Research Article

Impact of television watching on academic achievement of adolescents with special reference to their socioeconomic status
 

*Syed Noor-Ul-Amin

Department of Education, University of Kashmir, India.

*Corresponding author. E-mail:showkat80ahmad@gmail.com

showkat80ahmad@gmail.com

 
Received 21 December, 2012; Accepted 16 January, 2013

Abstract

The present study was aimed to examine the impact of television watching on academic achievement of adolescents with special reference to their socioeconomic status. The sample for the study was 240 (120 heavy viewers and 120 low viewers) selected secondary school adolescents of 15 to 17 years of age, which were randomly selected from high and higher secondary schools in District Srinagar (J and K) run by the Government. Blank self constructed TV viewing information was used for the identification of heavy and low TV viewers. Academic achievement has been assessed on the basis of aggregate marks in all the subjects secured by the students in their two consecutive examinations, conducted by the J&K State Board of School Education. The statistics applied on the data comprised percentage, mean, standard deviation (SD) and ‘t’ test were used for analysis of data. Line graph was plotted in order to make the results transparent. It was found that the heavy and low television viewer adolescents differ significantly in their academic achievement. The mean difference favors low television viewer adolescents. It indicates that low TV viewer adolescents exhibit a higher scholastic achievement than the heavy TV viewer group of adolescents. On the other hand, heavy and low television viewer adolescents, on the basis of gender, do not differ significantly with respect to academic achievement.

Key words: Heavy and low TV watching, academic achievement, secondary school students.