The major intent of this study was to determine which students may be most vulnerable to television's effects. Data gathered through the 1981 Pennsylvania Educational Quality assessment for students in grades five, eight and eleven were analyzed to determine the relationship between the amount of television viewing and academic achievement. Six directional hypotheses predicting a negative relationship between the amount of television viewing and academic achievement were developed. In addition, research questions were asked to determine if such negative relationships would still occur if socio-economic status was controlled and if subjects were examined by subgroups based upon demographic characteristics such as sex, race, type of community and socio-economic status. Finally, two ancillary questions were examined to determine if any significant differences existed between and among subgroups. Findings of the study indicated: (1) A consistent pattern of negative correlations between the amount of television viewing and academic achievement existed for all groups examined in this study, although television viewing accounted for only a small percentage of the variance in achievement. (2) A significant negative relationship existed between the amount of television viewing and academic achievement for subgroups based on sex, race, type of community and socio-economic status. (3) A substantial drop in mean score achievement occurred when students watched five or more hours of television daily. (4) A significant negative relationship existed between the amount of television viewing and academic achievement even when socio-economic status was controlled. (5) The largest shift away from the amount of time spent viewing television occurred between grades eight and eleven. (6) Blacks, students from urban communities and low socio-economic students spent more hours watching television daily although viewing habits were modified by age. (7) The majority of significant differences between different student subgroups across grade levels occurred between grades five and eight and between grades five and eleven. However, the absolute values of the differences were small and it is likely that the use of large sample sizes caused the small absolute differences to be statistically significant.
