Effects Of Television Viewing On Language Performance Of Pre-school Children In Nairobi West District
Abstract
The study examined effects of television viewing on language performance on pre-school children in Nairobi West District. The objectives guiding the study included: To examine the relationship between frequency of TV viewing and oral fluency in oral story telling, to identify commonly viewed TV programmes in relation to performance in language, to evaluate the relationship between TV programmes and preferred communication language and to find out the effects of time spent on TV and reading skills. The study was guided by the hypothesis that; there was no relationship between TV watching and language performance and parents did not understand the effects of TV on language performance of their children.Literature review was sourced from scholarly writings on the effects of TV on language performance of children and sources duly acknowledged. The study was carried out using descriptive cross-sectional survey design. The target population included parents, pre-school children and teachers in Nairobi West District. The sampling for the study was done by use of random sampling while sample size was 240 respondents. Data was collected by use of questionnaires and interview guide and analyzed and presented in tables, pie charts and bar graphs.
The study established that majority of parents did not monitor their children’s TV watching habits hence children spent many hours on the TV and watched what they liked. The findings also indicated that children who watched educational programmes were above average in language performance while those who spent many hours and watched non-educational programmes were below average. It was recommended that community should come up with appropriate policy on TV programmes to be watched by children and at appropriate time, parents to be sensitized on effects of TV on language performance of their children and pre-school teachers to play a leading role in teaching children appropriate TV watching habits.
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Collections
- Faculty of Education (FEd) [5964]