Charlton et al. - 7

Question 1

Charlton et al.

Answer 1

1. 2000
2. Children’s playground behaviour across Five Years of Broadcast Television : A naturalistic Study in a Remote community

Question 2

Background of the study (Charlton)

Answer 2

1. This research was conducted on the island of St Helena, a small British colony in the South Atlantic Ocean
2. The island did not have access to mainland television channels but there were plans to introduce it via satellite.
3. Tony Charlton and other researchers were interested to see what influence television would have on the children of the island

Question 3

Aims (Charlton)

Answer 3

1. To investigate the effects of television on children’s behaviour
2. The researchers were particularly interested to see whether television would cause the children to become more aggressive

Question 4

Procedure (Charlton)

Answer 4

1. The study was a natural experiment because the researchers did not directly manipulate the independent variable which is the introduction of television
2. The dependent variable was the behaviour of the children before and after television was introduced
3. This was measured in terms of prosocial and antisocial acts that were displayed in the playground
4. The researchers went to the island in 1994 and recorded the behaviour of children 4 months before satellite television was introduced
5. Video cameras were set up in two primary schools to observe the playground behaviour of children between 3 and 8 years old, over a 2 week period. They recorded 256 minutes of free play.
6. Five years after television was introduced, the researchers returned to the island and filmed similar-aged children at the primary school once more.
7. over a 2 week period, 344 minutes of footage was recorded

Question 5

Results (Charlton)

Answer 5

1. there were five declines in prosocial behaviour of both boys and girls in single gender pairs/groups and mixed pairs/groups.
2. They also found two increases in prosocial behaviour of boys playing alone, and two decreases in antisocial behaviour of boys and girls
3. There was no change in antisocial behaviour observed in children’s playground such as fighting, hitting, pushing, etc after television was introduced
4. Boys had a tendency to display more antisocial acts than girls (around 4 times more) and girls were slightly more likely to show prosocial behaviour, although this was not significant
5. Both boys and girls displayed twice as much prosocial behaviour compared to antisocial behaviour

Question 6

Conclusions (Charlton)

Answer 6

1. The researchers concluded that television had little influence on the behaviour of the children studied, and that the children were not copying the aggression that they witnessed on television
2. The researchers pointed out that there might be environmental conditions specific to the island that could explain why the children did not imitate television aggression
3. In particular, the close-knit nature of the community and the high levels of adult surveillance over the children may have explained why television had little effect on the children’s behaviour

Question 7

Strengths of Charlton’s study

Answer 7

1. The same primary schools were used in both the before and after television observation. Even if different children were observed, since its the same environment the differences could be minimised
2. It was a natural experiment which means that it was conducted under naturally occurring circumstances. This means that the behaviour of the children would have been natural and unaffected by the presence of strange observers

Question 8

Weaknesses of Charlton’s study

Answer 8

1. The findings of the study may be limited to this particular community. Research carried out in different locations have not been able to replicate these findings. Tannis Williams (1981) conducted a similar study on three communities in Canada and found that television did increase aggression in children
2. Other researchers have pointed out that the television programmes watched on the island were not the same as on mainland television and could have contained less violence. such as teenage mutant ninja turtle which was not broadcasted on the island