Lello & Lella international research project.

Education – in its meaning of action directed towards the development of all the human personality aspects – it is not only committed to educational agencies, such as family and school, but it also involves the media community and industry. Considering the widespread use of the media by children, it is essential to promote the formative research, a kind of research that requires the collaboration between writers/directors, producers and researchers particularly during the pre-production and production steps, and that is aimed at studying the educational orientation of media products. In this perspective, an Italian media production company, the Gruppo Alcuni operating in Treviso, and some members of the Education Sciences Department of Padua University, supervised by L. Messina, designed a formative research project on “Lello & Lella - Animal World Investigators”, an international co-production aimed at producing a TV cartoon series for children using a mixed technique (animation and live action). This paper presents the formative research on Lello & Lella and in particular the pilot-episode evaluation by children (6-10 years). The evaluation focused on the appeal of characters and locations, the comprehension of both plot and ethological information and of the relationship between reality and fantasy. The results confirm the relevance of formative research as methodology to study the educational orientation of media products, also giving suggestions to create and to assess audiovisual products for children.