A randomized controlled trial of an educational app to improve preschoolers’ emergent literacy skills

Arnold, David H.; Chary, Mamatha; Gair, Shannon L.; Helm, Abigail F.; Herman, Rachel J.; Kang, Sungha; Lokhandwala, Sanna

doi:10.1080/17482798.2020.1863239

Cited by 17 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…A digital home literacy environment, i.e., shared and independent literacy activities using a digital device is a large part of children's everyday life (Segers and Kleemans, 2020). Preschoolers across different social-economic backgrounds benefit from educational app use (Arnold et al, 2021;Rowe et al, 2021) and spend, on average, at least 40 min daily on mobile devices (Rideout and Robb, 2020). From content access to co-engaging in digital use (see Papadakis et al, 2021 for a review), caregivers shape children's interactions with technology and differentially influence learning from educational media.…”

Section: Digital Games As Social Partnersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching Preschoolers Theory of Mind Skills With Mobile Games

et al. 2022

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This single-case research study examined whether interactive touch screen apps enriched with Theory of Mind (ToM)—enhancing language would promote ToM skills in preschoolers. Six typically developing girls between the ages of 46- and 52- months participated in multiple sessions across the three phases of the study: In baseline, participants played games without voice-overs; in the original treatment phase, participants played games with embedded voice-overs; finally, in the modified treatment phase, participants first played games with embedded voice-overs, then engaged in the researcher-led conversation. All sessions across the three phases concluded with ToM assessments: two measures based on a continuous scale. The first measure included three tasks targeting earlier-developing ToM skills (diverse desires, diverse beliefs, and knowledge access), and the other measure had two tasks that assessed a later-developing ToM competency, false belief understanding. Results showed that apps with ToM-embedded language improved children’s earlier-developing ToM skills (i.e., understanding that people can have different desires, beliefs, and knowledge access) in the phase where an adult-led conversation also followed voice-over-enriched app play. Apps with ToM-embedded language without a follow-up discussion were only marginally effective in promoting the earlier-emerging ToM skills. Across the conditions, apps were not effective in promoting children’s later-developing ToM skills—false belief understanding. Our findings indicate that incorporating ToM conducive language in mobile apps can promote ToM development in preschoolers, especially when supplemented by an adult-led conversation.

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Section: Digital Games As Social Partnersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching Preschoolers Theory of Mind Skills With Mobile Games

et al. 2022

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“…Students' attitudes towards mobile learning were explored in 14 studies (6.3%). Arnold et al (2021), examined the attitudes of preschool children towards the mobile learning application to improve their literacy skills. Changa, Wua, Laia, and Sungb (2015) developed a mobile spatial geometry learning system application to facilitate geometry learning, and evaluated students' attitudes towards the application.…”

Section: Main Study Objectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mobile learning in grades K–12: A literature review

ÇALIŞIR

SABUNCU

Kişla

2022

Journal of Educational Technology and Online Learning

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Due to the widespread use of mobile technologies, their use of them in teaching processes has also increased. Within this framework, in this study, in-depth investigation of K-12 grades studies from 2015 to 2021 which were conducted on “mobile learning”, and “learning anywhere” published on “Web of Science” through specific criteria. A total of 4419 studies published only in English were accessed initially. Then, other keywords related to K-12 grades within the scope of the study were also searched, and 452 publications were reached. 336 studies that did not meet the inclusion criteria were excluded, and as a result, 109 studies were identified as primary studies. In this study, apart from the basic criteria used in previous literature review studies, criteria such as "reporting the prerequisite tests of the analyses used in the research", "validity, and reliability studies", "reporting the effect size", and "the existence of ethical, and legal permissions" are also included. The study could be considered important in terms of these additional criteria, and with its purpose of trying to reveal mobile learning tendencies.

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“…Noorhidawati et al (2015) found that children learn through their experience when interacting with the educational apps in their learning incidents related to knowledge (cognitive); actions/motor skills (psychomotor); and attitudes, feelings, and emotions (affective). Research have also provided empirical support for the use of educational apps in addressing early achievement gaps (e.g., Griffith et al, 2019) and supporting early learning (e.g., Arnold et al, 2021;Dore et al, 2019;Griffith et al, 2020). Kolak et al (2021) reviewed eight tools that have been developed in recent studies to assess the educational potential and design of apps for children (Callaghan & Reich, 2018;Department for Education, 2019;Hirsh-Pasek et al, 2015;Lee & Kim, 2015;Lee & Sloan Cherner, 2015;Papadakis et al, 2018;Papadakis & Kalogiannakis, 2017;Shoukry et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Considerations on the Curation of Educational Apps for Digital Play and Learning

Lim¹,

Toh²

2022

CONT ED TECHNOLOGY

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Mobile devices have become increasingly ubiquitous in the contemporary communication landscape. Riding this trend, educational apps have proliferated the market, with many which claim to support and improve children's learning and literacy development. Caregivers are often faced with the challenge of discerning the value of these educational apps and in choosing the appropriate apps for their children. In this paper, we discuss the development of a set of considerations to support caregivers in their curation of educational apps. This is done by performing a review of 28 past studies done on educational apps and synthesizing their findings to draw out common themes from the literature. These themes are then categorized into nine considerations in the form of guiding questions that caregivers can use to curate educational apps for their children's digital play and learning. In the final part of our paper, we apply the set of considerations to three educational apps to demonstrate its utility.

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A randomized controlled trial of an educational app to improve preschoolers’ emergent literacy skills

Cited by 17 publications

References 43 publications

Teaching Preschoolers Theory of Mind Skills With Mobile Games

Teaching Preschoolers Theory of Mind Skills With Mobile Games

Mobile learning in grades K–12: A literature review

Considerations on the Curation of Educational Apps for Digital Play and Learning

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