Study Cites Active Reasoning About TV in High-Achieving African-American Students
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Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 4/28/2009
African-American students tapped as "high-achieving" in school interact with television shows, video games, and music in a more engaged way than regular African-American students, according to a new study from Temple University’s Media Education Lab. “High achieving kids are actively thinking about and responding to media messages that they’re choosing,” says Renee Hobbs, professor of communications at Temple University and founder of the Media Education Lab. “They’re really using their brains and language skills.” What is not evident from the study, and what Hobbs and her coauthor Michael RobbGrieco hope to discover, is if active reasoning can be taught and encouraged in all children. “And we think it can,” Hobbs says.
As children continue to consume more media through television, computers, game players and even their cell phones, helping them discern what they’re viewing may make a difference in how they succeed in school, and hopefully later in life.
The two are spearheading a three-year media literacy program at Russell Byers Charter School, which teaches 400 students from pre-K through 6 in Philadelphia. They ran the study to create a baseline of how much media children consume at this age and how they respond.
Hobbs believes educators and parents can help steer all children toward more active reasoning when engaged with media by asking them questions to change a passive experience into one that’s dynamic.
The study breaks these questions into four categories, including descriptive, predictive, evaluative, and critical thinking questions, which, for example, can spark a child into thinking about whether a show they watched may be true or fiction.
“We think these kinds of questions can activate high reasoning skills,” says Hobbs, “if they’re done in tandem with the media they’re consuming.”
