Television Violence and Young Children: What works?

The proposed research will examine for the effects of a strategy (Media Literacy Discussion Group) designed to reduce the effects of tv violence on a sample of first grade boys. As to why such a study is needed, it can be noted that, if nothing else, the recent school shootings in Littleton, Colorado highlight the

fact that school violence has reached epidemic proportions in ~,

American Schools. According to the Center for the Prevention of School Violence (1998), research conducted from 1989 through

1998, revealed that during the period of the data collection:

1. Fiftyseven percent of public school principals reported one or more incidents of crime/violence occurring in their schools.

2. Ten percent of public schools experienced one or more serious violent crimes (murder, robbery, rape, other types of sexual battery, suicide, and physical attack or fights using weapons).

3. During the period of data collection, there were over 190,000 incidents of physical attacks or fights without a weapon.

4. Fortyfive percent of elementary schools reported one or more violent incidents compared with seventyfour percent of middle and seventyseven percent of high schools.

5. Approximately 6,093 students were expelled for bringing firearms or explosives to school; 56 percent of these were high school students, 34 percent were junior high school students, and

. . .
hat the latter violence can be remedied by curbing or reducing these early aggressive tendencies. Thoman (1995) offers a strategy for effecting a reduction in that aspect of aggression associated with television violence which is why a medial literacy group was selected as the independent variable of the study. With respect to the foregoing, it can be noted that the Independent Variable is Participation in the Media Literacy Group with two levels: Participated (experimental group) and Did Not Participate (control group). The dependent measure is aggressiveness conceptually defined by Papalia and Olds (1995) as a tendency to engage in hostile actions intending to hurt somebody or to establish dominance. The term will be operationally defined in terms of teacher ratings of students' levels of aggressiveness using the Revised Behavior Problem Checklist (Quay & Peterson, 1987). Hypotheses As just noted, there really has not been any systematic research examining for the effectiveness of media literacy discussion groups on reducing aggression in elementary school children (Thoman, 1995). This means that the existing knowledge base does not provide a firm foundation for the formulation of directional hypotheses. For this reason, all hyp
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2981
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)

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