Investigating the Effects of Interactive Features for Preschool Television Programming

We performed three studies to examine the effects of accurate program response times, repeating unanswered questions, and providing feedback on the children’s likelihood of response.

As children begin to watch more television programming on systems that allow for interaction, such as tablets and videogame systems, there are different opportunities to engage them. For example, the traditional pseudo-interactive features that cue young children’s participation in television viewing (e.g., asking a question and pausing for two seconds to allow for an answer) can be restructured to include correct response timing by the program or eventually even feedback. We performed three studies to examine the effects of accurate program response times, repeating unanswered questions, and providing feedback on the children’s likelihood of response. We find that three- to five-year-old children are more likely to verbally engage with programs that wait for their response and repeat unanswered questions. However, providing feedback did not affect response rates for children in this age range.