Parents Support Preschoolers' Use of a Novel Interactive Device

Abstract

Past research has found that preschool children's ability to learn educational content from interactive media may be hindered by needing to learn how to use a new interactive device. However, little research has examined the instructional supports parents provide while their children use interactive media. Forty-six preschool children and their parents participated in a 30-min interaction with a novel interactive device. Children were assessed before and after the interaction on knowledge of letters and numbers and device skills. Children improved from pre-to posttest on device skills, but not content knowledge. In general, parents used a wide range of strategies during the interaction. Specific parental support for using the device did not result in increased device skills; however, parents who focused their support on content had children who performed better on content assessments. The findings are discussed in terms of the effectiveness of different parent support strategies for children's use of interactive devices and learning of educational content during the preschool years. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Key words: preschool; computers; interactive media; parent-child interaction; scaffolding According to a recent report by Common Sense Media (2013), 61% of 0-to 8-year-old children had used a computer at some point; and almost all (91%) 5-to 8-year-olds had used a computer. In addition, 14% of 0-to 8-year-olds use a computer daily (Common Sense Media, 2013). On a typical day, children spend an average of 11 min playing computer games, using educational software, doing homework, or watching videos (Common Sense Media, 2013). Empirical research on computers has examined children's learning of computer mechanics, cognitive skills, and content knowledge, such as health or science topics (Subrahmanyam, Kraut, Greenfield, & Gross, 2000). However, most of this research has focused on school-aged children or adults; and only limited research has examined children under the age of 5 years using computers (Wartella & Jennings, 2000). Preschool children's learning needs on the computer may be different from older children, especially until they develop *Correspondence to: Rachel M. Flynn, Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside, 900 University Avenue, Riverside, CA 92521, USA. E-mail: rflyn001@ucr.edu Infant and Child DevelopmentInf. Child. Dev. 24: 624-642 (2015) Published online 12 March 2015 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002DOI: 10. /icd.1911 Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.basic operational skills, such as moving the mouse and clicking on objects (Plowman & Stephen, 2007). Given the increased prevalence of interactive media use in young children and parents' perceptions that computers are important educational tools for children, it is important to understand how parents structure young children's learning about and from computers. The goals of the current study were to build on prior research demonstrating differences in how parents focus th...

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Children Can Learn New Facts Equally Well From Interactive Media Versus Face to Face Instruction

“…No significant relationships were found between touchscreen use and either gross motor or language milestones. These data provide converging evidence with other work suggesting the potential power of digital tools to facilitate learning such as letter and number recognition (Flynn and Richert, 2015) and knowledge transfer from media learning to analogous physical problems (Huber et al, 2016; see also Semmelmann et al, 2016). …”

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Digital Games as a Context for Children's Cognitive Development: Research Recommendations and Policy Considerations

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