal consistency revealed a

Cronbach’s Alpha¼ .75. The means and standard deviations of the percentage of correct

answers to open-ended questions are depicted in Table 3.

An ANOVA for the correct answers with age and condition as between-subjects factors

revealed a main effect of condition, F(3, 119)¼ 5.58, p< .001, partial h2¼ .12. A

Student-Newman-Keuls post hoc test showed that children in both the preview condition

(57%) and the summaries condition (56.5%) outperformed children in the two other

conditions (42.7% for the original film condition and 44.4% for the audio preview

condition). This means that children who watched either the original film or the film with

an audio preview answered an average of 6–7 questions correctly, while children who

watched either the version with a preview or the version with summaries answered an

average of 8–9 questions correctly. Further, there was a main effect of age, F(1,

Table 3. Mean percentages of correctly answered open-ended questions for the two age groupsand the four conditions

Previewbefore film

Insertedsummaries


Originalfilm

6-year-olds 49.5 (19.5) 46.2 (25.5) 33.3 (15.5) 34.3 (16.9)8-year-olds 63.1 (18.6) 64.4 (12.7) 54.1 (18.5) 49.3 (15.9)

Note: Standard deviations in parentheses. All questions concern information that was repeated in the threemodified film versions.


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119)¼ 27.67, p< .001, partial h2¼ .18. Across the four conditions, the 6-year-old children

answered fewer questions correctly (40.7%) than the 8-year-old children (57.7%).

Recognition questions

Because of negative item-scale correlation, one recognition question was removed. After

that, Cronbach’s Alpha for the scale was .68. The mean percentages of correctly answered

recognition questions, as well as standard deviations are depicted in Table 4.

An ANOVA on the number of correct answers to the recognition questions with age and

condition as between-subjects factors revealed a main effect of condition, F(3, 119)¼ 2.82,

p< .05, partial h2¼ .07. However, this effect was not confirmed by a subsequent S-N-K

test. The ANOVA further revealed a main effect of age, F(1, 119)¼ 25.31, p< .001, partial

h2¼ .18. Across conditions, the 8-year-old children answered more recognition questions

correctly (93.4%), compared to the 6-year-old children (80.2%).

Metaknowledge, interest, motivation

The metaknowledge, interest and motivation were rated by the children using a

5-point-scale, as described above. Means and standard deviations are depicted in Table 5.

For the metaknowledge, the corresponding ANOVA also revealed a main effect of age,

F(1, 119)¼ 15.63, p< . 001, partial h2¼ .12. The older children rated their own knowledge

higher (M¼ 3.0) than the younger children (M¼ 2.3). There were no effects of condition

and no interactions.

The ANOVA for interest with the between-subjects factors age and condition revealed a

main effect of age, F(1, 119)¼ 10.79, p< .001, partial h2¼ .08. The 8-year-old children

rated their own interest as higher (M¼ 4.6) than the 6-year-old children (M¼ 4.1). There

were no effects of condition and no interactions.

The ANOVA for the motivation to learn more about the topic also revealed a main effect

of age, F(1, 119)¼ 9.66, p< .01, partial h2¼ .08. The 8-year-olds rated their own

motivation to learn more about the topic higher (M¼ 4.2) than the 6-year-olds (M¼ 3.5).

All three variables correlated significantly with the knowledge measures, with age as the

control variable. The free recall performance correlated with the metaknowledge, r¼ .25,

p< .01, as well as with the interest, r¼ .18, p< .05. The proportion of correct answers to

open-ended questions correlated with self-rated knowledge, r¼ .25, p< .01, with interest,

r¼ .23, p< .01 and with motivation, r¼ .18, p< .05. Finally, the percentage of correct

answers to recognition question correlated with the metaknowledge, r¼ .25, p< .01, with

the interest, r¼ .28, p< .01 and with motivation, r¼ .20, p< .01.

Table 4. Mean percentages of correctly answered recognition questions for the two age groupsand the four conditions

Previewbefore film

Insertedsummaries


Originalfilm

6-year-olds 85.2 (18.0) 82.7 (22.5) 75.2 (18.3) 78.1 (13.3)8-year-olds 98.3 (6.4) 96.0 (8.6) 91.2 (15.3) 88.1 (10.0)

Note: Standard deviations in parentheses. All questions concern information that was repeated in the threemodified film versions. Chance performance is 50%.


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Table 5. Means and standard deviations (in parenthesis) of the answers to the three questionsconcerning metaknowledge, interest and motivation

Previewbefore film

Insertedsummaries


Originalfilm

Metaknowledge6-year-olds 2.2 (1.0) 2.5 (1.2) 2.1 (1.1) 2.5 (1.2)8-year-olds 3.2 (0.7) 3.0 (0.9) 3.0 (0.9) 2.8 (0.7)

Interest6-year-olds 4.2 (1.5) 4.3 (0.8) 3.7 (1.2) 4.1 (1.3)8-year-olds 4.8 (0.4) 4.6 (0.6) 4.7 (0.6) 4.4 (0.7)

Motivation6-year-olds 3.5 (1.5) 3.0 (1.9) 3.5 (1.6) 4.0 (1.5)8-year-olds 4.2 (1.0) 4.4 (0.7) 3.8 (1.1) 4.4 (0.9)

Note: 5-point scale, 1¼ not at all; 5¼ very much/very interesting.


DISCUSSION

The study presented here yielded three main findings: First, children’s learning of content

while watching an educational film was significantly improved by previews or inserted

summaries with excerpts of the original film, compared to the original film alone, but

learning was not improved by a voice-only preview with no visual excerpts. Therefore,

hypothesis 1 was not supported, but hypotheses 2 could be supported. Second, the point in

time when the organizers occurred, that is, whether information is given at the beginning or

repeated at several occasions during the film, did not affect recall. Therefore, the research

question has to be answered in the negative. Third, 6- and 8-year-old children benefited

equally from previews and summaries, contrary to our expectations expressed in

hypothesis 3. In the following paragraphs, we will discuss these findings and outline

theoretical and practical implications.

In contrast to previews or summaries with original film scenes, a verbal anticipation of

central content alone had no beneficial effects on recall. Because the experimental

conditions controlled well for structure and content, one possible explanation for the

unexpected outcome is that verbal comments combined with a fixed image provide a rather

unusual presentation format. It may be that the children assumed that the television was

damaged, and therefore decided not to pay full attention to the spoken content. In line with

this argumentation, it has been shown that verbal comments given during a film break via

audio tape does not enhance learning of content, while the same comments given by a real

person may improve recall (Watkins et al., 1980). Another explanation might be that

visual–verbal redundancy between the spoken text and the fixed image was low in the

present study. The different information provided by different codes (a picture of a sugar

beet and a spoken text about the production steps in the sugar factory) may have induced

interferences. This interpretation is supported by findings indicating that comments which

are not accompanied by redundant visual pictures are hardly processed by younger children

(Hayes & Birnbaum, 1980). In addition, information that is presented in an audio-only

format is less likely to be recalled by 10- and 12-year-olds compared to information which

is presented visually and verbally (Walma van der Molen & van der Voort, 2000b).

On first sight, the finding that audio-only anticipation of content did not improve

children’s recall seems to be in line with the visual superiority hypothesis that was

intensively discussed in the 1980s (Hayes & Birnbaum, 1980; Rolandelli, Wright, Huston,


DOI: 10.1002/acp


& Eakins, 1991). It was claimed that children rely more strongly on the visual compared to

the audio code. However, several studies showed that neither presentation modality

consistently leads to superior comprehension (Pezdek & Hartman, 1983; Pezdek &

Stevens, 1984; Rolandelli et al., 1991) and that modality effects strongly depend on

the content. Thus, it seems unlikely that visualization of information per se is more

effective than verbalization. Rather, the content of the pictures and the spoken text will

influence how strongly children rely on which source of information: Visual images may be

clearer and more tangible while verbal comments are typically more complex and abstract.

The two film versions which enhanced memory for content in the present study repeated

original visual film scenes and combined them with redundant text, therefore providing

the same content in two corresponding modalities. Thus, it cannot be concluded that the

visualization alone was responsible for the effects, but rather the content repetition. On the

one hand, this assumption is supported by studies showing beneficial effects of content

repetition by visual excerpts combined with redundant spoken text (Kelly & Spear, 1991;

Neuman et al., 1990). In other studies (Hayes &Birnbaum, 1980; Pezdek & Stevens, 1984),

children had pronounced difficulties in processing the content of non-redundant scenes. In

other words, children seem to prefer processing visual and verbal redundant information

(Walma van der Molen & van der Voort, 1997, 2000a). A reason for the necessity of

redundancy for optimal information processing in children is provided by the dual coding

theory (Paivio, 1971), stating that audio-visual information is processed and simultaneously

stored in two different codes in memory, that is, visually and verbally. Information processed

in only one code provides fewer cues for later recall. Paivio’s assumptions were empirically

supported using televised, print and audio stimuli (Walma van der Molen & van der Voort,

2000a, 2000b). In these studies, it was shown that children remembered more visually and

verbally presented information both compared to audio or print material and compared to

low-redundant televised material in an immediate memory test. For children’s long-term

knowledge acquisition, the present results suggest that visual–verbal redundant information

presented in the form of previews or summaries also support comprehension and recall.

The present results are in line with the capacity model (Fisch, 2000) described in the

introduction. Advance organizers (as well as inserted summaries) were effective in

enhancing memory for television content. Pre-structuring content and pre-selecting central

information prior to the film seems to facilitate processing of educational content, and

repeating central content during the film had comparable effects. Therefore, repetition of

central scenes within the film itself is a programme characteristic that might be added to the

model.

Interestingly, a simple repetition did not impair participants’ motivation to learn more

about the content and interest in the topic. Children who watched one of the film versions

with scene repetition reported no less interest and motivation than children who watched

the original film, regardless of age. Therefore, an educational programme in which

important content is repeated does not appear to be boring, at least not for the age groups

studied here. Visual scene repetition might enable younger children to discover new

content, facilitate to focus on details and to draw inferences. This, in fact, may make the

programme even more interesting, and at the same time, it may improve comprehension

and learning of content. However, it seems important to bear in mind that these results stem

from a between-subjects design, and are based on single questions. Different findings may

yield from an approach in which children are given the task to directly compare different

film versions. And, rating interest and motivation on more differentiated scales may also

produce a different pattern of results.


DOI: 10.1002/acp


The present study also reveals some interesting findings concerning developmental

differences of children’s learning from television. First, there are significant and consistent

differences between 6-and 8-year-olds in terms of free recall, cued recall and recognition,

regardless of film version. While age effects were more pronounced for free and cued recall,

differences in recognition performance were smaller. The high levels of performance in the

recognition task indicate ceiling effects for the 8-year-olds and suggest that recognition is a

rather easy task for children, even after a 1-week delay. These results are in line with previous

studies on children’s knowledge acquisition through educational programme (e.g. Beuscher

et al., 2005; Michel et al., 2007) and are consistent with the memory development literature in

general (Schneider & Bjorklund, 1998). Younger children’s difficulties lie more in the

active retrieval of stored information from long-term memory than in encoding and

recognition. Age-related increases in language proficiency as well as in narrative practice

certainly contribute to the different sizes of the age effects (Fivush & Haden, 1997).

However, contrary to our expectations, both age groups benefited equally from previews

and summaries with visual excerpts. The only exception was free recall, indicating that

younger children had difficulties reporting film content when summaries were inserted,

compared to the original film. A possible explanation is that the inserted scenes caused

frequent changes of setting and temporal-spatial contiguity what might have reduced

coherence. This might have exacerbated free recall especially for the younger children,

who lack knowledge base and thus rely stronger on a coherent schematic structure (Knopf

& Schneider, 1998). Overall, the hypothesis that previews or summaries in educational

programmes would disproportionally help younger children to process content could not be

confirmed. However, persisting age differences were shown in other studies examining

previews or summaries as well (Calvert et al., 1987; Watkins et al., 1980).

From this perspective, it seems that it was the possibility of additional processing, per se

that improved children’s learning for both age groups. It may not be necessary to create

special advance organizers to support young children’s processing capabilities, in contrast

to the assumptions in the capacity model discussed above (Fisch, 2000). Instead, the mere

repetition of essential content, if it is visually and verbally redundant, might be most

effective, perhaps because familiarity and recognition effects lower processing demands.

Although further research is necessary, studies with kindergarten and primary school

children support this conclusion by showing the beneficial effects of watching educational

programmes repeatedly (Crawley, Anderson, Wilder, Williams, & Santomero, 1999;

Michel et al., 2007; Sell et al., 1995).

From another perspective, the current results also highlight limits to enhancing

children’s knowledge gain through educational television. Even with repetitions, previews

or as summaries, the younger age group did not recall more than half of the information (in

open-ended questioning). Although the present results indicate that learning educational

content can be supported to some extent; however, cognitive pre-requisites seem to be a

limiting factor.

So far, discussion of the results focused on educational films. However, the underlying

learning processes can be assumed to be similar for other kinds of films as well. Supporting

this interpretation, Beuscher et al. (2005) showed that children learned an equal number or

even more facts from a non-educational film (a fictional story about a treasure hunt),

compared to the educational film used in the present study. Therefore, the influence of

programme characteristics might be generalized to other film formats. However, in the

context of studying acquisition of school-relevant knowledge, it seems appropriate to focus

on films aimed to the acquisition of domain-specific knowledge in children.


DOI: 10.1002/acp


Although the results of the present study are overall clear and straightforward, there are

some shortcomings that might constrain the interpretation of results. Because of the

comparable effects of the preview and the inserted summary, it remains unclear if specific

features account for the effects. Theoretically, it is possible that pre-structuring and

organizing the content were responsible for the positive effect of the preview on recall,

while the positive effect of the summaries were due to the spaced repetition.

A general methodological problem that exists when varying certain film features

concerns the fact that it is not possible to change only one characteristic of a film. For

example, by adding new scenes, the duration, pace and continuity of time and space are

changed as well. Although some factors were controlled for by systematically contrasting

several experimental conditions, other potentially important factors remained uncon-

trolled, for example, the duration of the different film versions. Further, we did not examine

the effects of a visual preview only or the effects of audio summary or visual summaries

alone within the film or the effects of a summary after the film. Therefore, further research

will be needed to strengthen our interpretations. Another possible shortcoming of the

present study might be that it was limited to a single educational television programme, a

film of the ‘Sendung mit der Maus’. Although this is a very typical educational programme

in German speaking countries, further research is needed to examine the relative

effectiveness of previews and summaries for other educational programmes as well. In

addition, because we used a film with a single science topic, the results may be limited to

this certain topic.

Conclusion

The findings from the present study show that educational films with single science topics

could be substantially improved with rather simple production techniques. Children’s

memory for the content of a film seems to be enhanced by visual and verbal repetition of

core information, using original film scenes. In contrast, repetition of verbal content

without redundant visual scenes does not appear to be effective. This suggests that it is not

mere information repetition that enhances learning, but how repetition is realized appears

additionally important for children’s knowledge acquisition. Previews and summaries,

being very close to the original film and including visual–verbal redundant content, seem to

be effective tools to enhance learning. Whether a combination of preview and inserted

summaries would be even more effective, and whether other strategies of information

enrichment would result in comparable or even higher benefits, remains an interesting

though unanswered question.

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APPENDIX A

Open-ended questions (translated to English)

1. H

Copy

ow much have you learned about the production of sugar?

2. H
ow interesting was it for you to learn about the production of sugar?
3. T
o what degree would you like to learn more about this topic?
4. W
hat colour is a sugar beet?
5. W
hat shape has a sugar beet?
6. W
here do sugar beets grow?
7. H
ow are sugar beets harvested?
8. A
fter harvesting, where are the beets brought to?
9. A
t the sugar factory, what is done first with the beets?
10. A
fter cleaning, what happens with the sugar beets?
11. A
fter cutting to get the sugar out, what is done next with the beets?
right # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 22: 1228–1244 (2008)

DOI: 10.1002/acp


12. W

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

Copy

hat colour is the juice that results from cooking the sugar beets?

13. F
or what are the leavings of the beets used that are no longer necessary for the sugar
production?

14. W
hat is done with the sugar juice in order to unhinge the sugar?
15. A
fter cooking, the sugar juice is centrifuged. What results?
16. W
hat colour is the fluid sugar?
17. W
hat kinds of sugar can be produced from sugar powder?
18. W
hat are the different colours of rock candy?
Recognition questions translated to English

19. W
hat colour is a sugar beet?
a. brown

b. green

c. dont’t know

What shape has a sugar beet?

a. it is thick at the top and thin at the bottom

b. it resembles an apple

c. dont’t know

Where do sugar beets grow?

a. in the field

b. on trees

c. dont’t know

How are sugar beets harvested?

a. by manual work

b. with a harvester

c. dont’t know

After harvesting, where are the beets brought to?

a. the beets are brought to a factory

b. the beets are brought to a farm

c. dont’t know

At the sugar factory, what is done first with the beets?

a. they are put into a sorting machine

b. they are put into a washing machine

c. dont’t know

After cleaning, what happens with the sugar beets?

a. they are cut to pieces

b. they are peeled

c. dont’t know

After cutting to get the sugar out, what is done next with the beets?

a. they are compressed

b. they are cooked

c. dont’t know

What colour is the juice that results from cooking the sugar beets?

a. brown

b. green

c. dont’t know

For what are the leavings of the beets used that are no longer necessary for the sugar

production?

a. they are used as craft materials

righ
t # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 22: 1228–1244 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/acp

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

Copy


b. they are used as pet food

c. dont’t know

What is done with the sugar juice in order to unhinge the sugar?

a. it is cooked repeatedly

b. it is dried

c. dont’t know

After cooking, the sugar juice is centrifuged. What results?

a. little chunks

b. sugar crystals

c. dont’t know

What colour is the fluid sugar?

a. white

b. brown

c. dont’t know

What can be produced from sugar powder?

a. yoghurt, flour and ice-cream

b. rock candy, sugar loaves and lump sugar

c. dont’t know

What are the different colours of rock candy?

a. brown and white rock candy

b. grey and yellow rock candy

c. dont’t know

righ
t # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 22: 1228–1244 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/acp

Children's knowledge acquisition through film: influence of programme characteristics

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