The Relationship between the Availability of a Children's Television Program and Song Recognition

Abstract

Since the advent of children's educational television, there has been much speculation but little research conducted on the possible effect of such programming on children's music learning. The present investigation was undertaken to determine if third-grade children could identify songs from the show Barney & Friends. Results indicated that (a) there was not a positive relationship between students' self-reported frequency of watching Barney & Friends and song recognition; (b) taken as a whole, the group of popular songs was identified significantly more often than not, whereas the group of “Barney ” songs tended not to be recognized by the group of frequent viewers; (c) when songs had their lyrical content altered on the show, students did not tend to remember those songs in the new formats; and (d) boys tended to say that they watched the show significantly less often than did girls.