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Guide to Effective Programs
for Children and Youth |
“Arthur” Television Program
OVERVIEW
Bilingual, English language learning children watched the educational PBS television program Arthur in their classrooms. The children watched the half-hour long program three times a week for 7 months. The experimental randomized evaluation found that the Arthur program improved children’s narrative development compared with children in the control condition who watched the Between the Lions program.
Arthur is an educational television program for children who are ages 4-8 years old. The cartoon focuses on an Aardvark named “Arthur” and contains narrative stories of his life. The program intends to promote 6 main concepts to children: reading, solving problems creatively, being a good friend, connecting to family, appreciating diversity, and having fun. The program also has an extensive website with many activities for children, a series of books from which the series was developed, and sets of library resources designed for children.
Uchikoshi, Y. (2005). Narrative development in bilingual kindergartens: Can Arthur help? Developmental Psychology, 41(3), 464-478.
Approach: Students within each classroom were matched according to gender and English vocabulary development scores. Then, children within each classroom were randomly assigned so that half were assigned to the treatment group which would watch the Arthur program, and the other half were assigned to the control group which would watch Between the Lions, another educational PBS television program which did not specifically focus on narrative development. Children in both groups watched three half-hour episodes per week in their classes for a total of 18 weeks. Children were assessed before intervention, after watching half of the 54 total episodes, and again after the treatment had concluded. At all three time points, narrative skills were tested by having the children generate and tell the researchers a story based on three pictures. Researchers measured the total number of words used, mean clause length, and narrative structure. Narrative structure was composed of five elements for each story (story structure, number of main events, evaluation, temporality and reference, and storybook language) each of which was coded by the researchers. Narrative skills have been identified as important predictors of later literacy and school success.
Results: In initial analyses, children in both groups had equivalent baseline knowledge and demographic characteristics, indicating that random assignment was successful. The researcher used an unconditional growth model for subsequent analyses. Children in the treatment condition who watched Arthur improved more on narrative outcomes than children in the control condition who watched Between the Lions. Children in the treatment condition also improved more on story structure and evaluation than children in the control condition.
The Arthur PBS website can be found at: http://pbskids.org/arthur/index.html
The Between the Lions PBS website can be found at: http://pbskids.org/lions/
Uchikoshi, Y. (2005). Narrative development in bilingual kindergartens: Can Arthur help? Developmental Psychology, 41(3), 464-478.
Program categorized in this guide according to the following:
Evaluated participant ages: 4-5 / Program age ranges in the Guide: early childhood
Program components: community or media campaign; school-based
Measured outcomes: education and cognitive development
Program information last updated 7/24/07
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© Child Trends 2003 |