Children's Memory and Comprehension of Two Science Programmes

A total of 111 children, 55 aged 8 to 9 years and 56 aged 14 to 15 years of age, watched one of two single‐topic prime‐time science programmes. Recall and comprehension scores following the viewing of the programmes were assessed. In addition, a number of demographic factors including age, sex, linguistic fluency, prior television viewing and reading habits were investigated as possible predictors of learning from television. It was found that age was a significant factor in both recall and comprehension, but even more important was general knowledge. Sex and linguistic fluency was neither systematically nor frequently associated with good performance. Prior viewing habits concerning science programmes on television and reading behaviour were found to have particular effects but were not major predictors of performance. Knowledge growth (defined as differences in performance between pre‐ and post‐test performance on key, repeated, items specifically addressed by the viewed programme) was consistently observed. This major finding indicated clearly that children can learn prime‐time television science information.