Perspectives of Pre-School Teachers on Television Viewing in Determining Behavioral Tendencies among Preschoolers in Kenya

Abstract

The present study determinedperspectives of pre-school teachers on television viewing in determining behavioral tendencies among preschoolers in Kenya. The study was guided by Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory. The target population of the study comprised of one head teacher, three ECDE teachers. Saturated sampling technique was used to sample 3 pre-school teachers.15 preschoolers were sampled using Purposive sampling technique after putting them into three stratus of those from rural, urban and more urban areas, which comprised of 20, 20 and 10 preschoolers from each stratum respectively. The researcher used interview schedules, observation schedules and focus group discussion guides as the study instruments. Validity of the instruments was ensured by seeking expert judgments of the supervisors and trustworthiness of qualitative data was also ensured. Thematic analysis was employed to analyze the data. The study findings revealed that there was increased physical aggression among children. Though; some children were also empathetic and loving. The finding also established an increased engagement in indoor and outdoor activities by the children. The results further showed an increased language development among children. Moreover, there was also enhanced mutual relationship realized among the learners. The study recommended that; pre-school teachers should encourage parents to engage their children in watching educational TV programs while at home, this was because the study findings revealed that children who watched television had well developed language and also performed well academically. Parents should limit TV viewing time per day and totally banning programs that are too violent or offensive by checking the television listings and programs ahead of time to ensure age appropriate programs, this was because the study findings revealed that children had long hours of TV watching.