Clacherty & Associates, Ochre Communication

According to this 16-page paper presentation, formative and content research for any Entertainment Education (EE) intervention is critical to ensuring that the project is on the right track. The authors argue that research allows for refinement and changes and ultimately contributes to an effective, appealing, and relevant end product - a product that meets both the educational and entertainment objectives for the audience it is addressing. The younger the audience being addressed, the more difficult the research process. For very young children (3-7 yrs of age) the task becomes even more complex: Not only is one trying to assess a particular media intervention's success in communicating educational messages, but one is also having to do this in a developmentally challenging context.

This paper illustrates particular participatory research approaches that Clacherty & Associates and Ochre Communication have adopted for very young children, using the introduction and development of the HIV and AIDS curriculum in Takalani Sesame as a specific example. Takalani Sesame is a multi-media edutainment series designed to promote school readiness in young children; it specifically supports the reception year of South Africa's national education curriculum in literacy, numeracy, and lifeskills. Given the significance and impact of HIV and AIDS in the life of all South Africans, including children, this issue was also incorporated into the programme through the inclusion of an HIV-positive muppet, Kami.

According to the authors, throughout the formative research process 2 key principles were paramount:

• the importance of working within a strong ethical framework that
  protects and respects children
• recognising the capacities and thinking styles of children at different
  ages and stages of development.

Activity-based focus groups were run with young children who were HIV-positive and with children who were orphaned or living with ill parents. A number of home visits to affected families were also conducted. The principle of 'least harm' guided the work that was carried out with these children. Practically, the principle of least harm was applied by making sure that all children who participated in the study were part of an ongoing support programme. This is important because - despite the fact that researchers clarify to the best of their ability that they cannot provide direct personal help - it is often the case that certain children may harbour unrealistic expectations of the research interaction.

Another principle that was applied called on researchers to create an environment in which children could choose how much of their story they felt safe to tell. They did not probe the details of a painful event, or ask about a child's feelings. When the child told a painful story, whatever the child offered was accepted, even if not all the details were provided.

The approach of adapting research to children's stages of development was applied consistently in the pre-testing of scripts and live action, studio, and animation inserts. The key aspects of the scripts and inserts that the production team sought input on were comprehension of the narrative; recall of the narrative; achievement of the curriculum goal; entertainment level of the script or insert; and emotional impact of the script or insert - particularly the impact of inserts dealing with difficult issues such as death and illness.

The following strategies were employed to ensure that the research was suited to children aged 3 to 6 years:

• Children participated in small groups divided into two age groups (3-4 and 5-6 year olds) to make managing the groups easier.
• Timing and pace of the groups were carefully considered.
• All discussion was recorded; in addition, children's behaviour was also observed, video-recorded, and noted on observation sheets. This is because, the authors claim, young children express emotion through their bodies and actions rather than by telling or talking.
• At all stages attempts were made to make the activity concrete. Children were given large colour photos of characters who were in the scripts that they were reading and discussing. Instead of asking children, 'what do you remember?' they were asked to draw a picture of what they remembered. The drawings were, according to the authors, a powerful way of testing recall with children, many of whom drew detailed pictures that often included many different ideas. The authors note that it was important to discuss the drawings with the children because on their own they would not always have shown what children were thinking.
• In terms of social development, young children operate individually rather than in a group. Individual interviews were integrated into the group process to cater to this characteristic.
• The principle of triangulation was built into each group interaction with repeat questions being asked throughout. These were used in particular to test children's comprehension of the narrative sequence and recall of content.

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