A Review on the Impacts of Home Video Viewership on Secondary School Students Academic Performance

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

With the development of satellite and digital technology, television now has an infinite number of programs. Television is a type of electrical gadget that sends both image and sound. It’s utilized for amusement, information, and advertisements. For example, there are programs on news, education, culture, weather prediction, sports, music, and a multitude of both excellent and bad material (Santrock, 2005). Television combines the enticing elements of movies and radio, and it is one of the most popular forms of entertainment during childhood. It has the potential to divert children’s attention away from other types of play.

Television viewing is an additional play activity for preschool children and even older children, but it is not a substitute for active play or other types of passive play. For many teenagers, it is more popular and takes up more of their play time than any other activity. If utilized actively, television remains a vital medium for children. According to Livingstone (2002), however, children consider television viewing as a source of fun. On the other hand, many parents see television, particularly for young children, as a crucial educational tool that may help them develop intellectually (Rideout, 2003).

Television may provide general benefits to children by exposing them to areas of life that they would not otherwise be exposed to, as well as a variety of entertainment, drama, and learning that can be accessed and experienced (Gunter and Mc Aleer, 1997). The authors argued that watching television helps youngsters expand their vocabulary, which assists their reasoning. However, studies have found that the increase in vocabulary size is insufficient to justify the time spent viewing and has no discernible influence on the child’s reading abilities. Ward (2002), on the other hand, argued that some students are inspired to follow up on what they see on television and therefore fill holes in their school curriculum. They read items that they would not have read otherwise, particularly ones that are not part of their schoolwork.

Students in industrialized nations are increasingly turning to television tutoring for assistance with disciplines such as mathematics, English, chemistry, and French. Students learn these subjects through viewing certain programs, which helps them improve their understanding of the subjects. They may even write back to the creators of these programs in the region where they are having difficulty using the address that is normally provided on the television screen, and most of the time their difficulties are resolved. Several schools have gone so far as to put the whole curriculum on a digital video disc, requiring pupils to work from home via television or computer, deciding when and what to complete. Such a school was dubbed a virtual school (Hastings, 2003).

Because of the learning that occurs through television, it is one of the primary players in the socialization process, alongside more conventional socializing agents such as the family, school, and peer groups (Signorielli and Morgan, 2001), reflecting society’s values and culture. Television is not seen in the same manner by children as it is by adults. According to Takanishi (1982), age and maturity impact how a youngster responds to and engages with television.

Given that the upper basic levels of the Nigerian education system account for a large proportion of school-age children, there is a need to identify strategies to improve their learning capacities both in and out of school. Furthermore, because upper basic level students, as children, may not perceive television in the same way that adults do, understanding what they can and cannot do with television and how they perceive it is critical, as is an examination of the influence of television viewing on their academic achievement.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The association between children’s academic success and television consumption has been a source of contention. Viewing educational programs by children has been linked to desirable attributes in children such as higher grades, more books read, a higher emphasis placed on success, and being more creative. Anene (2006) discovered in another research that excessive television viewing impairs reading, retards problem solving, expressive language and listening abilities, dulls imagination, and contributes to laziness. Furthermore, findings from research on cognitive ability and television consumption have been equivocal. Some researchers have discovered that high-quality instructional television programs aid in learning. Others have demonstrated that when confounding factors such as cognitive quotient or socioeconomic level are included, the detrimental effects of hours spent in front of the television vanish.

Some parents believe that watching television is bad for their children, so they try to limit their children’s television viewing. Other parents, on the other hand, believe that there is nothing wrong with watching television. Indeed, there are two opposing viewpoints on the impact of television consumption on children’s academic achievement. At one end, it is considered as motivating and exposing youngsters to study more, while at the other end, it is condemned as a source of current societal evils because most television programs are not effectively managed or regulated.

Considering the inconsistent opinions, views and result of findings on the influence of television viewing on the academic achievement of children, there is the need to carry out further study on the influence of home video viewership on secondary school students academic performance

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The main purpose of the study was to determine the influence of home video viewership on secondary school students academic performance. Specifically, the study intends to:

i.            Establish whether television viewing influences students  language development

ii.          Determine whether television viewing influences students’  numeracy development.

iii.      Establish  whether television viewing influences student students’ reading and listening skills during class room instruction.

iv.        Investigate whether television viewing influences students cognitive skills in class assessment.

 RESEARCH QUESTION

i.          Does  television viewing influences students  language development?

ii.        Does  television viewing influences students’  numeracy development?

iii.      Does television viewing influences student students’ reading and listening skills during class room instruction?

iv.      Does  television viewing influences students cognitive skills in class assessment?

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The findings of the study will be useful to UBE teachers, the parents, the children, curriculum planners and researchers and knowledge in general. The Universal Basic Education (UBE) teachers will benefit from the findings of the study when the findings of the study is published in journals or presented in conferences and seminar. The study will find out and establish the influence of television viewing and the achievement of the children in the UBE classroom as the scores of pupils in the various subjects will be presented according to viewers and non-television viewers. Such a relationship will guide the UBE teachers in either encouraging or discouraging the use of television viewing as a teaching/learning strategy. This will equip teachers with the current data and knowledge on its influence so as to encourage or discourage television viewing among the children. The parents will also benefit from the findings of the study. Presently, there are divided opinions of parents on the influence of television viewing on their children’s performance in schools, particularly as they (parents) consider their children too immature to understand the television programmes. The results of this study will therefore be useful in adding to their knowledge on the impact of television viewing on children’s’ achieve ment through conferences, seminars and journal publication. The findings of the study will further be of great importance to the children themselves. It will guide them on the appropriate way to use television as a learning mode. Curriculum planners and educators stand to benefits from the findings of the study as the information to be provided by the study will be useful in curriculum planning process by providing more information and resources for enhancing television usage in teaching and learning. The educators will also find the role, or other ways of television viewing affect school performance. Researchers will also find the result of the findings useful for further studies and investigations. The data will provide a base line to the researchers for future research on similar studies. Finally, the finding of the study will help to contribute to build knowledge on the relationship between television as a teaching resources and academic achievement, hence adding to existing theories through presentation of the results of the study in conferences, seminars and in journals.

SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The scope of this study borders on a review on the impact of home video viewership on secondary school students academic performance. The study was delimited to students in upper basic level of education. The geographical scope is Junior Secondary schools in Lagos State, Nigeria. The study includes influence of television viewing on language skills, numeracy skills, reading, listening and writing skills as contained in the curriculum for the upper basic level of education in Nigeria.

LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

Like in every human endeavour, the researchers encountered slight constraints while carrying out the study. The significant constraint was the scanty literature on the subject owing that it is a new discourse thus the researcher incurred more financial expenses and much time was required in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature, or information and in the process of data collection, which is why the researcher resorted to a limited choice of sample size covering only  students in upper basic level of education in Lagos State. Thus findings of this study cannot be used for generalization for other junior secondary schools in other States within Nigeria. Additionally, the researcher will simultaneously engage in this study with other academic work will impede maximum devotion to the research. Howbeit, despite the constraint  encountered during the  research, all factors were downplayed in other to give the best and make the research successful.