Theory to practice in the production and evaluation of educational media: Introduction to the special section

All too often, media promoted as educational are produced with little or no grounding in educational theory, practice, or research. For example, of more than 80,000 apps labeled “educational” in the App Store, a content analysis of 2,400 literacy apps found that fewer than one-third (29%) were presented as based on any sort of established curriculum, and only 2% mentioned that research was conducted to evaluate children’s learning from the app (Vaala et al., 2015).

By contrast, other educational media are built upon a substantive foundation of theory and research. Perhaps the most prominent example is Sesame Street, which, since its inception, has been created through the “Sesame Workshop Model,” an interdisciplinary model in which producers, educators, and researchers work hand-in-hand throughout production (see Truglio & Seibert Nast, this issue). Yet, even when educational media are created with a firm grounding in theory and practice, that process is largely invisible outside the confines of the production team itself, limiting the potential for successful collaborations to serve as instructive models for other producers or interested researchers.

The papers in this special section are intended to provide insight into ways in which theory and practice can be integrated in the creation and evaluation of an educational television series. We take as our example Sesame Street’s curriculum focus on “playful problem solving” in Seasons 51 and 52. Drawing on the theoretical orientation of Playful Learning established by Hirsh-Pasek and her colleagues (e.g., Golinkoff & Hirsh-Pasek, 2016; Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2009), these two seasons of Sesame Street embedded Playful Learning approaches in the context of engineering-based problem solving to foster children’s curiosity, critical thinking skills, and perseverance. The following papers trace the development of this curriculum from its theoretical underpinnings through its implementation in the series and subsequent impact on its target audience.

Specifically, the first paper (by Fletcher, Pesch, Wright, Abdurokhmonova, & Hirsh-Pasek) provides a theoretical foundation for Playful Learning as a pedagogical approach, discussing how it can support both what and how children learn. Building upon that foundation, Truglio and Seibert Nast detail the development, refinement, and implementation of Sesame Street’s playful problem solving curriculum, including formative research data that informed the production of Seasons 51 and 52, in the second article in this special section.

We then turn to the summative research that evaluated the completed programs’ effectiveness in promoting impact among preschool children. The third article (by Fisch, Fletcher, et al.) presents an empirical, pretest/posttest, experimental/control study whose data document children’s learning from playful problem-solving episodes of Sesame Street and its impact on children’s own process skills. The fourth paper (by Fisch, Hirsh-Pasek, et al.), is methodological, delving more deeply into the methods employed in the empirical study. We explore the sizable challenges of not only assessing process skills for critical thinking and problem solving among very young children, but also (because of the constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic) conducting detailed observations and analysis of preschoolers’ problem-solving behavior remotely, through a computer screen. The techniques we developed to yield rich, codable, reliable data have value for researchers that will extend beyond the pandemic, demonstrating the potential for remote methods to increase the geographic and demographic diversity of samples in future research. In the concluding article, Foulds and colleagues bring the discussion full circle to demonstrate that the concept of “theory to practice” can also be reciprocal, by showing how empirical data and experiences during production are now leading to a further evolution of the playful problem-solving approach to guide the Workshop’s future efforts (spanning multiple media platforms and outreach initiatives) across both early and middle childhood. Figure 1 provides a graphic representation of this process.

Figure 1. Graphic representation of the reciprocal theory-to-practice model in the production of Sesame Street.

Together, then, these papers provide a deep, comprehensive look into ways in which educational theory can be integrated into the creation of effective media for children. In addition, the data reported here also extend the literature on both children’s learning from Sesame Street and the educational benefits of Playful Learning. As readers of Journal of Children and Media are probably aware, decades of research have demonstrated the educational impact of Sesame Street in the United States, as well as its international co-productions around the world. Educational benefits of sustained viewing of Sesame Street are roughly equivalent to those of in-person preschool interventions, and long-term effects have been shown to endure for as long as ten years (for reviews, see Cole & Lee, 2016; Fisch & Truglio, 2001). Yet, throughout its more than 50-year history, Sesame Street has continued to evolve, both creatively and educationally. In addition to previously-documented effects in areas such as literacy, mathematics, and social skills, the present papers extend the evidence for Sesame Street’s impact to young children’s process skills for critical thinking and STEM-based problem solving.

Similarly, a substantial body of past research has documented the educational benefits of Playful Learning as a pedagogical approach (e.g., Golinkoff & Hirsch-Pasek, 2016; Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2009). Typically, this research has investigated the impact of children’s engaging in hands-on playful learning activities themselves. Thus, data on children’s learning from “playful problem solving” episodes of Sesame Street also extend the literature on Playful Learning, by demonstrating that benefits of this pedagogical approach can be realized, not only through children’s hands-on play, but through their observation of televised models as well.

Hopefully, this peek behind the curtain will help guide others in their own efforts to merge theory and practice, and encourage them to share their insights and experiences in forums like this one. In that way, educators, producers, and researchers can reap the mutual benefits of coming together in a spirit of (in the words of the Muppets) “I wonder… What if … Let’s try!”

Author note

Collectively, the authors of this special section thank the staff of Sesame Workshop, especially Remi Torres and the Sesame Street Production, Education, and Research teams, for their help and support throughout this project. We are also grateful to Vikki Katz and the editorial board of the Journal of Children and Media for their enthusiastic encouragement of this special section, and to Fashina Aladé for her helpful editorial input. Most of all, we thank the many children and families who participated in the formative and summative research described here, and the millions more who comprise Sesame Street’s target audience. Without them, Sesame Street would not exist.

In the interest of transparency, we also note that (as is evident from the affiliations listed at the beginning of each paper) the lead authors of two papers are employees of Sesame Workshop (Foulds et al., this issue; Truglio & Seibert Nass, this issue). I, too, have a long association with the Workshop, although it has been more than 20 years since I was last an employee. As such, we are objective but not unbiased observers. Fortunately, though, the long history of empirical evidence for the educational effectiveness of Sesame Street speaks for itself, and need not rely on our personal opinions. Rather, our insiders’ view provides us with a deeper understanding of Sesame Street, its production process, and its impact – all of which have made the papers in this special section possible.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shalom M. Fisch

Shalom Fisch is President of MediaKidz Research & Consulting. For over 35 years, he has applied educational practice and empirical research to help create engaging, impactful educational media for children. Prior to founding MediaKidz in 2001, he served as Vice President of Program Research at Sesame Workshop.