Psychology Charlton et al (2000)

Charlton et al (2000)

Introduction - The study was conducted on The Island of St Helena, an isolate place 2000km from Africa with around 5000 inhabitants. Before 1995, the island had no access to television. The study was a cross-sectional natural experiment, as it had an IV and a DV, and looked at two different periods of time and compared them.

Aim - To investigate the effect of the introduction of satellite TV on the aggressive behaviour of children.

Procedure - The study was conducted using 3-8 year olds who had not seen any TV. The sample was children from 2 schools, with an average of 160 pupils on roll in total. Aggressive behaviour had already been analysed in 1994 before TV had been introduced. To do this 256 minutes of footage had been filmed, showing the children during their free play time in the school playground. Behaviour was assessed again in 2000 after TV had become available, this time the footage recorded totalled 344 minutes. A schedule of 26 different playground behaviours was used, including kicking, pushing and hitting, in addition to pro social behaviours such as affection and sharing. Also the researchers used questionnaires and parent/teacher…