Plaza Séamo in Mexico: An Evaluation

Abstract

New Mexican field study of the impact of Plaza SCsamo on young children brings fresh evidence of gains in learning skills but also some surprises.Since its creation in 1968, Sesame Street has been translated into many languages, but often with little alteration of the visual images in the film itself. Then in Mexico in 1971, a completely new production of Sesame Street, particularly adapted to Latin American culture, was developed. It was called Plaza Sbsamo. Educators, psychologists, psychiatrists, and other specialists cooperated together in planning and conducting evaluative studies of a formative nature to assist the producers of Plaza Sbsamo in developing the program. This series of formative investigations (4) laid the groundwork for embarking upon more extensive experiments to determine the impact of Plaza Sesamo upon learning in young children.The first of these experiments was with preschool children in daycare centers in Mexico City (3). A total of 221 three-, four-, and five-year-old children from three different lower-class daycare centers were equally divided by age and sex and were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Children in the experimental groups watched Plaza Sbsamo programs for 50-minute periods, five days a week, until the entire series of 130 programs had been broadcast-a total of six months of continuous viewing. A t the same time, children in the control group were viewing cartoons and other non-educational TV programs on a different broadcast channel in a separate room. The television sets Rogelio Diaz-Guerrero is the Director and Isabel Reyes-Lagunes and Donald B. Witzke are the

Early Childhood Education by Television: Lessons fromSesame Street

“…In terms of short-term effects, Bogatz and Ball (1971) provides a major contribution to this literature, finding substantial improvements in academic achievement within the context of an experimental setting. Díaz-Guerrero et al (1976) finds similar results regarding the introduction of Sesame Street in Mexico. Paulson (1974) also uses random assignment, finding that the show improved social outcomes like cooperation.…”

Metaevaluation Research

“…Examining the U.S. studies led Cook and Conner (1976) to conclude that the larger and more generalized gains were obtained in studies or analyses that confounded effects of viewing &dquo;Sesame Street&dquo; with effects of viewing the show in a context where paid professionals encouraged viewing. This same tentative conclusion was also reached by Diaz-Guerrero et al (1976) when they tried to explain the discrepancy between the optimistic results of their first, small-scale evaluation and the more pessimistic results of their second, large-scale study.…”

“…The studies quickly sort themselves into two camps: those reporting large and generalized cognitive gains over six months in the United States (Ball and Bogatz, 1970;Bogatz and Ball, 1971), in Mexico (Diaz-Guerrero and Holtzman, 1974), and in Israel (Salomon, 1974) versus those reporting considerably smaller gains of restricted generality in the United States Kenny, 1975;Minton, 1973Minton, , 1975 and in Mexico (Diaz-Guerrero et al, 1976). Examining the U.S. studies led Cook and Conner (1976) to conclude that the larger and more generalized gains were obtained in studies or analyses that confounded effects of viewing &dquo;Sesame Street&dquo; with effects of viewing the show in a context where paid professionals encouraged viewing.…”

Untitled

“…The RAND Health Insurance Experiment analysed behavioural responses to a variety of different health care plans (Newhouse et al, 1981). And a randomised trial in Mexico tested whether watching Sesame Street on a daily basis improved educational outcomes (Diaz-Guerrero et al, 1976). Boruch, De Moya and Snyder (2002), who analyse randomised trials across a number of spheres of social policy, including criminology, education, and welfare, concluded that the rapid growth in randomised experiments during the 1960s and 1970s may have been followed by a slight decline during the 1980s.…”