Comparison of Video and Text Narrative Presentations
On Comprehension and Vocabulary Acquisition
ERIC Document Reproduction Number ED 418 382
Darcy Podszebka
Candee Conklin
Mary Apple
Amy Windus
Ernest Balajthy
State University of New York at Geneseo
Contact Person:
Dr. Ernest Balajthy
School of Education
SUNY-Geneseo
Geneseo, NY 14454
Email: Balajthy@uno.cc.geneseo.edu
Phone: 716-245-5254
Fax: 716-245-5220
Television’s Effect on Vocabulary and Comprehension
The differential effects of video and narrative presentations on children’s comprehension and vocabulary acquisition is a subject of special concern in an age in which television viewing is a central part of childhood. Teachers, especially in the field of special education, look upon video as a tool to promote learning. Surprisingly, there has been little research carried out to investigate these effects.
Neuman (1980) investigated the effects of a technique called "scripting". In this approach, students viewed television programs in the classroom while at the same time reading along with a printed script. Teachers pre-taught word analysis and comprehension skills. After viewing the program, students had the opportunity to act out episodes or use the scripts to produce their own version of a scene. According to the researcher, this method involved the students in interesting material and gave them an opportunity for self-expression and creativity.
In a study by Smith, adult learners were presented with several television shows that were captioned (1990). These shows included Sesame Street, a soap opera, a courtroom drama, and an episode of Reading Rainbow. The Reading Rainbow program was the most successful with regard to language acquisition and language proficiency. Some positive results of the viewing of closed-captioned shows included the use of new and unusual vocabulary during discussion and written exercises that followed the viewing.
In a study by Rice and Woodsmall (1988), it was hypothesized that vocabulary can be acquired by preschoolers by "fast mapping." This means that children can get a partial understanding of a word through a single exposure to it. There were 61 preschoolers in the study. The experimental group watched a video with controlled vocabulary and the control group watched the same video without the controlled vocabulary. Pretests and post tests were given. The experimental group showed a significant gain on a post test of the controlled vocabulary, learning new words like "viola", "gramophone", and "artisan".
In a study comparing two television stations, PBS and Nickelodeon, Klein (1997) found that there was no significant difference in the amount of vocabulary that was presented. She cited other studies that show that vocabulary development through television is valuable.
In a study in the Netherlands targeting much the same issues as in the present research, van der Molen and van der Voort (1997) sought to determine the effects on recall when students were presented a news story either audiovisually or in print. The participants included 152 students from grades 4 and 6 in an urban school district. Half of the students read five news related stories while that other half saw the news on television. The students were then evaluated on a post test containing 56 open-ended questions. The authors of the study found evidence to support their hypothesis that children remembered televised news stories better than printed versions.
A similar study by Beentjes and van der Voort (1991), also conducted in The Netherlands, sought to compare the written retellings of students who had read a printed version of a story with those who had watched a video version of the same story. The subjects included 127 students in grades 4 through 6 from an urban school district. The children were asked to create a written essay in which they retold the story as accurately as possible. Evaluation of the essays found that the essays of children who watched the film contained more scenes and fewer errors. However, the children who had read the story were superior in specific referencing of story characters and in using descriptive details in their written retellings.
Another study conducted in The Netherlands by Koolstra, van der Voort, and van der Kamp (1997) sought to determine the longitudinal effects of television viewing on children’s reading comprehension and decoding skills. The study contained 1,050 students in grades 2 and 4 and was conducted over a three-year period with assessment at one-year intervals. The students were surveyed on their television viewing habits including amount of time spent watching television and the amount watched, as well as their book reading habits including reading frequency and attitude. Also, a Dutch standardized test was conducted to measure levels of reading comprehension and word decoding. While the authors noted limitations, they did believe that the panel study provided support for theories that television viewing has an inhibiting effect on the development of children's reading comprehension and hypothesis that watching foreign subtitled television programs promotes development of children’s decoding skills.
Our Study
The participants in this study consisted of four English classes of eighth grade students from a school district in rural southwestern New York State. The classes contained 16, 22, 21, and 11 students. The classes were heterogeneously grouped with a variety of academic abilities, socioeconomic backgrounds, and interests.
The study was designed to investigate what, if any, effect the mode of instruction had on vocabulary acquisition and comprehension. The story selected was "The Red-headed League" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The text was at the instructional level for most of the students involved.
Each class received a different mode of instruction for the story. One class read the short story to themselves. Another class viewed a video rendition of the short story during class time. Another class saw the same video rendition, but also had the captions included on the screen. The final class both read the text version of the story to themselves during class time and then viewed the video rendition the following class period.
The assessment measures consisted of a vocabulary pretest and a three-part post test administered to all subjects. The vocabulary pretest was a matching test that asked students to identify the correct definition for a set of preselected vocabulary words of varying difficulty that appeared in both the text and the video.
The first part of the post test was the same vocabulary assessment that had been given as a pretest, though the answers were presented in a different order. The second part was a series of multiple choice questions designed to test comprehension and recall of the story or video on various levels of understanding. The final part of the post test was a short answer evaluation question, designed to measure students’ ability to apply higher order thinking skills to the text or video. All tests consisted only of questions that were answered by all media provided.
Data Collection and Analysis
There were ten questions on each of the two objective tests. The scores for the vocabulary pretest and post test are presented in Figure 1. The comprehension post test scores are presented in Figure 2.
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Insert Figures 1 and 2
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The results suggest that the greatest gains in vocabulary from the pretest to the post test were made by the two classes that read the text as part of their method of instruction. The class that only read the text had a two point gain from the pretest to the post test, while the class that read the story and watched the video had a .6 gain.
In terms of the average scores on the comprehension portion of the post test, there was a 1.4 point differential in the scores. The class that only read the text was one of the two groups scoring the lowest on the comprehension portion. The highest score on the post test was obtained by both the video group and the text and video group.
The significant findings of the study are that students who read the text had a greater acquisition of vocabulary, while students who viewed the video showed a greater comprehension of the story. Our goal was to determine which method helped students best. These findings show that video helps with comprehension and reading helps students with vocabulary acquisition.
Another significant finding of our study had to do with vocabulary acquisition. The groups that showed the only major improvement were those who read the text. This may have been due to the fact that the students who read the text were able to reread anything they did not understand while the students who watched the video had a one-time only exposure to the selected words.
References
Beentjes, J.W.J. & van der Voort, T.H.A. (1991). Children’s written accounts of televised and printed stories. Educational Technology Research & Development, 39(3), 15-26.
Klein, P.J. (1997). Evidence of vocabulary development in television programs for preschoolers. (Eric Systems Publication ED 406 642)
Koolstra, C.M., van der Voort, T.H.A., & van der Kamp, L.J.T. (1997). Television’s impact on children’s reading comprehension and decoding skills: A 3-year panel study. Reading Research Quarterly, 32(2), 128-52.
Neuman, Susan B. (1980). Television: Its effects on reading and school achievement. The Reading Teacher, 801-805.
Rice, M. L. & Woodsmall, L. (1988). Lessons from television: Children’s word learning while viewing. Child Development, 59(2), 421-8.
Smith, J. J. (1990). Closed-caption television and adult students of English as a second language. (ERIC Systems Publication ED 339 250)
Van de Molen, J.H. & van der Voort, T.H.A. (1997). Children’s recall of television and print news: A media comparison study. Journal of Educational Psychology, 89(1), 82-91.