The Impact of Television Series Viewing Engagement and Duration on the Academic Performance of Secondary School Students: The Case of Jimma Secondary School

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate how television series viewing engagement and duration affected the academic performance of Jimma Secondary School students in grades 10, 11, and 12. A retrospective design was used, and 227 students were chosen by systematic sampling method from 523 students who had spent time watching TV series between September 2020 and February 2021. The demographic data questionnaire and the series watching engagement scale are completed by participants. Also included were teachers’ evaluations, which were consolidated and used to measure students’ educational performance. The statistics outputs were evaluated and interpreted after the data was entered into SPSS version 20. As a result, independent t-test review shows that there was no significant difference for male students (M=61.37, SD=15.10) over female students (M=61.62, SD=15.26), t (225) =-.124, p=.872. Similarly, no significant difference in educational performance was found between adolescent (M=62.72, SD=15.58) and youth (M=60.98, SD=14.97), t (225) =-.780, p=0.654. The educational output of light TV viewers was higher (M=84.97, SD=19.03) than that of heavy TV viewers (M=56.30, SD=7.23), t (225) = -16.027, p=.000. In addition, students who view series entertainment program had lesser educational performance (M=58.25, SD=11.18) than those who view educational program (M=84.46, SD=19.39), t (225) =-10.423, p=.000. Furthermore, students who scored high on SWES performed worse in school (M=56.27, SD=7.17) than students who scored low on SWES (M=88.24, SD=17.01), t (225) =-18.801, p=0.000. All of this suggests that the length of time students spend watching television, the type of series program they watch, and their SWES score all had a significant impact on their academic performance. F (2, 224) =.315, p=.73, showed that grade had no effect on educational performance. According to Pearson's Product Moment, the correlation of SWES score with student educational performance was significant,-.801. As SWES score increased the educational performance decreased and vice versa. The correlation of television viewing duration and educational performance of students was -.703 and was significant which indicated the existence of a strong negative correlation. As respondents’ TV viewing time decreased, reversely their educational performance increased. The combination of TVD, SWES score, gender, age, grade and type of program were significantly related to educational performance of students, F (6,220) = 80.419, p= .000. The multiple correlation was .829, suggesting that approximately 68% of the variance of the educational performance of the students can be accounted for by the combinations of the scores of SWES, television viewing duration, type of program they viewed, grades, gender and age but 32% of the effect is accounted for by another factor. The study revealed that among these factors the most influential factor was series watching engagement.