This article is based on the author’s BS Development Communication thesis.
Suggested citation:
Codilla, Ma. Melanie. (2012). Perceived credibility and effectiveness of Matanglawin and Aha ETV programs and their influence on attitude towards science of selected fourth year high school students in Ormoc City.Unpublished BS Development Communication thesis, Visayas State University, Baybay, Leyte, Philippines.
__________________________________________________________
by
Ma. Melanie B. Codilla
BS Development Communication 2012
Visayas State University
Visca, Baybay, Leyte, Philippines
Media is best considered as a vehicle of science information. It provides links between people and information by exposing people to the huge world of science subjects from animals to health and to technology. It plays the biggest role in society through transmitting knowledge which will make it indispensable. It is a persistent disseminator of science education (Rockman et al, 2007). In fact, media education is not only about learning the right answers; but it is about consuming media with an active, critical mind and asking the right questions.
ETV or educational television program is considered as a major teaching media that tries to encourage viewers to participate. According to Schramm (1960), ETV is useful in keeping a certain teaching standard, helps improve the quality of instructions in schools for it can provide the best teaching demonstration and allows the student the freedom to take part, involve and work.
In the Philippines, two of the edutainment or educational and entertainment programs that provide a variety of science-related stories are Matanglawin of ABS-CBN and AHA of GMA. In essence, the program is promoting science awareness by sharing science stories to the public. According to Gemino (2010), the purpose of this science related program is to enhance learning of the students on a certain subject area. It stimulates the interests of the viewers in the subject because aside from its informative way of broadcasting the topic, the viewers will also enjoy because it contains animations and the delivery of its message is entertaining.
The results of the study are deemed useful to science teachers as it explored the potential of television as a tool for learning. Credible television programs can serve as stimulus material, scaffolds, if not a stand-alone learning tool teachers may use in their classrooms. Likewise, producers of educational television programs may benefit from results of this study to improve their programming style, format and delivery to their intended audiences. Finally, results of this study would add to the body of knowledge in educational communication technology.
Objectives
The study generally aimed to determine how high school students perceived the credibility and effectiveness of the educational TV shows Matanglawin and AHA. The study also determined how these programs influence students’ attitude in science. This study specifically aimed to:
- Determine the respondents’ perceptions of credibility and effectiveness of Matanglawin and AHA.
- Find out the influence of the educational TV programs on students’ attitude towards science.
- Determine the relationship between respondents’ perceptions of credibility and effectiveness of these ETV programs Matanglawin and AHA and their attitude towards science.
Theoretical Framework
Source Credibility Theory
This study was based on Source Credibility Theory by Hovland, Janis and Kelly (1953). The source credibility theory states that when the source presents itself as credible, the people are more likely to be persuaded. This theory emphasizes that the acceptance of the message depends on ‘expertise’, ‘trustworthiness’, and “dynamism” of the source. It is also an approach that permits individuals to look and observe things from their own perspective, thus it is considerably accepted as dependent (Hovland, Janis, and Kelly, 1953). They also added that within mass communication, the concept is originally studied as audience’s behavior towards mass media sources of information. According to Bracken (2006) source credibility is the amount or quantity of believability attributed to a basis of information by the receivers or recipients. As cited by Bracken (2006), the theory was conceptualized by Gunther (1992) who proposed that credibility is an audience response and feedback and not an element of the message source. According to him, involvement or participation is a good interpreter of perceived credibility. In fact, the greatest explanatory power is showed by a person’s involvement or connection in situations, issues, or groups.
Conceptual Framework
With the use of the Source Credibility Theory by Hovland, Janis and Kelly (1953) as basis, this study sought to find out whether Matanglawin and AHA and their hosts are credible. In this study, it was hypothesized that respondents’ perceptions of credibility and effectiveness of Matanglawin and AHA had influence on their attitude towards science. Credibility was assessed through respondents’ perceptions of the trustworthiness, expertise and dynamism of the two programs. Effectiveness was measured through respondents’ perceptions of comprehensibility, acceptability, self-involvement and persuasiveness of the programs.
The intervening variables were the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents.
Methodology
This study was conducted in two national high schools in Ormoc City Leyte: Valencia National High School at Brgy. Valencia and Genaro B. Lureñana Memorial National High School at Brgy. San Jose.
Research design
This study followed the one-shot survey design to investigate fourth year high school students’ perceptions of credibility and effectiveness of two educational TV programs and their attitudes towards science. A focus group discussion (FGD) was also conducted to obtain an in-depth explanation of the results from the survey.
Respondents and sampling procedure
The survey involved 100 randomly selected fourth year high school students coming from the two schools selected for the study. Fifty respondents were chosen from each school. All respondents of the two schools were exposed to both ETV programs AHA and Matanglawin. The first ETV program to be viewed was Matanglawin and AHA followed immediately. Both ETV programs were viewed for thirty minutes.
In choosing the respondents, a complete list of students was obtained from the principals of the two schools. Their names were written on pieces of paper and put in a box for random selection. These respondents, however, needed to be viewers of Matanglawin and AHA. So, once they were drawn and they had signified that they had not viewed those ETV programs they were immediately discarded from the list of respondents for the study and another set of students were drawn from the complete list of students to replace them.
Focus Group Discussion
Focus group discussion (FGD) was also conducted with ten respondents from each school right after the survey. The FGD was intended to complement the information gained from the survey. The FGD was composed of three parts. Part 1 asked about their viewership of educational television programs. Part 2 focused on the perceived credibility and effectiveness of ETV program and part 3 inquired about their attitude towards science. FGD began right after the arranged exposure of the two educational TV programs.
Stimulus material
Since this study was a survey on respondents’ perceptions of credibility and effectiveness of the two educational television programs, one sample episode of Matanglawin and AHA ETV programs broadcast on the same date were recorded to serve as stimulus materials for the survey. The two viewing groups were asked to view the sample episodes through a laptop attached to an LCD projector. The purpose for exposing the respondents to the stimulus materials was to aid them in answering Part II of the questionnaire that was handed out to them.
The recorded Matanglawin and AHA ETV programs were both aired on August 14, 2011. The topics broadcast in Matanglawin were adaptation and extinction of animals. On the other hand, the topics broadcast in AHA were labor stages that occurred during pregnancy.
Moreover, FGDs were conducted in two schools. Participants in the FGD were those not covered in the survey.
Pretesting the questionnaire
To ensure that the instrument obtained the desired responses, pretesting was done. The questionnaire was pretested on ten high school students of Valencia National High School who had the same characteristics as the study respondents. These students were not included as survey respondents. The results of the pretest were used to check if there was clarity, accuracy, comprehensibility and reliability of the research instrument.
Data Analysis
The data were encoded and analyzed in Microsoft excel and Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Descriptive statistics such as percentages, means and standard deviations were used to describe the respondents’ perceptions of credibility and effectiveness of the ETV programs as well as their socio-demographic characteristics.
To find out the relationships among socio-demographic characteristics, their perceptions of the credibility and effectiveness of the programs and their attitude towards science, Spearman’s rank correlation and chi-square test were used.
Cronbach’s alpha was computed to assess the reliability of the items of the perceptions of effectiveness, perceptions of credibility and attitude towards science scales. This was to measure the internal consistency or robustness of the items in the scales (Santos & Pope, 1998). Allen and Yen (2002) noted that a reliability coefficient of 0.70 or more is considered acceptable.
Results
Results revealed that both ETV programs were perceived as credible by the respondents. However, a comparison of assessments showed that Matanglawin was perceived as more credible and showed significant relationship to respondents’ attitude towards science than AHA. The two programs were also perceived by the respondents as effective.
Among the socio-demographic variables, sex was not found to be significantly associated with respondents’ perceptions of credibility and effectiveness of the ETV programs as well as to their attitude towards science. On the other hand, respondents’ science grade and perceptions of effectiveness of the ETV programs and attitudes towards science were found to be significantly related.
Perceived credibility of the two ETV programs
In terms of respondents’ perception of the credibility of the two educational ETV programs, the results indicate that both Matanglawin and AHA were credible. However, a comparison of assessment shows that Matanglawin (M= 6.64; SD= 0.40) was more credible than AHA (M= 5.60; SD= 1.23).
Perceived effectiveness of the two ETV programs
As for respondents’ perception of effectiveness of the two educational programs, the results showed that both ETV programs Matanglawin and AHA were effective. Nevertheless, a comparison of results showed that Matanglawin (M= 4.30; SD= 0.51) was more effective than AHA (M= 3.85; SD= 0.59).
Attitude towards science
Respondents’ scores in attitude towards science ranged from 58-290. Almost all of the respondents (97%) have a positive attitude towards science while few of the respondents (3%) have a negative attitude towards science.
Relationship among variables
The Pearson product moment correlation revealed that respondents’ perceptions of the credibility of Matanglawin had a significant association to their attitude towards science while their perceptions of the credibility of AHA had none.
As for the associations between respondents’ perceived effectiveness of the two ETV programs and their attitude towards science, results show that respondents’ perceptions of the effectiveness of Matanglawin was significantly associated with their attitude towards science and a non-significant relationship was found between respondents’ perceptions of the effectiveness of AHA and their attitude towards science.
The chi square test showed that sex was not significantly related to any of the dependent variables. However, the Spearman’s rank correlation revealed that science grade was associated to respondents’ perceptions of the effectiveness of the two ETV programs and their attitude towards science.
Focus group discussion
A focus group discussion (FGD) was done and participated by 10 4th year high school students in each school. These students were coming from different sections under 4th year level. As a whole, results of the FGD complement the results of the survey that all of the students who were watching science related ETV programs like Matanglawin and AHA showed a positive attitude towards science. Moreover, majority of the students claimed Matanglawin as more effective and credible ETV program than AHA.
Implications
Based on the results of the study, there is a big indication that high school students have developed a positive attitude towards science when exposed to the ETV programs. This is consistent with the findings of Barnett et al. (2006) that the interest of the public in science increased when they are exposed to science on television.
Both survey and focus group discussion results implied that the ETV programs Matanglawin and Aha were both adjudged as effective by high school students in disseminating science-related information because of its edutainment way of presenting the program. This finds support in the study by Dhingra (2003) that the education and entertainment ability of ETV programs are the primary factors that influence students’ understanding and perception of a particular science topic.
The credibility of Matanglawin was significantly higher than AHA ETV program based on the statistical analysis results. The findings of the study corroborate with Wilson’s study (1983) that young audiences perceive a communication material as credible when the particular information is related to the topic, new, interesting, convenient, readable language and whether or not it is recent.FGD participants of this study emphasized that they liked the program handler of Matanglawin because he is smart.
Overall, results of this study indicate that ETV programs can be used to support classroom instruction. While it cannot replace teachers in the classroom, results of this study imply that educational television programs can be one strategy useful for teachers to entice learners to the subject matter. Students are encouraged to learn more about a particular subject when teachers find other attractive ways to transfer knowledge not just the traditional lecture-discussion mode of teaching.
Educational communication developers may find the results of this study valuable input to their practice. For one, the materials that they develop should maintain the balance between educational and entertainment value. Findings of this study show that respondents favored Matanglawin over AHA because they find the program handler credible at delivering technical concepts in science and excellent at his craft without compromising has ability to entertain his audience. Respondents stressed that too much animation and jokes in the program (characterized of AHA) may render it unrealistic and unbelievable.
Suggestions for further research
This study only explored on the influence of two science-related ETV programs broadcast in two national television networks on students’ attitude toward science. A similar study may be conducted to test credibility and effectiveness of other educational television programs and their effects in encouraging students’ learning in other fields such as math, history and English subjects.
Also, it is suggested that in future research an information exposure variable on the subject matter in question be added. While this study was able to connect the relationship between credibility and effectiveness of a program and its positive influence on students’ interest to learn more about science, other factors which may have contributed to that effect have not been considered. Knowing respondents’ information exposure on a particular subject matter will shed light on where else do they get information that led to their interest in learning about it.
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