You read an article by Coyne et al. (2019) that examined the impact of television on relational aggression in text messaging. Research like Coyne’s helps us understand the implications of watching aggression on television. But how much aggression is actually being depicted on television and does the level of aggression depicted vary from children’s to adult programming? And are the consequences of aggression depicted differently for children and adults? You will collect data that could be used to address these questions in this assignment.
For this assignment you will need to collect some of your own data and give a descriptive report of that
data. Your task is to examine and compare the amount of aggressive behaviour and its consequences
depicted on television shows geared towards children versus adults. You need to use the Observation
Record form to record your raw data. Then you will answer questions (below).
Please be sure to:
1. Submit both your answers to the questions as well as your Observation Record form.
2. Type your answers to the questions. Hand written assignments will not be accepted. The
Observation Record can be filled in by hand or typing.
3. Completely fill in the Observation Record form. It will be graded as well. This includes providing
the relevant information about the shows chosen including their names, the time they aired (or
when you watched/recorded it if it airs multiple times), and the length of the shows.
4. Include your name (first and last) and student number with your answers to the questions. Also
include your name on the Observation Record form.
Data Collection
You need to watch four television shows for approximately 10 minutes each: 2 shows that are
specifically geared towards children, and 2 shows that are specifically geared towards adults.
Consider
recording the shows or choosing shows that are available online. You will find it useful to re-watch
segments for more accurate observations. Using the Observation Record form available on Moodle, keep track of the number of instances of aggressive behaviour and whether the consequence of that instance of aggression was positive (e.g., reward), negative (e.g., punishment), or neutral (i.e., no
consequences). Before watching the cartoons, make sure you determine a clear and comprehensive operational
definition of what you mean by aggressive behaviour to inform your scoring. For example, are you going to include verbal aggression, and what do you mean by these terms? You need to be clear enough in your definition that someone else can use your definition to watch the same shows and derive the same results.
Once you have finished making your observations on the Observation Record Form, you will need to calculate your total number of observations for aggressive behaviours, negative consequences, positive consequences, and no consequences. You will then have to calculate your mean (i.e., average) scores across children’s and adult shows for the number of aggressive behaviours as well as the number of different types of consequences. The mean score is calculated by adding the totals across the two shows for a particular category and then dividing by the number of shows (i.e., 2). Once you have this
information you are ready to complete the questions below. Note: remember, for this assignment you need to submit both your answers to the questions and your Observation Record form.
Questions
1. How did you operationally define aggression? (1 pt.) Be specific. Also, provide two examples –
one from a children’s show and one from an adult show you watched to illustrate. (0.5 pts.
each)
2. Describe in words what you found. Don’t draw any conclusions about what you think your
results mean. Just summarize what the numbers on your Observational Record form show. (1 pt.
for record, 1 pt. for description).
3. Using a database such as PsycINFO or Google Scholar, find a relevant research paper that might
help you interpret your results. Provide a screenshot of the search (1 pt.) and write out the
citation of the paper in APA style (1 pts.). Briefly, what did this paper find and how does that
relate to the question at hand? (2 pts.)
4. Suggest two ways you could improve the data collection, including why they would represent a
significant improvement. (2 pts.)
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