CHAPTER 2

Review of Related Literature & Studies

This chapter presents salient ideas and works of various researchers, authors relevant to
the study. American and British researchers have pursued studies and researches related to this
work. Valuable write-ups from journals authored by Filipino writers are likewise presented.

Television and its effect

Researchers at University at Michigan investigated the relationship between TV-violence

viewing among children aged six to ten and their behavior fifteen years later. The researchers
findings suggested that childhood exposure to TV violence (along with a tendency to identify
with aggressive TV characters and a belief that the violence seen on TV accurately represents
real life) better predicts adult aggressiveness that does a childs initial aggressiveness, intellectual
ability, or parents educational background. (Anonymous, The Atlantic Monthly, Oct. 2003, p.49)
Comstock and Paik (1991) found that children experience the greatest aggressive effects
because of their inability to distinguish fantasy aggressive effects because of their inability to
distinguish fantasy from reality and to understand motivations for aggressive behavior. Cantor
(2001) has documented types of content that provoke heightened fear reactions in young
children. Valkenburg (2001) concludes that television viewing inhibits childrens imaginative
thinking skills. It follows that parents see young children as the most intellectually and
emotionally susceptible television audience (Children/Parents, 1996; Kaiser Family Foundation,
2001). Their mediation strategies are at least partially reliant on how they recognize children to
process television materials. If the ultimate aim is to produce critical viewers, understanding how
young children watch television is a first step in setting goals for parental mediation and in
expounding mediations benefits for preschooler
Televison and Parental Mediation

Research on parenting with television (Austin et al., 1999; Valkenburg et al., 1999) has
verified three distinct types of mediation: restrictive mediation, co-viewing, and instructive
mediation. Restrictive mediation includes parents rules regarding the amount and/or time of
viewing, permissible or forbidden types of content, and the use of viewing as a behavioral
reward or punishment (Bower,1973; Fry & McCain, 1980; Mohr, 1979). Co-viewing was more
prevalent among parents who believed strongly in televisions negative effects on children Dorr,
Kovaric, and Doubleday (1989).
Parental mediation was provided in study regarding a more practice model of day-to-day
parenting constraints and struggle many face in balancing the demands of work and family
(Hoschild, 1997). This is especially true of preschoolers parents, whose children present higher
burden on direct care. Preschoolers parents report more frequent instructive mediation than coviewing, while older childrens parents report using instructive mediation least frequently.
Some studies showed that fewer than half of the parents made viewing rules (Atkin,
Greenberg, & Baldwin, 1991; Brown, Bauman, Lentz,& Koch, 1987; Greenberg & Heeler,
1987). Other studies (e.g., Holz, 1998; Krendi, Clark, Dawson & Troiano 1993) found that a
majority of parents report enforcing television rules in their homes, though far fewer of their
report the existence of such rules.
There are also findings from experimental research confirming the importance of
instructive mediation. In combination with parental commentary, restrictive mediation was found
to boost 5- and 6- year- olds comprehension of story elements, separation of fantasy from
reality, and comprehension of production techniques (Desmond et al, 1985). Corder-Bolz (1980)
reported 5- and 6- year- olds understanding of educational content was enhanced when a teacher
provided running instructional commentary. Adult mediation was also found to increase
childrens acceptance of nontraditional sex roles and decrease their acceptance of aggressive
behavior among 5- to 11- years old. Collins, school and Westby (1981) found that interaction
with parents helped increase childrens understanding of program content, characters, and plots
in action-adventure programs. Wright, St. Peters, and Houstons (1990) experiment showed that
children could recall more details from educational programming with parental interaction.

Cantors (2001) research on fright reactions has shown that parental interaction can reduce or
overcome childrens reactions to frightening content. In short, while a balance of all three types
of mediation is important (Desmond et al, 1985), parent-child interaction during viewing is a key
strategy in developing young childrens viewing skills.
Some studies have all reported that parents exercise more restrictions with younger
children than with pre-adolescents and adolescents. In part, this is because a smaller proportion
of television shows are targeted toward preschool viewers (hence, there is more potentially
unpleasant content.). Preschoolers parents report more frequent instructive mediation then coviewing, while older childrens parents report using instructive mediation least frequently. With
young children, average levels of co-viewing on Valkenburg et al.s (1999) scale are lowerthan
those reported with older children.
Miron, Bryant and Zilimann (2001) further summarize literature that indicates young
childrens growing knowledge of story grammar (through age 7) heavily influences the
development of interpretive schemas for processing television content.

Television Ownership in the Philipines

Since televisions invention in the1950s (Parsons and Frieden 1998), demand for this
piece of equipment was shown through the years. Television ownership in the Philippines as of
1998 was estimated to be at 71% or 9.8 million (Santos, 2003).
Satellite the introduction of television in the Philippines in 1953; it has been the major
source of entertainment and information. The improved technology (satellites and cables)
enables the viewers to access various TV programs any time of the day. (Kitley, 2003)
Santos (2003) described the ownership of television in the Philippines as of 1998. Based
on 13.8 million households, it was found out that metro Manila has the highest TV ownership at
96% followed by Luzon with 73%, Mindanao with 63% and Visayas with 60%.

Recently, the Philippines Department of Education has expressed concern in the

declining capabilities of the Filipinos in the English language skills. Based on SWS study, 94
percent of the Filipino could read simple words at least but cannot translate these into something
functional or useful. (Baylon, 2003 Philippine headline news online). The mounting popularity
of telenovelas and chinovelas, a lot of people have voiced their concern regarding the values that
these shows may convey to the easily influenced audience. (www.pasigcatholic.edu.ph).
Reflecting the rise in the percentage in TV ownership, this study will focus on studying
the impact of TV viewing of the Filipino populace, particularly. Recently, the Philippines
Department of Education has expressed concern in the declining capabilities of the Filipinos in
the English language skills. Based on SWS study, 94 percent of the Filipino could read simple
words at least but cannot translate these into functional or useful. (Baylon, 2003, Philippine
headline news online). The mounting popularity of telenovelas and chinovelas, a lot of people
have voiced their concern regarding the values that these shows may convey to the easily
influenced audience. (www.pasigcatholic.edu.ph).
Thus, based on the studies by foreign authors, positive effects on the behaviors of the
children were observed whenever parents could manage to intervene during their childrens
viewing time. As such, the researchers sought similar effects regarding the impact of TV viewing
in the academic performance of the children.

Chapter 3
Research Methodology

This chapter presents the research design, sampling procedures and instrumentations to
be used in the study. The data collection procedures and its statistical are also discussed.

Research Design

This study will be using the descriptive research method. Data collection will be used to
test the hypotheses and describe the current questions concerning the study. The descriptive
study will help so many studies in the past. This paper will seek to investigate the reasons behind
some TV viewing activities and preferences and measure only what are the conditions at home in
terms of parental mediation that are related to TV viewing among the respondents.

Sampling Procedures

The study will be using the purposive sampling technique. Schools with certain
population for the required levels will be covered in order that the quota for the respondents will
be filled up. A school will be selected purposively and will assign a quota to yield appropriate
numbers of pupils who will bring home the corresponding questionnaires for their parents. This
will be advantageous since it will avoid delays; it is useful immediacy by pre-selecting the
corresponding levels that will serve as the respondents.

The procedure in the development is a purposive sampling will be the first to develop a
description of the population to be studied and will set a quota so that the final sample is forced
to fit the major requirements of the population profile. (Andreasen, 1988).

Respondents of the study will be the par3ents of elementary students from a public school
especially from grade 4. Respondents will be asked to answer the questionnaire focusing only on
the child who will bring home the survey. Respondent school is located in Imus, Cavite based on
the listings from DECS in Imus. Preference will be given to the school that has complete
elementary levels and grade 4 sections with minimum of 20 students.

Instrumentation

Three sets of questions for each kind of parental mediation will be formulated. These will
be also reviewed and revised by the groups adviser. The two page questionnaires will be sent
home with all students in each of the selected classes. Parents will be asked to respond in terms
of the child who will be brought home the questionnaire. Respondents will be receiving an
information sheet about the project and were requested to return the questionnaires during
collection of the said sheets.

The study will be using a two-page questionnaire. The questions assumed groupness of
viewing habits in order to relate them. The objective is finding positive-negative statements
towards the TV viewing regardless whether they frequently watch local or foreign shows and
how this has affected the performance of the pupils in their English subject.

Data Collection Procedures

The necessary permission to conduct the study at the selected school will be secured.
Once the permission was obtained, the researchers will coordinate with the teachers of the
selected school in sending the questionnaires to their respective parents.

The academic performance in the English subject of the each pupil will be obtained from
the teachers of the present school year.

Statistical Analysis

To find the significant relationship between demographic profile and English academic
profile; the chi-square method (goodness of fit) will be used. The generalized formula for the test
is:

For the evaluation of the computed ____, the result will be compared to the tabulated
value of the ____, at 0.05 level of confidence.

For the demographic profile of the respondents, frequency distribution and percentage
will be used; A tabular presentation of data showing the proportion in percent of each frequency
to the total frequency.

This study will also determine the association of a relationship of the parental mediation
with that of the English performance of the pupils. The Pearsons product moment correlation
coefficient will be utilized. This may involve a complex set of calculations, but has the advantage
of using the actual data values and not just the ranked scores (Riley, 2000). Looking at the
generalized formula:

Where: X represents the English grade of each student

Y represents the score in parental mediation

The corresponding computed score will be compared with the significance level of
p=0.05 regarding parental mediation and childs academic performance.