Research and development at the Children's Television Workshop

Since its establishment in 1968, the Children's Television Workshop (CTW)—as a matter of policy—has incorporated research into the process of designing and producing educational materials. The first CTW project to use this team approach wasSesame Street, the educational television series created for in-home viewing by preschoolers. Today, the scope of CTW's efforts has widened dramatically to include other media (home video, print, computer software), other learning environments (schools, community organizations, afterschool child-care settings), and other national cultures. This article introduces this issue ofETR&D, which has been authored entirely by CTW researchers, producers, and executives. It describes CTW's approach to research and development, and sets out in broad terms the opportunities and constraints imposed by the environments in which the various projects and productions function.     

Selected bibliography of research on programming at the Children's Television Workshop

This article is an annotated bibliography of 36 formative, summative, and theoretical research studies on the four educational children's television series the Children's Television Workshop has produced since 1969:Sesame Street, The Electric Company, 3-2-1 Contact, andSquare One TV.     

The Children's Television Workshop goes to school

Repackaging existing educational television series to fit the needs of more narrowly defined audiences is a cost-effective way of delivering high-quality educational television into the schools. This article discusses both the technological and program-design barriers to wider use of television in classroom instruction and details the steps that the Children's Television Workshop took to make3-2-1 Contact, its educational television science series, a more effective science teaching tool.     

Television Police Dramas and Children's Beliefs about the Police

An experimental study was carried out among three groups of children aged 10 to 16 years, two of whom were shown episodes from two UK‐produced police drama series and the other (control group) viewed nothing. Children were tested one week before the viewing sessions and immediately afterwards with a series of questions about their perceptions of the police and police work, their real life contact with the police or crime, and details of their television viewing habits and demography. Both viewing groups were tested for their comprehension of the police drama episode they had been shown. Results showed that older children were better able than younger children to follow dramatic plots, but that the evidence for an effect of single television drama episodes on children's beliefs about the police was less clear‐cut. Both children in the two viewing groups and those in the control group exhibited some shifts in their perceptions of the police. Children who watched the television episodes, however, were more likely to show opinion shifts in relation to specific attributes of the police or police work which were strongly featured in the programmes.     

Parental Mediation of Children's Viewing in a Changing Television Environment

For 25 years, Israeli television operated as a virtual monopoly, with one single channel shared by Educational TV and the Public Broadcasting Authority. Young viewers were exposed to non‐commercial quality programs primarily geared for children. The introduction of cable television challenges the ways parents control their children's viewing and fills the role of mediators between television and the child. This study is based on two surveys among parents of Israeli children aged 2‐8. The first was conducted with 537 parents in 1989, prior to the introduction of cable TV, and the second with 552 parents who had cable in 1993, when cable TV penetrated half of all Israeli homes. The results indicate that the introduction of cable TV changed strategies of parental control and mediation and parents’ assessment of television's influence on children. Active parental mediation was closely related to the attribution of learning values to children's viewing and to gratifications attributed to educational television broadcasts. Loosening of control and allowance for independent children's viewing was closely related to the attribution of entertainment value to children's viewing and to viewing of cable television.     

超声波检测非金属材料的研究与开发

该文阐述了开展非金属材料无损评价的必要性，提出了研究非金属材料超声检测的设想，以及混凝土结构抗冻性的超声检测方法，可供有关研究人员参考。     

儿童戏剧工作坊对幼专生艺术素养培育的启示

幼专生是未来幼儿园教师的储备力量,幼专生的艺术素养对于这一职业是至关重要的。在学校的常规教学中,对幼专生艺术素养的培养往往是通过学科教学进行的,是零散且不完整的。儿童戏剧工作坊是一种综合的艺术形式,通过儿童戏剧工作坊的建立和实施,能提高幼专生整体的艺术素养,通过教师和学生之间形成双主体形式的学习共同体,加强与幼儿园戏剧教育的有机联系,在实践中不断提高幼专生的艺术素养,培育优秀的儿童戏剧教育师资力量。     

《电视摄像与电视编辑》课程实践环节的改革与创新研究

以新闻学本科的专业基础必修课《电视摄像与电视编辑》为例,在介绍课程特点的基础上,重点从四个方面探讨了如何对该课程的实践环节进行改革和创新,旨在提高该课程的实践教学效果,培养具有较强实践动手能力的优秀新闻人才。     

儿童合作行为研究综述

合作行为是儿童社会性发展与教育中重要的一环。梳理国内外学者对儿童合作行为的研究状况,将有助于我们明确未来的研究方向,更好地培养儿童的合作行为。     

电视娱乐节目低俗化现象研究

本文通过剖析某些电视节目低俗化的外在表现,探讨了电视娱乐节目低俗化产生的内在原因,认为过度草根化、盲目追求收视率、社会价值观的迷失、主持风格的低俗化倾向与媒体监管缺位是导致电视娱乐节目道德意识的逐渐缺乏、文化意味日渐淡薄的四个深层次因素,并提出了引导其电视节目健康发展的相应策略。