A Comparison between those Elementary School Children Who Attend Moving Pictures, Read Comic Books and Listen to Serial Radio Programs to an Excess, with those Who Indulge in these Activities Seldom or not at All

Abstract

The children considered in this study included all the pupils in the Farmingdale, New York, Elementary and Junior High School except those in the first grade and those whose records were incomplete. (Grades seven and eight were included in the junior high school.) Six hundred of the six hundred and thirty-five enrolled were used in the study. It was necessary in selecting the tests to choose those that had com parable forms for the primary, intermediate and junor high school grades, as well as those tests that were highly reliable. To obtain a mental age level, the primary and intermediate forms of the California Short-Form Test of Mental Maturity were administered. The California Test of Personality was used to arrive at a numerical evaluation of personality. The primary and intermediate levels of the Stanford Achivement Test measured school progress. An inventory was constructed by the author to ascertain the number of moving pictures seen, serial radio programs heard and comic books read by each child. It contained the names of the pictures that had been shown at the local movie house during the ten weeks just preceding the study; 182