Thank you for your question! You raise an important point that is central to one of our project’s goals: bridging the gap between the two distinct cultures of scientific research and news production.

Half of our news reports include video segments from interviews with the researchers themselves, while the other half are shorter vignettes that do not include researcher interviews. All researchers we work with are involved during the script review and video review stage, giving scientific accuracy feedback that the producers incorporate. Additionally, most researchers who participate in interviews to be used in the news reports receive a brief media, or interview prep training ahead of time from our editorial director. This training focuses on how to “bottom-line” research concisely and communicate findings in lay language.

After the videos have aired on TV news, we loop back to the researchers and ask them to complete a follow-up survey. The survey asks questions such as, “Please indicate to what extent you agree with the following statements:

• Working with the news service helped me improve my ability to communicate research in lay language.
• I learned something new about the way the news media operates.
• I used this experience as a teaching opportunity for my graduate students.”

A majority of respondents indicated that working collaboratively with us to produce the script and video improved their ability to communicate their research in lay language and taught them something new about the news media. Half of the respondents indicated that they used the experience as a teaching opportunity for their graduate students. We also use the survey as a way to collect overall feedback on the process and ways that we can improve the experience for the researcher.

We hope that our project helps us learn how to effectively bridge the gap between the scientific research community and the news media. This means building understanding, collaboration opportunities, and managing expectations among the various groups and individuals. Specifically, we hope that the researchers we work with feel more confident in their ability to communicate their work to the public and have greater trust in the news media.

Hi Jake,

Thanks for writing. The topics of our news reports are summarized in our YouTube playlists: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV28xPH38znNaet8VNw6mww/playlists

You are correct that we try to feature content that is relevant for parents at various stages, from as early as prenatal to late adolescence. A majority of the research findings that we feature in our news reports are identified through our internal research team or sent to us as recommendations from our project’s advisory panel. We also do outreach at conferences to connect with researchers who have interesting publications. The key criteria for identifying research to be featured in news reports are rigorous research methods, peer-review, and that the findings are timely and relevant for parents. We have an internal vetting system that ensures research publications meet all of these criteria. We are also particularly eager to feature research that may be of interest to Latinx families.

On occasion, researchers who are familiar with our project email us at ctns@childtrends.org to request that we consider their research for a news report. Most of the time, these efforts do result in a news report and we encourage anyone who has peer-reviewed findings they would like to share with parents to please reach out to us.

On a broad level, all of our news reports can be classified as having STEM content since they all feature research that was conducted using the scientific method, whether that research focuses on brain science, nutritional science, psychology, or any of the other fields that we highlight. Some specific content areas that STEM researchers may be interested in are kindergarten readiness (32% of our news reports), technology and screens (8% of our news reports), and math skill development (7% of our news reports).

Hi Michelle,

Great to hear from you. All of our videos are posted on our YouTube channel and a select few are featured on our web page. We promote these links on our Twitter account, but a vast majority of our views come from the videos that are broadcast on local TV news across the country.

As for parent feedback, we published a brief in August 2018 highlighting findings from focus groups that we conducted during the proof-of-concept pilot year of the project. Some of the findings from this brief are included in our video above. One suggestion that we heard from several parents was that they would like to see the messages in our videos reinforced across various settings, not just local TV news. We are in the midst of a study that will examine how these videos can be implemented into early childhood parenting programs to enhance parents' learning.

In the coming months we will be gathering qualitative and quantitative data from parents that we look forward to sharing.

Thank you for sharing that NPR piece! It echoes what we have learned from our parent focus groups – many factors influence how audiences interact with our content and whether they understand the content the way in which we intend. Some of our focus group findings are featured in a research brief we published in August 2018.

We also found that emotions play a role in how parents perceive the news reports. For example, when Latina mothers in our focus groups viewed news reports that discussed achievement gaps between ethnic/racial groups, it appeared that their initial emotional reactions inhibited their ability to absorb the recommendations, which were presented later in the video. Therefore it is important to identify context and rationale when presenting information that may elicit emotional reactions, such as explaining risk factors associated with living in conditions of poverty that could contribute to these achievement gaps.

Your questions about measuring behavior change in addition to increased knowledge mirror the questions we are also currently thinking about. Our ongoing study measures how exposure to our video news reports is associated with changes in awareness, knowledge, and intent to adopt behaviors. We are measuring this both in participants who will view the videos embedded in TV news reports as well as participants who will view the videos through a parenting program (our videos have been integrated into the curriculum, strategically selected to align with the topics the program already covers). In the future, we are hoping to study the long-term impact of the video news reports on parents’ behaviors.

Brian, I also wondered if positioning parents as experts about children's behavior and development might also be part of these or future videos.

Thank you both for viewing our video and engaging with our project! 

In response to Brian's question: We administered surveys to low-income, Latinx parents (our target population) and asked what topics they are interested in learning more about. Many of the topics they suggested are things that already have a lot of attention in research, indicating that the issue is a disconnect between research findings and parents rather than a gap in the literature.

As for Camellia's suggestion, that is a great idea and something we are always trying to incorporate into our videos! Focus group findings indicated that parents liked hearing from other parents. So while we feature clips from researcher interviews in many of our news reports (50%), we also try to incorporate parent voices and experiences. Here are some examples of the ways we try to include parents in the news reports:

1. More Play, Less Pounds
2. Divorce, Co-Parenting, and Kids
3. Disciplining Your Tween and Teen