Dyson College of Arts and Sciences

D Y S O N Y E A R I N R E V I E W 2 0 2 0 – 2 0 2 1 18 Psychology Professor's Research on Children and Digital Learning Assistant Professor of Psychology Brenna Hassinger-Das, PhD, has co-authored research indicating that children believe YouTube holds greater educational value than either phone or television videos, and that they were marginally less likely to believe that individuals on YouTube are real versus people in a video on a phone. "Understanding YouTube's potential to encourage learning will help educators and caregivers make informed choices about how to help children become critical consumers of media, as well as how to design remote learning environments," Hassinger-Das said. Katherine Aloisi '25, PsyD, Maruf Hossain '20, MA Psychology, and Madeleine Pearce '19, BA Psychology, as well as Rebecca A. Dore and Mark Pa era also assisted in the research. She also commented on the impact of ebooks on children's learning in an a icle in Knowable Magazine, pointing out the results of recent studies (she is the co-author of an overview of young children and digital media in the 2020 Annual Review of Developmental Psychology) and, in consideration of the constantly changing nature of ebooks, noting the need to keep up with developments related to such. Fu her, in an a icle in Greater Good Magazine, Hassinger-Das advised on how families can reset screen time a er the COVID-19 pandemic and work together to create healthier media habits. She suggests a balanced approach for all pa ies, in which screen challenges are faced with a generous dose of creativity, patience, and teamwork. "Understanding YouTube's potential to encourage learning will help educators and caregivers make informed choices about how to help children become critical consumers of media, as well as how to design remote learning environments." —Brenna Hassinger-Das Following the experience in the barbershop, Williams wrote an a ention-grabbing opinion piece for HuffPost about Ball and Black fatherhood that was followed by an award-winning research paper. Co-published by Williams and Ma hew J. Co on, and titled "Be er Than Steph Curry and More Profitable Than LeBron James: An Analysis of LaVar Ball's Agenda Building of the Ball Brothers," the piece argues that through strong adherence to media-agenda-building theory, Ball has been able to address class inequities facing Black athletes in amateur and professional spo s, and has refuted deadbeat-dad stereotypes facing Black fathers. For their work, Williams and Co on received the 2020 Outstanding Research A icle Award from the National Communication Association's African American Communication and Culture Division. Read the full a icle online: pace.edu/news/lavar-ball-and-building-media-agenda-0

• Cover