Background television as an inhibitor of performance on easy and difficult homework assignments
Abstract
Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of two types of background television programs on students' performance on easy and difficult homework assignments. In both experiments, students in Grade 8 (Experiment 1: N = 90; Experiment 2: N = 144) were matched on reading proficiency. Subsequently, the participants were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions in which they did homework with (a) a Dutch-language soap opera, (b) English-language music videos, or (c) no television in the background. The execution of homework was hindered only when it was combined with watching a soap opera. The distraction effect of the soap opera was expressed either in a performance decrement (Experiment 1) or in an extension of performance time (Experiment 2).
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The other three experimental studies on study time found no relationship between media use while studying and time needed to complete an academic task.
“The other three studies found no relationship (Cool et al., 1994;Pool et al., 2000Pool et al., , 2003b)).”
From The consequences of media multitasking for youth: A review (2015) · cites this paper as Pool et al., 2000
One experimental study found that watching television while working on a math assignment resulted in lower math performance (r = -.27).
“One study found that watching television while working on a math assignment resulted in lower performance, r = À.27 (Pool et al., 2000),”
From The consequences of media multitasking for youth: A review (2015) · cites this paper as Pool et al., 2000
Although task difficulty does not moderate media multitasking effects on academic performance, media multitasking is more disruptive when task-relevance is high and youth do not engage in note-taking.
“Although task difficulty does not moderate media multitasking effects on academic performance, the studies have indicated media multitasking is more disruptive when task-relevance is high and youth do not engage in note-taking.”
From The consequences of media multitasking for youth: A review (2015) · cites this paper as Pool et al., 2000
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 48 · Cited by 76
- Authors
- POOL, M. M., VAN DER VOORT, T. H. A., BEENTJES, J. W. J., & KOOLSTRA, C. M.
- Venue
- Communication Research
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2000-06
- Volume
- 27
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 293-326
- ISSN
- 0093-6502 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-3810
- OpenAlex
- W2166257655
- Cited by
- 76
- References
- 48
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 9 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 1 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 2.67
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Communication Research (publishedVersion)
- Radboud Repository (Radboud University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Visual and Cognitive Learning Processes
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Media Influence and Health
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Personal Information Management and User Behavior
- Keywords
- homework performance, distraction, soap opera, music video, television language, reading proficiency, task completion time, adolescents, media effects on learning
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
