Measuring Social and Emotional Content in Children's Television: An Instrument Development Study

Few researchers have studied the television program characteristics that effectively facilitate social and emotional learning (SEL) in children. To further this line of investigation we created the SEL in Educational Children's Television (SELECT) rating instrument. SELECT ratings indicate whether an educational television episode presents any of 6 SEL skills using any of 5 pedagogical techniques. In this study, 3 raters used the SELECT to rate 80 episodes. Results from multi-facet Rasch analyses illustrated the SELECT's strong content validity, intra- and inter-rater reliability, and sensitivity. Episodes typically presented SEL content implicitly, emphasizing social and decision-making skills most strongly.