News
Deborah Linebarger and Jessica Taylor Piotrowski publish new research
12/18/2008
Dr. Deborah Linebarger and Jessica Taylor Piotrowski published an article titled “Evaluating the Educational Potential of Health PSAs with Preschoolers” in this month’s issue of Health Communication (Volume 23, Issue 6, Pgs. 516-525). The article presents findings from a study evaluating the impact of television health messages on preschoolers.
In this study, preschoolers were assigned to one of two conditions. All children, regardless of group, viewed a popular children’s television program once a day for two weeks in their classroom. Children in the health message group saw short public service announcements (PSAs) before and after the television program. The PSAs were designed for preschoolers and featured content about nutrition, physical activity, and hand-washing behaviors. Children in the comparison group also viewed PSAs prior to and after viewing, however, the PSAs they viewed did not include health information. Rather, these messages focused on what children can do to protect the environment. Results of the study illustrated that children in the health message group, when compared to their peers, knew more of the health content presented in the health messages and were better able to transfer this learning to a novel situation. The study demonstrates that children can learn health information from television, and has implications for the formal inclusion of such messages during children’s television programming.
Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania
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