Impact Data - Takalani Sesame Season II Programme
The Takalani Sesame Project, an initiative of the Sesame Workshop, with funding from USAID and Sanlam, is a multimedia and multi-lingual educational programme that includes a television series, a series of radio programmes, and an outreach programme that features a print component. In February 2004, the South African Broadcast Corporation (SABC) contracted with external agencies to evaluate the impact of Takalani Sesame Season II programme material on 3- to 6-year-old children who were not in structured preschool programmes.
Participants consisted of 175 children, 89 parents, and 20 caregivers (i.e., a Department of Education's Early Childhood Development (ECD) practitioner/teacher). The children lived in a South African rural setting and had no prior exposure to Takalani Sesame. Children in the experimental group received one of four interventions: (a) viewed 16 TV episodes without caregiver mediation; (b) viewed 16 TV episodes with caregiver mediation; (c) listened to 16 radio episodes without caregiver mediation, or (d) listened to 16 radio episodes with caregiver mediation. Mediation by caregivers involved supplementing the learning outcomes targeted during an episode with prescribed activities. Each caregiver was trained and provided with mediation materials. Children in a “control” group were not exposed to Takalani Sesame.
- interviews with parents and caregivers
- observations of learners and caregivers before, during and after the screening of the Takalani Sesame episodes
- learner performance pre- and post-tests measuring literacy, numeracy, and life skills, as well as HIV and AIDS knowledge.
Researchers found that the experimental group's knowledge scores increased significantly between the pre- and post-test, compared to the control group (whose scores were lower on the post-test). Significant learning gains were made in literacy, numeracy, and life skills, regardless of age (see Table 1). Compared with the control group, the experimental groups did better in literacy and life skills; the relatively small gain in numeracy skills was due to the fact that children who were exposed to radio episodes did not show enhanced numeracy skills. Researchers did not find this surprising, given that children were exposed to relatively little numeracy content in the radio programmes.
Table 1. Gains in Numeracy, Literacy, and Life Skills
| Experimental Group | Control Group |
| Learning Area | Age 3 | Age 4 | Age 5 | Age 6 | Total | Total |
| Numeracy | +33% | +13% | +18% | +8% | +22% | +27% |
| Literacy | +18% | +21% | +19% | +20% | +21% | +11% |
| Life Skills | +25% | +27% | +20% | +67% | +26% | +10% |
The effectiveness of mediation varied depending on the medium and learning area: With television, mediation was most effective for numeracy; with radio, mediation helped in the areas of literacy and life skills.
Caregivers who were part of the mediation groups showed shifts from a 'show and tell' teaching methodology to more creative, experiential and interactive teaching methodologies. Most caregivers began to use positive reinforcement and were more creative in using materials as teaching aids.
HIV and AIDS Knowledge and Skills
At pre-test, the experimental group scored considerably lower than the control group on the areas of HIV and AIDS knowledge tested: basic knowledge, blood safety, discrimination, and coping with illness. However, by the post-test, the experimental group showed greater gains on all outcomes: a gain of 28% in the overall score, compared with an increase of 4% for the control group.
Children were asked to identify how to treat a person with HIV and AIDS, with the alternatives "play with them", "laugh at them" or "run away from them". Within the experimental groups, average scores on these outcomes increased by 29%; in the control groups, the increase was only 5%.
Self-Esteem
Although the concept of self-esteem is not typical of the rural communities where the study took place (where inter-dependence is stressed over individualism), there was a significant increase in the percentage of children in the experimental groups who were able to answer the questions, "What makes you special?" (an increase of 43.6%, compared to 10.1% for the control group) and "What makes you different from someone else?" (an increase of 12.7%, compared to a decline of 21.1% for the control group).
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