Interactional Modeling in InfantDirected Media

1
Interactional Modeling in Infant-Directed Media

• Susan K. Fenstermacher1, Rachel Barr1 , Elizabeth
  Brey1 , Tiffany Pempek3, Annie Moses2, Sarah
  Ellen Vaala2, Maureen Ryan1 , Amaya Garcia1,
  Sandra Calvert1 ,Deborah L. Linebarger2
• 1Georgetown University
• 2University of Pennsylvania
• 3 Washington Lee University

2
Overview Infant-Directed Media

• Gaining popularity in recent years despite AAP
  recommendation for no TV for infants
• (American Academy of
  Pediatrics, 1999)
• Infants (6 months to 3 years) are exposed to 1-2
  hours of TV per day
• (Rideout Hamel, 2006
  Pierroutsakos et al., 2004, Rideout et al., 2003)
• Families with children under two own an average
  of 5-6 infant-directed videos
  (Pierroutsakos et al., 2004 Barr et al., 2003)

3
Overview Infant-Directed Media

• Why so popular?
• Programs marketed as educational for
  infants (Garrison Christakis, 2005)

4
Examples of Educational Claims

• Thoughtfully created to nurture cognitive,
  sensory and emotional developments throughout
  your baby's first years.
• Inspiring early language development - from
  simple gestures to first spoken words.
• Focuses on a child's positive social and
  emotional growth through child-to-child
  interaction and play.
• Teaches your child whole language and phonics
  using a combination of sight, sound, and
  interaction.
• Encourage(s) viewers to develop positive
  personal qualities and pro-social behaviors,
  including honesty, kindness, initiative,
  earnestness, compassion, cooperation,
  helpfulness, sharing and leadership.
• These DVDS are designed to engage your child and
  stimulate both the left and right side of the
  brain, which experts call "whole brain"
  thinking.

5
Overview Infant-Directed Media

• Why so popular?
• Programs marketed as educational for
  infants (Garrison Christakis, 2005)
• Some television designed for preschoolers has
  demonstrated beneficial effects
• (Garrison Christakis, 2005
  Anderson et al., 2001 Wright et al., 2001)
• However, no research to date has specifically
  examined the content of infant-directed media

6
What we know

• Infants aged 0-3 are undergoing a peak period of
  socioemotional development
• Research with preschoolers has demonstrated that
  learning may be enhanced via social interactions
  with caregivers and peers
• Expect infant-directed media to include high
  levels of social emotional content, and/or to
  present educational content in an interactive
  context

7
Examples of Educational Claims

• Thoughtfully created to nurture cognitive,
  sensory and emotional developments throughout
  your baby's first years.
• Inspiring early language development - from
  simple gestures to first spoken words.
• Focuses on a child's positive social and
  emotional growth through child-to-child
  interaction and play.
• Teaches your child whole language and phonics
  using a combination of sight, sound, and
  interaction.
• Encourage(s) viewers to develop positive
  personal qualities and pro-social behaviors,
  including honesty, kindness, initiative,
  earnestness, compassion, cooperation,
  helpfulness, sharing and leadership.
• These DVDS are designed to engage your child and
  stimulate both the left and right side of the
  brain, which experts call "whole brain"
  thinking.

8
Research Questions

• What educational content is presented in media
  designed for young infants?
• Where educational content is present, is this
  content being presented in a manner that is
  likely to be effective, given the target age
  group?

9
Content analysis
Sesame Beginnings
Baby Einstein
Brainy Baby
10
Content Educational Domains

• Assigned by scene according to the dominant
  educational theme (s) addressed
• Includes
• Cognitive Development
• General Knowledge
• Physical and Motor Development
• Language and Communication Skills
• Social and Emotional Development
• (adapted from Jordan et al.)

11
Results Educational Content
Type of Content
Proportion of total video duration (minus opening
and closing credits)
Min
Max
Mean
1. General Knowledge
0
100
49.40
28.75
100
0
2. Language/Communication
99.78
19.46
3. Social/Emotional Development
0
13.81
100
0
4. Physical/Motor Development
5. Cognitive Development
0
72.04
4.70
12
Results Educational Content
13
Results Educational Content
14
Results Educational Content
Type of Content
Proportion of total video duration (minus opening
and closing credits)
Min
Max
Mean
1. General Knowledge
0
100
49.40
28.75
100
0
2. Language/Communication
100
19.46
3. Social/Emotional Development
0
13.81
100
0
4. Physical/Motor Development
5. Cognitive Development
0
72
4.70
6. Other/Unclear 0 72 5.36
15
Summary Educational Content Findings

• Very thematic (e.g., focus on Physical
  Development, Language)
• Majority of content fell into General Knowledge
  or Language Development domains
• Surprisingly little Social-Emotional content

16
Research Questions

• What educational content is presented in media
  designed for young infants?
• Where educational content is present, is this
  content being presented in an effective way?

17
Mode of PresentationOnscreen Interactions

• Caregiver-child (PCI) Interactions, Peer-to-Peer
  (PPI) Interactions, and Non-Interactions
• Assessed for both presence and quality of
  interaction when characters appear onscreen
  together
• PCI Active involvement, passive involvement,
  monitoring
• PPI Cooperative or parallel peer to peer play
• Characters appear together but not interacting
• (adapted from Kirkorian et al.)

18
Results Interactional Quality

• Each interaction variable was calculated as a
  percentage of total character changes for each
  video
• Only 14 videos (25) displayed more interactions
  than non-interactions overall.

19
Results Interactional Quality
20
Results Interactional Quality
21
Results Interactional Quality
22
Results Interactional Quality
23
Results Proportion of Onscreen PCI and PPI that
were active, passive, other, or not interacting
Percentage of Total Character Changes
24
Results Interactional Quality Summary

• Few interactions
• 66 of scenes, characters were not interacting
• PCI
• Majority of interactions modeled were active
• PPI
• Interactions modeled were evenly divided between
  cooperative and parallel play

25
Results Associations between educational domain
content and onscreen interactions
significant at .01 significant at .05
26
Results Associations between educational domain
content and onscreen interactions
significant at .01 significant at .05
27
Results Associations between educational domain
content and onscreen interactions
significant at .01 significant at .05
28
Summary Relations between domain content and
interactions

• Significant association between social-emotional
  content and PCI, but not PPI
• Cognitive content moderately associated with PCI
• Though sparse overall
• Language content negatively associated with PPI
• Less presented in a peer to peer context

29
Results Associations between Social/Emotional
and PCI claims and onscreen interactions
significant at .01 significant at .05
30
Results Associations between Social/Emotional
and PCI claims and onscreen interactions
significant at .01 significant at .05
31
Summary Relations between Social Emotional
content and claims

• Only social emotional domain content found to be
  related to social emotional claims made by infant
  media products in our sample
• PCI and PPI presented onscreen not associated
  with number of claims of promoting social
  emotional development
• PCI and PPI also unrelated to number of claims
  implying onscreen modeling of interactions.
• Number of claims implying modeling of
  interactions not related to overall
  social-emotional content

32
General Summary and Conclusions

• Content
• DVDs tended to be thematic
• Educational content was primarily general
  knowledge and language/communication
• Relatively little social emotional content
• Interactions
• Majority of scenes contained characters not
  interacting
• Educational material tended to be presented
  outside an interactive social context

33
General Summary and Conclusions

• At the peak of socio-emotional and
  socio-cognitive development
• Lack of integration of material within social
  context
• Fast pace and other content may be problematic
• Presentation mode may not promote learning

34
Future Directions

• Examine learning strategies
• Modeling, scaffolding
• Repetition
• Pretend play, planning
• Language development strategies
• Content predictive value of educational success?
• Longitudinal media intervention study

35
Acknowledgements

• Support for this research was provided by NSF
  Grants to Sandra Calvert (NSF0126014) and
• Department of Education Ready to Learn Initiative
  grant (DOE9300-71000) to Deborah Linebarger.

36
New Info Associations between educational domain
content and basic formal features
significant at .01 significant at .05
37
New Info Associations between educational domain
content and basic formal features
significant at .01 significant at .05
38
New Info Associations between educational domain
content and basic formal features
significant at .01 significant at .05
39
New Info Associations between PCI content and
basic formal features
significant at .01 significant at .05