What Preschoolers Bring to the Show: The Relation Between Viewer Characteristics and Children’s Learning from Educational Television

The capacity model (Fisch, 2000, 2004) is one of the few existing theoretical models developed to explain how children learn from educational television, but it has yet to receive much empirical validation. The model posits that various characteristics of the viewers influence both narrative comprehension and educational content comprehension, two distinct parallel processes. While many studies of media effects and processes control for individual differences, the goal of this study was to investigate several viewer characteristics that are predicted to influence comprehension. Seventy-eight preschool-age children watched a short educational television program and completed assessments of cognitive abilities, interest in the program, prior knowledge related to the program, and comprehension of the program content. Regression analyses revealed general support for Fisch’s predictions that viewer characteristics influence narrative comprehension and educational content comprehension. Results provide an impor...