Participation Process

If you are interested in participating in this project, print out this page and become familiar with the procedures required for accurate data collection and analysis.

Purpose:

Taming the Tube is an Internet research activity which allows students to measure a behaviour in which they have all participated, TV-WATCHING. Students will be given an opportunity to study the effects of mass media -- especially TV -- on kids. As part of this study 10-to-12 year olds from registered classes across the world are monitoring their weekly TV-watching habits, recording their favourite TV programs and filling out the student-devised questionnaire, TV Watchers Anonymous. These are the questions they are hoping to answer.

  • How much TV is watched per week by 10-to-12 year olds?
  • Who watches more TV, the girls or the boys?
  • Are there any geographical differences?
  • Where will more TV be watched: in the cities, suburban or rural areas?
  • What are the favourite TV shows of this age group?
  • How does TV influence the attitudes and lifestyles of 10-to-12 year olds?

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Learning Outcomes

Students will learn:

  • to collect data
  • to organize information
  • to make predictions and formulate hypotheses as well as to analyze their data by determining the mean, mode, median, and range
  • to locate their research team schools on maps
  • to use telecommunications:terminal software commands, uploading and downloading, e-mail, WWW
  • to use databases and spreadsheets

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GRADE LEVELS:
      4, 5, 6, 7 (ages 10-12)

SUBJECTS:
      Mathematics, Research Skills, Science, Geography, Media Literacy,
      Language Arts, Computer Literacy

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TAMING THE TUBE REGISTRATION AGREEMENT:

In order to participate you must agree to do the following:

  1. register by completing the information requested below including the latitude and longitude
  2. keep to the timeline in sending Hello letter and raw data (other classes are counting on you)
  3. upload the raw data in requested form
  4. participate actively in the Tametube list

NB: When you register you will be added to Tametube list. Further files will be sent to you to help with the HELLO letter and DATA collection.

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HOW TO REGISTER:
      Send a separate registration for each class participating. Make sure you fill in all the fields in the form.

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TIMELINES:
      Actual dates will vary from year to year. Data collecting can be completed by participating schools in a 1 week period. Comparisons of data with schools world-wide will take place at a later date when all scores are compiled, analyzed by the Tube Tamers and tbe coordinator.

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PROJECT OUTLINE AND PROCEDURES:

  1. Upon registration participating classes are added to Tametube listserver.
  2. Participant list sent to all schools for locating research team members using latitude and longitude.
  3. Each class composes a Hello letter to be sent to all participants. Format will be sent after registration is confirmed.
  4. Participating classes prepare a log book for keeping track of individual TV-watching times for the chosen 7-day cycle. Each student predicts how much time he/she spends watching TV in a week.
  5. Students can also record the actual programs they watch in a typical week and tally up their tv-watching times as outlined below.
  6. TV watching does NOT include video games nor rented movies. Movie specials or TV programs that have been taped directly and watched later are included for this survey.


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DATA COLLECTION PROCESS

Four categories of data are collected in Taming the Tube

  • total TV watched per week per student according to gender (THE RAW SCORE)
  • statistical data (range, mean, mode, median) for classes and by gender
  • favourite TV shows by gender
  • TV Watchers Anonymous Survey by gender

HOW TO COLLECT DATA
  1. Each student keeps a log of TV watched during the agreed 7-day cycle.

    • The TOTAL TIME WATCHED A WEEK is recorded by each child by adding up daily times watched over the 7-day cycle ROUNDED TO THE NEAREST 5 MINUTES each day.
    • At the end of the week the minutes for the whole week FOR EACH STUDENT are totalled ( this is THE RAW SCORE) and recorded for sending to Coordinator (not to the list).

  2. At the end of the monitored week, the teacher and students summarize the results for the ENTIRE CLASS by noting the

    • RANGE (from the lowest to the highest of total times watched)

    and by calculating 3 different types of ``average"

    • MEAN: add up all the children's total times watched divided by the number of children

    • MEDIAN: list the data of total times watched by the children in ascending or descending order and select the value that falls in the middle (for even numbers take 2 middle values and average them)

    • MODE: from the same list of data select the total time watched (to the nearest 5 minutes) that occurs most frequently

    (This is an excellent time to use databases and spreadsheets for keeping track of results and for doing statistical analysis, graphing).

  3. Calculate the RANGE, MEAN, MEDIAN, and MODE for the girls.
  4. Calculate the RANGE, MEAN, MEDIAN, and MODE for the boys.
  5. List the favourite TV programs for girls and boys separately, indicating # of times chosen.
  6. Students fill out TV WATCHERS ANONYMOUS SURVEY. This survey has been devised by the Grade 6 students. The survey looks at student attitudes towards violence on TV, role models, influence of TV on clothing, etc. This is OPTIONAL, but highly requested.

  7. All NUMERICAL, ANONYMOUS SURVEY, and FAVOURITE TV PROGRAMS data are forwarded to the coordinator, dalia@sympatico.ca, for analysis and compilation of global results.

  8. Format for sending collected DATA will be sent to participants when project begins. A form will be also posted on the website.
  9. DATA of individual classes and global results of survey to be shared with all participants online and on the website. The hypotheses are tested out with real data.
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PROJECT COORDINATOR:
Dalia Naujokaitis
St. Elizabeth School
893 Admiral Avenue
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1Z 6L6
Telephone: (613) 728-4744
E-mail: dalia@sympatico.ca

Copyright © 1994-98 Dalia Naujokaitis. Reproduction is prohibited without permission.

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