The Tower in Red and Yellow: Using Children's Drawings in Formative Research for Alum Simsim, an Educational Television Series for Egyptian Children

Formative Research is an integral part of the development of Sesame Workshop's productions worldwide. It is used to bring children into the television production process and give producers insights into what children like and learn from material as it is being produced. Using examples from a study of six test segments of the television series Alam Simsim, the Egyptian Sesame Street, this paper illustrates how one non-conventional research method-systematic analysis of children's artwork-can be used, in conjunction with other research tools, to gain supplemental feedback from children during formative research of educational television.