Can Touchscreen Devices be Used to Facilitate Young Children's Learning? A Meta-Analysis of Touchscreen Learning Effect

Abstract

Because of the continuous stream of touchscreen apps that are claimed to be educational and the increasing use of touchscreen devices in early childhood, considerable attention is being paid to the effect of touchscreens on young children's learning. However, the existing empirical findings in young child samples are not consistent. In this meta-analysis we tested the overall effect of touchscreen devices on young children's (0- to 5-year-olds) learning performance, as well as moderators of this effect, based on 36 empirical articles (79 effect sizes) involving 4,206 participants. The overall analysis showed a significant touchscreen learning effect (d = 0.46), indicating that young children indeed benefited from touchscreen learning. Interestingly, age, learning material domain, comparison group, and experimental environment significantly moderated the effect of touchscreen devices on young children's learning outcome. These findings shed light on the role of touchscreen-related physical experience in early childhood education.

Apps As Learning Tools: A Systematic Review

“…15,16 In one recent metaanalysis, authors reported a significant positive effect across studies of young children's learning from touchscreen devices. 17 However, there was significant clinical and methodological heterogeneity in the included studies, which encompassed varied types of interventions (eg, electronic books, interactive game apps), outcomes targeted, comparison groups, and study designs (randomized and nonrandomized, controlled and noncontrolled). Statistical heterogeneity in this study was high (I 2 .90%), limiting interpretability of a meta-analytic effect size.…”

Secondary Benefits to Attentional Processing Through Intervention With an Interactive Maths App

“…While the current study makes a valuable contribution to an emerging evidence based on the impact of educational touchscreen apps on child development (Herodotou, 2018;Xie et al, 2018), five issues should be considered in directing future research. First, it is important to recognize that this study has been conducted in Malawi, where children's access to tablet technology is largely limited to education and only in a few schools.…”

“…An emerging evidence base demonstrates the potential for educational touchscreen applications (apps) to support the development of domain-specific mathematical knowledge (Herodotou, 2018;Xie et al, 2018). In particular, a randomized control trial (RCT) conducted in Malawi found children in the first 3 years of primary school made significantly greater mathematical learning gains when using hand-held touch-screen tablets with an interactive, child-centered maths app, compared to standard teacher-led mathematical practice (Pitchford, 2015).…”

Symbolic Understanding and Word–Picture–Referent Mapping from iPads in Autism Spectrum Condition: The Roles of Iconicity and Engagement

“…As interactivity has been found to complement the preferred learning style of children (Highfield and Goodwin 2013), it is hypothesised that both populations in the interactive condition will exhibit greater on-task engagement for both engagement measures (visual attention and communication) compared to the 2D and automatic conditions. Finally, based on previous research we expect greater engagement to be contingent symbolic understanding and label retention after a delay (Kucirkova 2014;Radesky et al 2015;Xie et al 2018).…”