Children's Views on Quality Standards for Children's Television Programs

Abstract

Extending a recent study of the standards mothers apply in evaluating the quality of children's programs (Nikken et al., 1996), this study investigated the standards children between 9 and 12 years of age (N = 427) use to evaluate the quality of four types of children's programs: children's news programs, educational programs for children, dramatic programs for children, and cartoons. Data were collected by means of questionnaires. A factor analysis resulted in a list of nine types of quality standards. The two quality standards children considered most important were: (a) comprehensibility, and (b) aesthetic quality. Additional standards were: (c) entertainment, (d) involvement, (e) credibility, (f) innocuousness, (g) restfulness, (h) thought provocation, and (i) presence of role models. The importance children attached to the nine quality standards varied with both program type and child characteristics. Seven of the quality standards found in the present study are similar to the maternal quality standards observed in Nikken et al. ‘s study. The children in the present study generally viewed these seven quality standards as less important than the mothers in Nikken et al.’s study. However, the relative importance children and mothers attached to these quality standards showed similarity, especially in the case of cartoons, and to a lesser extent for children's news programs and dramatic programs.