A study of elementary school students found that
children who had television sets in their bedrooms scored
significantly lower on school achievement tests than
children without TVs in their bedrooms. Having a computer
in the home was associated with higher test scores,
according to the same study, which was conducted by
researchers at the Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public
Health and Stanford University. The study is published
in the July 4 edition of the Archives of Pediatric and
Adolescent Medicine.
"In this study, we found that the household media
environment was related to a child's academic achievement,"
said Dina Borzekowski, lead author of the study and
assistant professor in the Bloomberg School's
Department of Population and Family Health Sciences.
"We saw that even when controlling for the parent's
education level, the child's gender and the amount of media
used per week, those who had bedroom TV sets scored around
eight points lower on math and language arts tests and
seven points lower on reading tests. A home computer showed
the opposite relationship — children with access to a
home computer had scores that were around six points higher
on the math and the language arts test and four points
higher on the reading test, controlling for the same
variables."
The study followed a diverse group of third-grade
students from six schools in northern California. During
the course of a school year, nearly 400 students and their
parents were asked to report on the types of media
available in the home, including television, videotapes,
computers and video games, as well as how often the child
used them. The children's math, reading and language arts
skills were tested twice over the year using the Stanford
Achievement Test.
Overall, children who had a television set in the
bedroom but did not have a computer at home scored the
lowest, while students without TV in the bedroom but with
access to a computer at home scored the highest. Students
who gained a television in the bedroom over the course of
the school year scored lower in all areas than those who
had their TV taken away during the same period. The
researchers did not find a consistent negative association
between test scores and the amount of television watched
per week.
"Educators and parents are looking for ways to improve
children's standardized test scores. This study suggests
that something as logical and straightforward as taking TV
sets out of kids' bedrooms, or not putting them there in
the first place, may be a solution," said the co-author of
the study, Thomas N. Robinson, an associate professor of
pediatrics and medicine at Stanford and director of the
Center for Healthy Weight at Lucile Packard Children's
Hospital at Stanford. "While this study does not prove that
bedroom TV sets caused the lower test scores, it adds to
accumulating data that kids shouldn't have TVs in their
bedrooms. It also suggests that investing in a home
computer for a child to use may be an additional strategy
to help your child's test scores. The best combination was
having both: no TV in the bedroom and also a home computer
to use."
The research was supported by grants from the National
Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes
of Health and a Generalist Physician Faculty Scholars Award
from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.