Poster #15 - How Does "Measure Up!" Measure Up? Using an iPad App to Teach Preschoolers Measurement Concepts

• In Event: 43.081 - MTCC Poster Session Nine
  In Poster Session: 43.081-2 - Technology, Instruction, Cognition, and Learning: A Survey of Research

Abstract

Given ubiquity of educational games for preschoolers and the growing evidence that games can be effective for learning, we investigated the PBS KIDS Measure Up! app (MU) and companion application PBS KIDS Super VisionTM (SV), developed for caregivers to track their children’s progress in MU, for effectiveness in teaching children measurement concepts. This study followed a pretest-posttest randomized design with three conditions: (a) MU-only (children played MU); (b) MU+SV (children played MU, parents were given SV) and (c) a control condition (children played literacy games). We found a statistically significant, positive effects of both MU-only and MU+SV on children’s understanding of measurement concepts as compared with children in the control and no statistically significant differences between the two treatment conditions.

Authors

• Elizabeth Horst Redman, University of California - Los Angeles

• Gregory K.W.K. Chung, University of California - Los Angeles

• Katerina Schenke, University of California - Los Angeles

• Thomas Maierhofer

• Charlie Parks, University of California - Los Angeles

• Sandy Chang, University of California - Los Angeles

• Claudia Riveroll

• Tianying Feng, University of California - Los Angeles

• Joanne Michiuye, University of California - Los Angeles

• Jeremy Roberts, PBS KIDS Digital