Planning is an important but difficult self-regulation strategy. The successful implementation of a plan requires that the plan is retrievable in everyday life when it is needed. Children in particular are unlikely to use effective strategies to internalize plans in a way that makes them easy to remember. Therefore, we designed PROMPT, a planning app to help children create and internalize plans effectively. The app included different internalization activities that were hypothesized to promote deeper or shallower processing of plans. School-aged children (N = 106, 9-14 years) used PROMPT for 27 days in their daily lives. Contrary to our hypotheses, the type of internalization activity was not associated with memory success overall. Deeper processing activities were only effective for children who spent more time performing these activities, suggesting that there were differences in how effectively children could make use of the internalization activities. These individual differences were predicted by children’s grade level and their analogical reasoning abilities, and mediated by time on task. Findings suggest that a child-appropriate planning app needs to be personalized to be effective; internalization activities have to be tailored to children’s learning prerequisites.

Mobile technologies offer new opportunities for encouraging self-regulated learning (SRL) in children. In this pre-registered study, we tested what kind of mobile intervention helps children maintain a regular study routine for vocabulary learning. Study behavior was measured objectively and with high ecological validity using logfiles of a vocabulary app that the children used. The mobile intervention was delivered via a separate study app and combined two critical components: planning and prompting. Children (N = 130, mean age = 10.75 years) first received a digital instruction on the benefits of distributed practice. Children in the full intervention group also formulated a plan for when and where to learn vocabulary. On about half of the next 36 days (within-subject manipulation), they received prompts reminding them of the instruction and the plan. The comparison groups lacked either the prompting or planning intervention component (between-person manipulation). The results revealed that the reminder prompts increased the likelihood of studying on the day they were given. Planning, in contrast, had a more long-term impact in that it helped children maintain a high frequency of learning over time. Overall, our findings show that mobile interventions can be highly effective in supporting SRL in children. We discuss the results in light of theoretical assumptions about the different mechanisms underlying planning and prompting effects, and highlight the practical importance of finding the optimal frequency of prompting.

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Educational applications (apps) offer opportunities for designing learning activities children enjoy and benefit from. We redesigned a typical mobile learning activity to make it more enjoyable and useful for children. Relying on the technology acceptance model, we investigated whether and how implementing this activity in an app can increase children's intention to use. During the 27‐day study, children (N = 103, 9–14 years) used the app to memorize one‐sentence learning plans each day. Children used three different app‐based learning activities throughout the study. In two standard activities, children reread or reassembled the words of the plan. In the redesigned activity, children represented the meaning of the plan with emojis. Children repeatedly reported on their attitude towards each activity. Subsequently, children reported perceived enjoyment and intention to use the app. Results showed children found the emoji activity most enjoyable, and enjoyment of the emoji activity contributed uniquely towards intention to use. Additionally, children's enjoyment of the app mediated their intention to use the app in the future. Overall, the study suggests that children's enjoyment of an app is crucial in predicting their subsequent intention to use, and it provides a concrete example of how emojis can be used to boost enjoyment. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Educational applications provide children with unrestricted access to mobile learning resources. Positive attitudes towards educational applications predict behavioural intention to use these applications, at least in young adults. There is a need for more research examining the relevance of enjoyable learning activities in fostering children's sustained usage of an educational application. What this paper adds Positive attitude towards the use of emojis during learning activities uniquely contributed to children's behavioural intention to use the application. Perceived enjoyment predicted behavioural intention to use the application. Perceived enjoyment mediated the effect of attitude towards using learning activities on the behavioural intention to use the mobile educational application. Implications for practice and/or policy These findings highlight the importance of enjoyment for children's' acceptance of educational applications. Enjoyable learning activities are necessary to ensure sustained usage of educational applications. The paper provides a concrete example of how emojis can be used to boost enjoyment of a typical mobile learning activity.

Mobile technologies offer new opportunities for encouraging self-regulated learning (SRL) in children. In this pre-registered study, we tested what kind of mobile intervention helps children maintain a regular study routine for vocabulary learning. Study behavior was measured objectively and with high ecological validity using logfiles of a vocabulary app that the children used. The mobile intervention was delivered via a separate study app and combined two critical components: planning and prompting. Children (N = 130, mean age = 10.75 years) first received a digital instruction on the benefits of distributed practice. Children in the full intervention group also formulated a plan for when and where to learn vocabulary. On about half of the next 36 days (within-subject manipulation), they received prompts reminding them of the instruction and the plan. The comparison groups lacked either the prompting or planning intervention component (between-person manipulation). The results revealed that the reminder prompts increased the likelihood of studying on the day they were given. Planning, in contrast, had a more long-term impact in that it helped children maintain a high frequency of learning over time. Overall, our findings show that mobile interventions can be highly effective in supporting SRL in children. We discuss the results in light of theoretical assumptions about the different mechanisms underlying planning and prompting effects, and highlight the practical importance of finding the optimal frequency of prompting.