Children’s & Youth Media

Selected Projects Include

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  Photo courtesy of Lucélia Ribeiro via CC licensing.

  PBS Ready to Learn

  For nearly two decades, REA has conducted formative evaluations on behalf of PBS Kids and their partners as part of the US Department of Education “Ready to Learn” grant program. Through the years, our evaluation efforts have included youth and family playtesting for digital games at various stages during the design process, formative testing of stories for broadcast programming, and extended play studies that examine the impacts of longer-term product-usage, including gameplay and video programming.
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  Dinosaur Train Evaluation

  Rockman et al conducted a series of evaluative studies for Dinosaur Train, an animated series geared towards a pre-school aged audience, produced by the Jim Henson Company for PBS Kids. The evaluation included an online survey, focus group sessions with parents and children, data collection from families at the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum, and in-home observations and interviews with families children viewing Dinosaur Train episodes in Bloomington, IN.
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  Photo courtesy of Amanda Golden via CC licensing.

  Elmo Loves ABCs and Elmo Loves 123s

  Rockman et al worked with the Sesame Workshop to develop and administer a basic literacy and mathematics assessment for preschool-aged students in order to test outcomes of using either Elmo Loves ABC’s or Elmo Loves 123’s for a month-long period as part of the normal school-day experience. To facilitate this project, the Rockman team managed a set of 10 iPad devices (with unique copies of apps for each of 90 students in the study) and a team of 8 researchers.
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  Photo courtesy of Julia Li.

  Peg + Cat: Adventures in Learning

  Peg + Cat is a math-based PBS television program for preschoolers, supplemented by online games, digital storybooks, and apps. We conducted formative and summative evaluation of Peg + Cat interactive media and themed science camp activities, developed by Fred Rogers Productions (formerly The Fred Rogers Company) and Carnegie Science Center as part of an NSF-funded AISL project. We examined pre-schoolers’, families’, and educators’ experiences using project resources, as well as pre-schoolers’ social-emotional and learning outcomes via observations, focus groups, interviews, and a quasi-experimental design that incorporated pre-post surveys and content assessments.
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  Photo courtesy of Juan Cristóbal Cobo via CC licensing.

  PBS Kids: Raising Readers

  REA conducted a study of PBS Kids Island with twenty-one English-speaking children ages 3-8 to learn about site usage patterns over an extended period of time, whether children found the content to be age-appropriate, fun, and accessible, and the overall appeal of the site to children. REA conducted usability testing for the PBS Kids Raising Readers website, including versions in Spanish and English. Working with PBS contacts, Hispanic community organizations, and public libraries in three US sites, we conducted more than 69 user testing sessions with parents, teachers and caregivers of children ages 2-8, focusing on children from low-income families and including bilingual teachers and caregivers of Spanish-speaking children.
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  Photo courtesy of CERDEC Math and Science Summer Camp via CC licensing.

  Odd Squad Summer Camp

  Rockman et al worked with PBS KIDS to evaluate a pilot of the Odd Squad Camp program, including observations at two summer camps, youth and parent surveys, and interviews with participants, program facilitators, and participants’ parents.
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  Photo courtesy of joaquin uy via CC licensing.

  YR Media

  Since 2006, REA has served as the independent evaluator on YR Media’s education initiatives to engage under-represented youth in informal STEM learning through interest-driven inquiry that combines journalism, design, data, and code. Building on YR Media and MIT App Inventor’s longstanding collaboration to democratize youth media production, the Innovative Approaches to Informal Education in Artificial Intelligence project, funded by NSF-AISL, aims to improve public understanding of artificial intelligence (AI) among young creators and their audiences through youth-led journalism about AI, digital media powered by AI, and open educational resources about how AI works and its role in society. REA conducted the project’s independent evaluation, which included project team interviews, participant observations, focus groups with youth producers, online youth surveys, and audience testing to capture outcomes and lessons learned about effectively engaging youth in learning about AI.

  Report: Youth Radio Innovation Lab Final Evaluation Report
• Game-Enhanced Interactive Physical Science (GIPS)

  Through funding from the NSF’s SBIR program, Filament Games developed a suite of online educational games and curricular activities for middle school classrooms that target core scientific concepts, such as engineering, plant genetics, and planetary characteristics. Rockman et al evaluated the “promise of efficacy” from each game via pre-post surveys, classroom observations, and embedded assessments, comparing content learning and engagement between students who played the game and engaged with the curricular activities, only played the game, or received traditional instruction. Differences in outcomes based on students’ interest in and aptitude for reading were also explored to ensure that the games were inclusive of a range of student abilities.
• Evaluation of Oceana: An Online Civics and Democracy Game

  Rockman et al worked with the Indiana University Center on Congress to evaluate Oceana, an online game designed to introduce middle school students to concepts related to civic engagement. The evaluation effort included a week of beta-testing with 80 6th-8th grade students at a charter school in Bloomington, Indiana.
• PBS Kids iPod App Study

  Rockman et al was commissioned by PBS Kids to assess learning outcomes and usage patterns among 3-7 year-olds exposed to two iPod Apps. Ninety iPod Touch devices were given to children from two Title I Schools in Washington D.C. and Bloomington, Indiana. The children were asked to use two apps: Super Why and Martha Speaks: Dog Party for a two-week period during the spring of 2010. Parents were asked to submit daily observation forms and complete short pre- and post-study surveys. Children were given pre- and post-study tests to assess their reading skills and specific content areas covered in the apps. Findings from this study were featured as part of the report by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop’s report entitled: “Learning: Is there an app for that?”

  Report: Findings From Ready To Learn 2005-2010
• Cyberchase

  REA conducted a pilot evaluation of five programs in WNET’s Cyberchase series to assess the broad educational value, impact, and appeal of the series. The study included more than 450 children (ages eight to eleven), and 20 teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area, encompassing the diversity of the region.

  Report: Rockman_2001_SummEval_CybPhase1PilotStudy-Vol1
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  Photograph courtesy of Mark Schierbecker via CC licensing.

  National Study of Bill Nye the Science Guy

  Bill Nye the Science Guy is a high energy, inquiry-based educational television program presenting science content directed at fourth grade students. REA’s study investigated learning outcomes among school-age viewers and assessed the impacts of various outreach efforts for youth and adult viewers. Our findings suggest that program viewers were able to provide more complete and more complex explanations of science concepts and were able to learn facts presented in the program to support explanations of science concepts. Findings also suggest that the program was successful in helping to reduce gaps in science knowledge, understanding and aptitude between boys and girls, and for students traditionally underrepresented in the sciences.
• Common Sense Media

  Rockman et al conducted an evaluation to help Common Sense Media (CSM) review existing instruments and evaluation methodologies in the Parent Media Education program and to measure the outcomes of CSM’s educational programs in terms of parent and teacher satisfaction and implementation.