TY - JOUR
T1 - Character recognition as an alternate measure of television exposure among children
T2 - Findings From the Alam Simsim program in Egypt
AU - Rimal, Rajiv N.
AU - Figueroa, Maria Elena
AU - Storey, J. Douglas
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development. The contents are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development or of the United States Government. The authors acknowledge the support of the Global Education Department at Sesame Workshop, Dr. June H. Lee (assistant vice president, Global Research), and Dr. Charlotte F. Cole (senior vice president, Global Education). The authors also acknowledge the assistance of Ms. Molly Federowicz. This work was undertaken during the first author’s tenure at Johns Hopkins University.
Copyright:
Copyright 2013 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2013/5/1
Y1 - 2013/5/1
N2 - Evaluation of effects of mass media-based health interventions requires accurate assessments of exposure, which can be difficult to obtain when young children are the primary audience. Alam Simsim, the Egyptian version of Sesame Street, aired nationally in Egypt to teach preschoolers about numeracy, literacy, and gender-equitable attitudes. The purpose of this article was to assess the effect of the program through a first-of-its-kind household-level survey that interviewed caretakers (n = 426) and preschoolers (n = 486). The authors introduced and tested the efficacy of a parsimonious measure of exposure: children's recognition of the primary characters of the program. Overall, the authors' models explained as much as 53% of the variance in children's learning; exposure to the program was significantly associated with learning. Furthermore, the parsimonious measure of exposure was as effective as a more elaborate child-reported measure. Relative to these two measures of exposure, caretakers' report of children's viewing was not as good a predictor of learning.
AB - Evaluation of effects of mass media-based health interventions requires accurate assessments of exposure, which can be difficult to obtain when young children are the primary audience. Alam Simsim, the Egyptian version of Sesame Street, aired nationally in Egypt to teach preschoolers about numeracy, literacy, and gender-equitable attitudes. The purpose of this article was to assess the effect of the program through a first-of-its-kind household-level survey that interviewed caretakers (n = 426) and preschoolers (n = 486). The authors introduced and tested the efficacy of a parsimonious measure of exposure: children's recognition of the primary characters of the program. Overall, the authors' models explained as much as 53% of the variance in children's learning; exposure to the program was significantly associated with learning. Furthermore, the parsimonious measure of exposure was as effective as a more elaborate child-reported measure. Relative to these two measures of exposure, caretakers' report of children's viewing was not as good a predictor of learning.
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U2 - 10.1080/10810730.2012.743625
DO - 10.1080/10810730.2012.743625
M3 - Article
C2 - 23402271
AN - SCOPUS:84877627743
VL - 18
SP - 594
EP - 609
JO - Journal of Health Communication
JF - Journal of Health Communication
SN - 1081-0730
IS - 5
ER -