Question

Design an experiment to test whether watching tv influences kids ability to follow directions/regulate their emotions. Be sure to specify your experimental hypothesis and identify your dependent and independent variables, as well as your experimental and control conditions. Please also operationally define your variables. Identify any experimental procedures that would help to ensure the reliability of your research.

Answer 1

Objective: To test the outcome of watching TV on kids ability to follow directions/regulate their emotions.

Design: We regressed children from age group below 3 years, between 3-5 years and between 6-7 and 7-10.

Hypothesis: Children below 3 years should strictly be barred from watching TV irrespective of number of hours or the variety of programs. It decreases their cognitive development and their ability to follow directions/regulate thier emotions. Children above three years should be allowed to watch TV for only children entertainment programs like cartoon or science and educational programs like National Geographic etc. They should strictly be barred from watching programs designed for mature audiences as it decreases their cognitive develoment, induces poor sleep patterns,increases anxiety/depression,decreased learnning, repressed emotions and poor ability to follow directions or regulate their emotions.

The experimental was to ascertain cognitive development in children as well a their ability to follo or regulate their emotions. The dependent varaibles were the number of hours chilldren watched TV viz 1-2 hours, 2-3 hours and above 3 hours. The independent variables were the different kinds of TV programs viz cartoons, educational and science and finally programs to be viewed by mature audiences like all sorts of TV serials, crime reporting etc.

Some operationally defining the control conditions and variables.

The control conditions were that childeren where supposed to watch TV with parental supervision and completely obey parents decisions as to when to stop and what to watch. The variables were:

Dependent Variables - Number of hours viz 1-2, 2-3 and above 3 hours of watching TV.

Independent Variables - The different varieties of programs viz educational, kids entertainment like cartoons and finally adult programs.

Results: After 3 months of research, we found that children below 3 years showed decrease cognitive development and poor ability to follow directions and regulate their emotions if they watched TV even for short periods. They also had poor sleep quality,poor emotional quotient, poor eating habits, repressed emotions, poor motor skills, depression and anxiety and poor learning skills.Children in the rest of the age groups showed creative learning,motivation and an increased ability to follow directions/regulate their emotions if they watched child etertainment programs like cartoons or educational programs.However children of all age groups showed poor cognitive development, poor sleep patterns, anxiety and depressions, poor learning and poor ability to follow directions and regulate their emotions if they watched programs designed for mature audiences. The number of hours showed no significant changes in child behavior other than putting a strain on their eyes.